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Community Corner

Meet the Zoo: Presents to the Animals

Baboons, meerkats, red pandas and Pallas' cats each have different approaches to getting at their specially wrapped treats.

At the Prospect Park Zoo, it doesn’t matter who has been naughty or nice this holiday season—the animals are getting presents anyway!

Every year on December weekends, animals tear into their specially wrapped treat boxes. The festivities ae part of the zoo's animal enrichment program and allow the animals to use their foraging skills to dig, rip, tear, and figure out how to open the boxes.  

The zoo’s Hamadryas baboons seem to know even before they enter their exhibit space that something special is going on. They burst out onto the exhibit, each one racing to a package then taking it to a secluded spot. Paper is ripped from the boxes and the seeds, apples, and monkey biscuits inside are quickly consumed.

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The meerkats get very excited for mealworms. Keepers help them out by cutting holes in the boxes for the furry animals to poke heads and paws through.  It’s a mad scramble as they work together to get the mealworms out of the box.

Red pandas and Pallas’ cats are more thoughtful about the challenge of a box.  Again, keepers help out with holes to allow heads and paws to fish around for biscuits. Last year, one of the Pallas’ cats managed to crawl inside the box completely to seek out the treat. Unfortunately for her, the bottom of the box had a hole and the treat fell out and was scooped up by her mate. 

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North American river otters love hard boiled eggs and it is a frantic race to break into the boxes to get the treasured treat.  A piece of fish is another favorite, but nothing beats that egg. 

The fun happens twice a day at 11 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., each weekend in December.  Check the zoo’s website at for a full schedule of holiday fun.

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