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http://www.nwitimes.com/washington-park-zo...f20a54a1d8.html

Carrie Rodovich Times Correspondent
Brookfield Zoo announces birth of 'forest giraffe'

BROOKFIELD, Ill. | Officials at Brookfield Zoo near Chicago have announced the birth of an okapi, also known as a "forest giraffe." Read more
If you go

Washington Park Zoo, located inside Michigan City’s Washington Park, can be found on Facebook at Washington Park Zoo. For more information, call (219) 873-1510.

If you haven’t been to Michigan City’s Washington Park Zoo within the last few years, now might be a good time to go back.

The zoo is in the middle of a five-year renovation and reorganization plan, and several new exhibits will be opening this summer.

The zoo, located in Washington Park, is within minutes of the park’s splash pad, beach, and lighthouse museum.

“The zoo is a great place to spend an afternoon, and you can have a picnic, visit the beach and let the kids play,” said Jamie Huss, the zoo’s director.

The zoo was built in 1927 and is home to 200 animals, not including an additional 210 parakeets who live in the free-flight aviary.

This will be the last year to see the two white tigers who have been living in the zoo for the past five years, who are on loan from a zoo in Wisconsin and will return to that zoo at the end of the year, Huss said.

This May, the zoo will open a new reptile house, and they also will open an Australian walkabout, featuring wallabys and emu.

There also is a wolf exhibition opening in July, featuring baby Timberwolves that Huss is hoping will be on exhibit elsewhere in the zoo until their new home is ready.

In addition to baby wolves, there also is a baby capuchin monkey that is proving to be popular, she said.

There also is a new owl and a new zebu miniature cow in the petting zoo area, she said.

The petting zoo area also will be home to a fiberglass cow that kids can “milk” to simulate what happens with a real cow, she said.

“Everything in the zoo is getting a new paint job, or a new exhibition pool or some kind of face lift, and we’re not done yet,” she said.

The zoo is going through a five year reorganization plan approved by the park department, and is spending about $100,000 of casino money on various improvements.

They are also hoping to raise money to redo the cat house, and make improvements to other areas of the zoo.

“We’re hoping to get lions next year after we redo the cat house, and give them bigger enclosures and glass-front viewing areas,” she said. “We’d like to have our orange tigers on one side and the lions on the other.”

A new, popular exhibition is the river otter exhibition, in which guests can enter a clear tunnel and have the otters swim all the way around them.

“There are all sorts of YouTube videos about the tunnel, because kids love it,” she said. “We want to keep adding interactive exhibitions that people can really have great experiences with.”

[ChicagoMachine]

ah yes.. I remember the days when punishment for having too many drinks was to clean up the elephant pen at the zoo.