Big Bear zoo animals to return house after Line hearth prompted evacuation to a Palm Desert zoo

Animals from the Big Bear Alpine Zoo that had been transported to Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Palm Desert final week to evacuate from the Line hearth might be returning again house on Thursday.

Conditions because of the Line hearth, which began on Sept. 5, have calmed down sufficient for Big Bear’s zoo animals to return house, so long as wildfire circumstances proceed to reduce, in response to Jessica Whiton, a Zoo Curator at Big Bear Alpine Zoo.

On Tuesday, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department lifted an evacuation warning for Big Bear City.

What did it take for nearly 50 animals to be transported from Big Bear to Palm Desert, a neighborhood southeast of Palm Springs? It started with a name.

Last Wednesday morning, the 2 zoos hopped on a telephone name to debate the opportunity of transporting animals from Big Bear to a brief house in Palm Desert till wildfire circumstances calm down.

Both zoos knew they needed to act shortly. Heather Down, Animal Care Curator at The Living Desert,  and her teammates mobilized after getting off the telephone to an workplace with a whiteboard. The crew wanted to take inventory of what sources they might present, corresponding to animal enclosures, in case the Big Bear workforce would make the choice to start transporting their animals that day.

The following morning, the Big Bear workforce made the decision to Living Desert. They determined it could be greatest to evacuate animals which might be extra weak to smoke, corresponding to birds.

The strategy of getting the animals of their cages didn’t pose a big problem to the Big Bear workforce, because the animals are crate-trained.

“There was no actual rush. We simply felt that it was safer for the animals in the long term to get them out of that smoke and out of their kennels,” mentioned Whiton.

Almost 50 animals had been transported. Foxes, skunks, different small mammals, and many various species of birds traveled in three automobiles from Big Bear to Palm Desert two hours away.

The animals that remained at Big Bear’s zoo, corresponding to snow leopards and bears, have entry to a again room of their enclosures outfitted with an HVAC system to maintain the air high quality excessive.

Whiton mentioned transporting the opposite bigger animals would have meant placing them via a really annoying scenario.

“We determined to attend and see how the hearth progressed and if we thought that should you acquired to a degree the place they had been going to be in peril, we had been going to deliver them down,” she mentioned.

A gaggle of Big Bear’s animal keepers additionally traveled to Palm Desert together with a provide of meals their animals usually eat. Keeping the identical routine the animals had at Big Bear is necessary throughout this momentary keep on the Palm Desert zoo, mentioned Allison Krupp, Living Desert’s vp of communications.

This isn’t the primary time Big Bear’s zoo needed to evacuate their animals on account of a wildfire. Back in 2002, the Alpine Zoo transported their animals to Living Desert.

Big Bear’s Alpine Zoo has been closed since Sept. 9 and has a tentative reopening date of Saturday, Sept. 21.