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Trailside Zoo's Animals are 'Ambassadors' - 19 August, 2003
Steve Lieberman
The Journal News
Bear Mountain zookeeper Jennifer Verstraete enters the cage, and a young coyote jumps on her excitedly. Verstraete treats her to two “fishicles”— a fish frozen in water with apples and carrots.
“Get up, puppy,” Verstraete says in high-pitched voice about 10:30 on this hot, muggy morning.
Part of the daily routine for Verstraete and the Trailside Zoo’s two other keepers is to clean out habitats and provide medication and enrichment toys for more than 30 animals indigenous to New York.
As the coyotes play, tour volunteer Eileen Kearns tells a group of children from Tutor Time in Congers about how the young coyote ended up at the zoo.
The pup was two weeks old when it was shot in Tennessee, the result of a range war between ranchers and a coyote pack. The coyote, probably the only survivor, was cared for by a veterinarian until she outgrew being a pet.
Every animal has a story. The zoo only houses those that cannot live in the wild, either because of debilitating injuries or from becoming accustomed to captivity.
“We’re not a grandiose zoo,” Verstraete says, dressed in green shirt and pants with rubber boots. “We try to provide an atmosphere of life in the wild. The animals we have are ambassadors for their species. They are here to educate the public.”
The animals live in spartan conditions, but get lots of hands-on attention from the keepers. Working year-round, the keepers start daily before 8:30 a.m., 90 minutes before the public arrives at the 76-year-old zoo and museum on the grounds of two Revolutionary-era forts — Montgomery and Clinton.
After playing with the coyote, Verstraete feeds corn to two porcupines, nuzzling one of the two quilled mammals lounging in a tree.
A bobcat huddles in the comer of its cage, growling and acting as aloof as a house cat, while the zoo’s two foxes are wary, running around in circles when Verstraete arrives.
She hoses away debris in a den for the two black bears, tossing them a rope glazed with honey and some food with medicine, bringing the two sisters lumbering down to lick the rope and munch.
In the zoo’s upper section, keeper Nancy McTamaney does her chores for the birds of prey and aquatic animals. And they know her.
The river otter climbs up the wire cage so McTamaney can rub his paws. The zoo’s operators want to revamp the facility to build a larger space for the energetic swimmer.
The zoo survives on state funds, though it charges a $1 for people 13 and older, and 50 cents for those 6 to 12 years old. The zoo was free until the mid-1990s, says director Jack Focht, who has been at the zoo since 1977. The zoo gets more than 250,000 visitors a year.
Focht leans against a fence listening as the American bald eagle screeches and lifts its head skyward, appearing to dream of taking flight. The eagle cannot fly because a hunter wounded the bird’s right wing on Iona Island, a bird sanctuary in Stony Point.
“You can see her eyeing wild vultures that land on her cage and eye her food,” Focht says, laughing. “People see the vultures and tell us our birds are loose. We get lots of outside visitors here.”
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