Susan Altrui
Little Rock Zoo Director
Susan Altrui has worked for the Little Rock Zoo since 2005, but it wasn’t until director Mr. Mike Blakely announced his retirement in 2020 that she moved from head of marketing to become the acting director. Later she cemented her role when the late City Manager Bruce Moore promoted Susan to the full-time position of Arkansas’s Little Rock Zoo director.
Little Rock is lucky to have such an accredited Zoo. Interestingly, it is the largest family destination in Arkansas, conveniently located in the center of the State, and in the heart of the Capitol City.
The Zoo not only cares for over 500 animals, but also provides inspiration, education, and conservation programs that grow a passion for animals and a respect for all living things.
Listen to Learn:
- About the Zoo's dual mission of education and conservation
- The many things you can do at the zoo (aside from looking at animals)
- Incredible animal anecdotes, and more...
Podcast Links
TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE 409
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:08] GM: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. Through storytelling, conversational interviews, and Kerry's natural curiosity, this weekly radio show and podcast offers listeners an insider's view into the commonalities of entrepreneurs, athletes, medical professionals, politicians, and other successful people, all sharing their stories of success and the ups and downs of risk taking. Connect with Kerry through her candid, funny, informative, and always encouraging weekly blog. Now it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.
[EPISODE]
[0:00:40] KM: Thank you, son Gray. This show began in 2016 as a way for me and other successful people to pay forward our experiential knowledge in a conversational way. It didn't take us long before we realized that we were the persons learning. Listening to our guest has been both educational and inspiring. To quote the Dalai Lama, “When you talk, you're only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.” After listening to hundreds of successful people share their stories, I've noticed some reoccurring traits in my guests. Most of them believe in a higher power, have the heart of a teacher, and they all work hard. Before I introduce today's guest, I want to let you know if you miss any part of today's show, want to hear it again, or want to share it, there's a way and son, Gray, will tell you how.
[0:01:26] GM: All UIYB past and present interviews are available at Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy's YouTube channel, Facebook page, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's digital version, flagandbanner.com's website, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Just ask your smart speaker to play Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy. By subscribing to our YouTube channel, or flagandbanner.com's email list, you will receive prior notification of that day's guest. Back to you, Kerry.
[0:01:51] KM: Thanks again, Gray. My guest today is the current director of the Little Rock Zoo, Ms. Susan Altrui. Susan has worked for the zoo since 2005, but it wasn't until director Mike Blakely announced his retirement in 2020 that she moved from head of marketing to become the acting director. Later, she cemented the position when the late city manager Bruce Moore promoted Susan to the full-time position of Arkansas's Little Rock Zoo Director. Little Rock is lucky to have such an accredited zoo.
Interestingly, it is the largest family destination in Arkansas, conveniently located in the center of the state and in the heart of the capital city. The zoo not only cares for over 500 animals, it also provides inspiration, education, and conservation programs that they believe grows a passion for animals and a respect for all living things. Fun fact about the zoo, it was founded in 1926 with an abandoned timber wolf and a trained bear. It is my pleasure to welcome to the table the creative Little Rock Zoo Director, Ms. Susan Altrui. Hey, Susan.
[0:02:58] SA: Hey.
[0:02:59] KM: I went to the zoo to research for the show today. It has changed quite a bit from when my kids were there. We'll talk about every bit of it. I'm going to talk about the exhibits and everything, and I want to tell people how to volunteer and how to go and when to go and what's the best times and all of that. But do you know the story of the timber wolf and the trained bear?
[0:03:19] SA: I am so glad you brought that up, because let me tell you, it's not real.
[0:03:24] KM: Are you kidding me?
[0:03:25] SA: Look, we have got such a great place to start today, because we are about to celebrate our 100th anniversary at the Little Rock Zoo. We recently found out, we were founded in 1924, not 1926. The fact that you said that just launches off a great starting point for us today. We were looking into some of our history recently. There was an individual that used to work at City Hall who was a dear friend of mine, his name is Scott Carter. If any of you out there know anything about history buffs, or you’re into history, you've probably come across Scott Carter before. He used to have a blog. You’re nodding your head over here. You know Scott.
He was a history buff of city history here in Little Rock. He since moved out of state, which is a huge loss for Little Rock. One day Scott, he sent me an email and he said, “Susan, I've been doing some research for the city and I came across some articles about the Little Rock Zoo. It looks like, your birthday might be a little bit earlier than you thought.” It was eight different articles and they were all from 1924. It turns out, there was a zoo commission that was founded in 1924 by the then mayor. They established the zoo and they started construction on the site where the zoo is right now, which was then Fair Park. They were building exhibits. Guess what the first animal was?
[0:04:47] KM: A giraffe.
[0:04:48] SA: A snake.
[0:04:49] KM: Oh.
[0:04:53] SA: Yeah. So, we were founded in 1924 with a snake, which is not nearly as exotic. But that's okay. They then acquired a bear, which is not the circus trained bear. That came a little bit later. There's an interesting, funny story in 1925. The then zoo director that they had and the public works director had to capture the bear, because it got out of its cage and they had to get it, put it back in the cage. I can't imagine having to chase down a bear and get it back in its cage.
[0:05:21] GM: In Little Rock.
[0:05:22] SA: That's wild. You want to talk about –
[0:05:23] KM: Well, people were tougher back then.
[0:05:25] SA: They had to be.
[0:05:26] KM: They probably did it with a stick.
[0:05:27] GM: Good job, right?
[0:05:27] SA: Well, let me tell you, I mean, just absolutely crazy. There was a story about that from 1925. There's all kinds of interesting things. Just really interesting history that we're just now coming across. Here's what we're going to do. We've all this time thought that our founding was 1926. We have been planning for the centennial for 1926. We're going to do what Disney did. Disney celebrated their 50th for three years. We're going to celebrate our 100th for three years. We're going to kick it off at the end of this year. We're just going to celebrate for three years. You're going to see us kick off our centennial at the end of this year in 2024, and we're just going to celebrate for a couple of years. That's how that's going to work.
[0:06:05] KM: I love that.
[0:06:06] GM: Yeah, that's great.
[0:06:07] SA: Why not?
[0:06:08] KM: Gray, our Arkansas Flag and Banner anniversary is 50 years next year. Should we start celebrating now?
[0:06:12] SA: Oh, congratulations.
[0:06:13] GM: Oh, yeah. Just make it –
[0:06:15] KM: Make it a three-year celebration.
[0:06:17] SA: You might as well. You just never know. It's interesting. Funny enough, we've actually been trying to find some evidence of when the circus trained bear and the timber wolf were donated and we can't find any. It's like, there was this lure of that that was passed down. We can't find evidence of it.
[0:06:36] KM: That it was even there?
[0:06:37] SA: That was even there. That's the other funny thing, too, is that –
[0:06:40] GM: It is just a good story.
[0:06:41] SA: It's just a good story that got passed down.
[0:06:43] KM: No dancing bear.
[0:06:43] SA: Generation to generation, and we can't find evidence of it. That's the other interesting thing, too. It just goes to show you that what kind of history gets told is what becomes history. It might not be the history at all.
[0:06:55] KM: What's the zoo’s claim to fame? Every zoo has something it's supposed to be. I've heard before that the Little Rock Zoo is a retirement home.
[0:07:03] SA: Yes, we are a retirement home. We've got a lot of old animals. To me, that's a great thing, as it shows the excellent care we give our animals. One thing that we've got, we've got three old elephants; old ladies that are retired circus elephants. We love them. They are wonderful. They definitely are in their elder years. They were former Ringling elephants. One of those girls is about to turn 63, which is old for an elephant. In the wild and in zoos, a lot of times you don't see elephants live past their late 50s. For an elephant to be 63 is just really a testament to care.
[0:07:45] KM: Is it expensive to have old elephants?
[0:07:47] SA: It is. It is.
[0:07:47] KM: Does everybody give you a hard time, because you always have animals dying? You're like, “Well, that's because they're old.”
[0:07:52] SA: They sometimes do, because they don't understand. That's something that's it's great for us to be able to talk about is we do see animals pass on and they're living things and every living thing will die. That's sometimes a hard conversation to have is that an animal that we have is going to die.
[0:08:09] KM: Is it not expensive to take care of old animals?
[0:08:11] SA: It is. It's very expensive.
[0:08:13] KM: Why wouldn’t you buy, just to buy a young fawn jumping around the elephant, because it's going to be cheaper to maintain, the old elephant that's on medicine?
[0:08:21] SA: Well, you can't buy animals like that. Here's an interesting fact. We don't buy any of our animals. We actually work in cooperation with other zoos that are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. That is all governed by what we call the species survival plan. Those are experts that are in that particular field of animals. For Asian elephants, for instance, there's a species survival plan. There's a group that are experts in that field and they look at the genetic history of the animal. They look at the breeding history. They look at the behavioral history of that animal, and they make recommendations for where animals should go and what zoos. Right now, there are about 70 zoos in the different areas of the country. We've got about 230 of us that are all accredited zoos in the country.
[0:09:08] KM: 230 zoos.
[0:09:09] SA: 230 that are accredited out of about 2,000. It really is an elite group of zoos and facilities. Of those 230, only about 70 hold Asian elephants. Of those 70, they'll make a recommendation of what elephants should go where. Now, the ones that we have were donated by Ringling, but that was a very unusual circumstance. They're now in the SSP, the species survival plan for Asian elephants. There's some other Ringling elephants that are at other zoos as well.
[0:09:36] KM: The Ringlings circus closed?
[0:09:38] SA: They did, but they have donated all of their animals to a place called White Oak, which is a conservation center that's in Florida. They've got great lives now. 6,000 acres to roam on. They're now part of the species survival plan.
[0:09:51] KM: Can you go down there and see them?
[0:09:53] SA: You can't. It's a private facility. It's closed off to the public. It's owned by a private individual.
[0:09:59] KM: A crazy person.
[0:10:00] SA: No, actually, but it's a wonderful facility. Maybe crazy for animals person.
[0:10:07] KM: Crazy eccentric.
[0:10:07] SA: That's right. Crazy eccentric. You'd have to be to own a place like that. It's a beautiful facility. Beautiful. Yeah. 6,000 acres for those elephants.
[0:10:17] KM: How many animals are born at the zoo?
[0:10:20] SA: It depends on the year, but we've had several born at the zoo. Last year, we had a baby orangutan born. Just an absolute doll.
[0:10:29] KM: Oh, I bet.
[0:10:30] SA: I mean, you've never seen anything cuter than a baby orangutan. Babies do really good.
[0:10:34] KM: Well, maybe a lamb. Baby lambs are really cute.
[0:10:37] SA: They’re pretty cute, too. Baby animals in general are just cute. We have baby penguins born all the time, too. We had a baby penguin born last year. Just adorable to see those babies grow up with their family. We love the baby animals. There's always a adorable thing to have.
[0:10:55] KM: Before we go to our first break, we're going to do – we're going to talk about this at the beginning, and then we're going to talk about it at the end, because I'll recap it. What is the admission?
[0:11:04] SA: Our admission is $12.95 for adults, $9.95 for kids. We also have some special admissions now, too. We have an EBT admission. If you've got an EBT card, you get in for $2 and your whole family does.
[0:11:14] KM: What's EBT mean?
[0:11:18] GM: It's what people used to call food stamps.
[0:11:21] SA: Yeah. That's our way for providing additional access.
[0:11:23] KM: Oh, that's nice. You started that program, didn't you?
[0:11:25] SA: Yeah.
[0:11:25] KM: One that year? Because you were in marketing before then?
[0:11:28] SA: Yes. I was the director of marketing and development before I was the director of the zoo.
[0:11:32] KM: You're just well-rounded.
[0:11:34] SA: Thank you for saying that. I try to be.
[0:11:36] KM: Yeah. I mean, marketing is huge. I don't think people realize what a huge, really, and gray area marketing is and how hard it really is. The zoo does a lot of marketing.
[0:11:47] SA: We do. We have to, because we want to get the word out about how great the zoo is and all the programs we offer and education.
[0:11:52] KM: It's expensive. Do you advertise outside the state of Arkansas, or just in state of Arkansas?
[0:11:57] SA: We try to focus mainly in Arkansas. We try to get word out outside of Arkansas, what they call the tourism egg, that St. Louis down to the South Arkansas to stream for Tulsa, outside of the area there, some to –
[0:12:10] KM: The same place, the hot spring village?
[0:12:11] SA: Yeah. There is that. The LRCVB, the Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau, they help us with that a lot. They're very helpful in that. We partnered with them on a lot of that.
[0:12:19] KM: That's really good. I know, I want to tell everybody, too, there's a lot of shade. It's hot this time of the year.
[0:12:24] SA: Yes.
[0:12:25] KM: In the summers, it can be hot. There is a lot of shade. There are some misters there along the way. I recommend bringing a water bottle, because there's a lot of places. I think it's really interesting that if you go into the restaurant, or this food court, the water comes in cans.
[0:12:43] SA: Yes. We do that, because we believe in in sustainability and sustainable business practices. Those can be recycled easily.
[0:12:50] KM: Yes. We, my husband and I have been buying as much as we can when we travel. We try to get everything in cans, because of the plastic in our bodies is not good for you. It's not only an environmental issue. It's a health issue. I was really happy to see that – because I didn't bring a water bottle and I thought I wished I had. I was really happy to see that you had cans of water, because not everybody does. Another thing before we go to break is these dedicated benches under – in the shade everywhere. If I want to dedicate a bench to somebody, just call the headquarters down there.
[0:13:24] SA: That's right. Give us a call. If you want to do that, there's a fee for that. It's really not that expensive. It's a couple of grand, and you can dedicate a bench and we've had several people do that. We've had several people do that as a memorial. They've collected money from people and made a memorial bench in memory of someone. People do it in honor of someone. It's a great way to memorialize someone, or to honor someone.
[0:13:50] KM: I thought so, too. My imagination was running wild, I thought, “Should I get a bench for somebody?” All right, this is a great place to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk more and paint an imaginary picture of the Little Rock Zoo with this director, Miss Susan Altrui. Still to come, the animals, the education, the conservation, the best times to visit, what to see and volunteer opportunities. We'll be right back.
[BREAK]
[0:14:13] GM: You're listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. In 1975, with only $400, Kerry founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. Since then, the business has grown and changed, along with Kerry's experience and leadership knowledge. In 1995, she embraced the internet and rebranded her company as simply, flagandbanner.com. In 2004, she became an early blogger. Since then, she has founded the nonprofit Friends of Dreamland Ballroom, began publishing her magazine, Brave, and in 2016, branched out into this very radio show, YouTube channel and podcast. In 2020, Kerry McCoy Enterprises acquired ourcornermarket.com, an online company specializing in American-made plaques, signage and memorials. In 2021, Flag and Banner expanded to a satellite office in Miami, Florida, where first generation immigrants keep the art of sewing alive and flags made in America. Telling American-made stories, selling American-made flags, the flagandbanner.com. Back to you, Kerry.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:15:14] KM: Thanks, Gray. We're speaking today with Arkansas's Little Rock Zoo Director, Miss Susan Altrui. Before the break, we talked about the admission. It's very affordable. We talked about the shade and the benches and just the little bit of the dancing bear history story. The zoo is 100 years old. There's in 24, 25 and 26.
[0:15:35] SA: We're celebrating three years. That's right.
[0:15:38] KM: Let's talk about the exhibit. When you come in the front door, it's very – I just want to tell our listeners, I went out there this past weekend and it is very clean and nice and just a great family event. You park across the street. They even got EV hookups, if you've got an electric car, so I'm impressed with that. You walk into the beautiful front gate. It's very affordable. Then you can go right to the Siamang monkeys. Is that what they're calling? Is that how you pronounce it?
[0:16:06] SA: Uh-huh.
[0:16:07] KM: Or you can go left to the gorillas. Which way do you go when you come in? Which way do you want people to go? Right, or left?
[0:16:14] SA: There's actually studies on this, that the majority of people, when they come into an amusement park or a zoo or any facility, they go to the right.
[0:16:21] KM: So do grocery stores. When you go in a grocery store.
[0:16:22] SA: That's right. Yeah, go to the right. I like to go to the left to be unconventional.
[0:16:28] KM: Of course, you do.
[0:16:30] SA: Yeah. Also, because I'm a big fan of the lemurs and our lemurs are to the left. I have to go see my favorite guy, Willy. Willy the lemur. He's a blue-eyed black lemur. He's just adorable. He's an old guy. He's 31-years-old, which is old, old, old for a lemur, but he's still hanging in there. He actually just became a father.
[0:16:51] KM: At what age?
[0:16:51] SA: 31.
[0:16:53] KM: Man, they never change do they?
[0:16:54] SA: They don't. They don't. Let me tell you. Yeah.
[0:16:58] KM: Halee.
[0:16:58] SA: Yup. Younger girlfriend and he’s still doing it. Yup.
[0:17:02] KM: Have you ever been bitten?
[0:17:03] SA: No, I haven't. I've not been bitten by an animal. But some of some of our staff have. It happens. We try to avoid that as much as possible. We go through lots of safety routines that that doesn't happen. Most of our staff do not interact with the animals. They are in protective barriers, where they're in between the animals. That's a common misnomer. Some of our folks think that we go in with the tigers and other dangerous animals, and we don't. There are protective barriers, even protective barriers between us and our elephants.
We do have some animals that we do interact with that are part of our animal ambassador program. We have some birds of prey. We have reptiles and other animals that are non-venomous and are considered less dangerous that we do interact with, that we take the classrooms, etc. I always say this, the people will ask, “Well, does it bite?” Any animal can bite. That’s true –
[0:17:52] KM: Even humans.
[0:17:53] SA: That's right.
[0:17:54] KM: Even my grandson.
[0:17:55] SA: That's right. Even your grandson.
[0:17:57] KM: He’ll bite you. He’ll bite you.
[0:17:58] SA: He will. Any animal can bite. We can bite. Any animal can bite. It just depends on the mood. It depends on what's happening around them. An animal can get startled at any time. These are wild animals. A smell, a sound, a sight can trigger that wild instinct and an animal can bite. We have to always keep that in mind and be aware and be mindful of those things.
[0:18:22] KM: I'm going in. I'm following your path. I'm going left. I don't know what the difference is. There's three large animals down there. There's the gorilla, the orangutan and chimpanzee. What are the difference between a gorilla, a orangutan and a chimpanzee? They all look big and black.
[0:18:38] SA: Big differences. Big differences. Yeah. The orangutans are actually orange and a reddish orange in color.
[0:18:45] KM: Do we have orangutans?
[0:18:46] SA: We do.
[0:18:47] GM: That's the baby that was born a yea ago.
[0:18:49] KM: Oh, yeah. I don't think I saw that. I don’t think I actually I saw that one.
[0:18:51] SA: We’re actually one of the few zoos that has all three great apes. A lot of zoos don't have all three, and we have all three. That's a little bit unusual. Some will just have one, or they'll have one, or the – They'll have two. But we've got all three. That's a little bit unusual to have all three. We've got gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans.
[0:19:10] KM: All right. Gorillas are vegetarians.
[0:19:12] SA: All three of them are. They're vegetarians.
[0:19:14] KM: All of them are vegetarians. They're enormous for being vegetarians.
[0:19:18] SA: Chimpanzees will occasionally eat meat, but they really are not. They're all herbivores. Their main diet is fruits and vegetables.
[0:19:30] KM: You talked about the baby orangutan.
[0:19:32] SA: Yes.
[0:19:33] KM: Tell us about their family a little bit.
[0:19:36] SA: They're adorable. You've got mom and dad and they actually have a big sister, too. She is just a little bit older than a toddler. When baby brother came, there was a little bit of a jealousy issue.
[0:19:47] KM: Oh, really?
[0:19:49] SA: But she's adjusted. She's doing better. You've got the whole family there.
[0:19:53] KM: Did they let you hold the little baby orangutan?
[0:19:54] SA: Oh, no. We don't interact with them. No.
[0:19:57] KM: Not even when they’re babies. You don’t even that. You just have to look love from afar.
[0:20:00] SA: That's right. Because mama would not like that. We also want them to bond. We really want mom to raise the babies. That's what's best for the babies. The only time we would ever intervene is if there was something wrong. If mom had abandoned the baby for some reason and just didn't want to take care of it, or if there was a medical issue, sometimes that happens and we have to intervene. Otherwise, we would never want to intervene in that process. We always want mom to take care of the babies.
[0:20:27] KM: The chimpanzee, my son who worked at the zoo, I was just telling Susan before we came on, I had all of my children volunteered at the zoo when they were in high school.
[0:20:34] SA: I love that.
[0:20:35] KM: The chimpanzees, my son gave me the tour and he said, “They share 99% DNA with us.” Is that true?
[0:20:42] SA: Yeah. They’re one of our closest relatives. Yes. That's pretty amazing. Yeah. But there are some important differences. One of the biggest differences is language. We have the ability to speak a language to one another and chimpanzees don't have as evolved of language skills.
[0:21:01] KM: That's the one that hoots and hollers though, isn't it?
[0:21:03] SA: Right.
[0:21:04] KM: That's a language.
[0:21:05] SA: It is, but it's not as sophisticated a language. For instance, if you were to you were to describe a vacuum cleaner, what's a vacuum cleaner to a chimpanzee? They're not going to understand it. It's examples like that. It's just, we have a much more evolved language system, so stick to that.
[0:21:20] KM: Are they the jungle VIP, or is the lion the jungle VIP?
[0:21:22] SA: Oh, hard to say. Hard to say. Hard to say. I always get this question like, in a fight, which one would win? It's like, I don't know.
[0:21:30] KM: Yeah? I thought I was so clever to come up with that question.
[0:21:33] SA: Yeah. I don't know. It's hard to say. Because one's faster, but one's got stronger jaws. It's hard to say.
[0:21:40] KM: I read where we have our chimpanzees for one reason, because our accredited zoo is part of safe saving animals from extinction.
[0:21:49] SA: Yes.
[0:21:49] KM: Is that how we ended up getting our chimpanzees?
[0:21:54] SA: Well, it's one of the reasons we have them. We have a lot of animals, because we participate in that program. That's part of why we're with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, because they participate in the safe program. That's a combination of the species survival plan, which I mentioned before, which is our breeding program. It's also an education program. We're also combining our combined strength to educate the public about the importance of saving these animals.
One of the things is that we have to really keep in mind is that if we don't do something to act now about saving this planet that we're on and the wild places where these animals live, we would not have these animals in the future. That's a real shame.
[0:22:32] KM: What would happen if we didn't have these animals?
[0:22:35] SA: Well, it's going to eventually affect us. We’re talking about –
[0:22:36] KM: They're like the canary in the coal mine.
[0:22:38] SA: Well, that's right. I mean, we're talking about the fact that if we start – we, right now, are losing species at a rate that is 10,000 times faster than any mass extinction event we've had before in our time. That's really alarming, because if this continues, then this eventually means – it already is. It's affecting our aquaculture. It's affecting our agriculture. We're going to eventually see this to where we're going to have less food for our planet. We're going to have less environmental places that are going to start destroying themselves. We're already seeing that with climate change and other things that are happening. This is affecting human life. There is inherent value just in saving animals alone. There also was value in doing it, because of the effect that it has on us as human beings, too.
[0:23:24] KM: Yeah, as research even. It was interesting to – one of the educational things you talk about to save the animals is by paper products that are certified by the FSC, which I didn't realize that, which meant that they logged the trees in a way that was environmentally just non-disruptive to the gorillas and the monkeys. You want to buy your paper products with FSC and you want to – and I didn't realize that recycling electronics saved animals.
[0:23:54] SA: Yes. That's a big one. We have a program called Gorillas on the Line, where you can recycle any of those electronics. You can drop them off at the zoo. We've got a collection box for that.
[0:24:03] KM: Oh, that's good to know.
[0:24:04] SA: Yes. Yes. Because the batteries that are manufactured, they use a product that's found in the areas where gorillas live. It means, there's less deforestation if we can recycle those materials.
[0:24:15] GM: Isn't it lithium?
[0:24:16] SA: It is. Yes.
[0:24:17] KM: That's good to know. Everybody's always looking for a place to recycle their – because our city doesn't recycle it.
[0:24:25] SA: They don't recycle the lithium. They do recycle electronics. But yes, you can drop it off.
[0:24:29] KM: If you put electronics into the recycle bin, they'll take them?
[0:24:33] SA: They will. Yes. The green station that was just opened, the city has that now.
[0:24:38] KM: Well, that's good to know also. Then, there's the penguins.
[0:24:43] SA: Yes.
[0:24:44] KM: They're from Africa. But you've got to keep them cold. I'm confused.
[0:24:49] SA: Well, not exactly cold. They are a warm-weathered species. We get that question all the time of how can they survive here in Arkansas? That's because they live on the coast of South Africa. African penguins are different from other birds that you think of when you think of penguins. There are actually about 17 species of penguins. Only five of those species live where it's cold and snowing. The rest of them are in tropical climates. The South African penguin is one of those.
[0:25:19] KM: But you do keep it cold for them.
[0:25:21] SA: Well, we keep it colder. Their pool is chilled to about 66 degrees. Yeah, colder. That's what the what the water temperature is in Alpha Coast to South Africa. They do okay in this heat. We keep a mister on them. We make it like the beaches of South Africa.
[0:25:39] KM: They're in trouble to being extinct, aren’t they?
[0:25:43] SA: That's right. That's right. They're also at risk of extinction. That's right.
[0:25:46] KM: They're like, our tuxedo, our dressy animal. They're the only ones that dresses up every day.
[0:25:52] SA: Right.
[0:25:52] KM: I appreciate that. The Red River Hog, it looks like Lion King, that Puma dog? What’s that?
[0:26:02] GM: Oh, the warthog.
[0:26:04] SA: The warthogs. Yeah.
[0:26:05] GM: Yeah. Yeah. There's warthogs at Little Rock as well, right?
[0:26:08] SA: Yeah. Yeah, we got warthogs. Yeah.
[0:26:10] KM: Well, I saw the Red River Hog.
[0:26:13] GM: They have the ears, right?
[0:26:14] SA: Mm-hmm.
[0:26:14] GM: Those fluffy tufts are adorable.
[0:26:15] SA: Yeah. They’re cute.
[0:26:16] KM: Okay. The Malayan tigers.
[0:26:18] SA: And the Malayan tigers. Yes.
[0:26:20] KM: The Malayan tigers and lions. Tell us about those guys. They were up when I was at the zoo.
[0:26:23] SA: Our Malayan tigers, so we actually had tiger cubs about two years ago.
[0:26:27] KM: What? You keep having these babies.
[0:26:29] SA: I know.
[0:26:29] KM: For all folks home, you keep having babies.
[0:26:32] SA: It's a good mixture of young and old. Our Malayan tigers are fascinating. The Malayan tigers are extremely endangered.
[0:26:41] KM: Really?
[0:26:42] SA: Yes. What's interesting about them is, and this is an interesting fact, is that they are estimating right now, and this is what's wild to me. There are more tigers that live in people's homes in the state of Texas than are living in the wild right now. How about that for a fact?
[0:27:00] KM: In Texas.
[0:27:01] SA: That's right.
[0:27:02] KM: I thought you were going to say, Saudi Arabia.
[0:27:03] SA: Texas. Yes.
[0:27:04] KM: You know how they all, everybody over there has exotic animals?
[0:27:08] SA: No, no. There's more in the state of Texas living in people's private homes. If that doesn't scare you. That's right. Yeah. That's right.
[0:27:15] KM: Than there are in the wild.
[0:27:15] SA: That's right. Than there are in the wild right now.
[0:27:19] KM: How many is that?
[0:27:20] SA: Probably 500 or more. Yeah, Malayan tigers.
[0:27:22] KM: You mean, there's less than 500 Malayan tigers?
[0:27:24] SA: Yes. That's right.
[0:27:25] KM: You've got one in the Little Rock Zoo?
[0:27:26] SA: That's right.
[0:27:27] KM: How'd you get them?
[0:27:29] SA: Through the species survival plan that I mentioned before, through –
[0:27:31] KM: One. The monkey.
[0:27:32] SA: - the program. There are about 50 in AZA accredited zoos right now. When we had our three that were born at our zoo, that was a big deal to have those three girls.
[0:27:42] KM: I bet.
[0:27:43] SA: Yeah. That was a big deal. Yeah.
[0:27:47] KM: You had this quote. You had these nice quotes etched around. This is a nice one that you had on a sign that you can tell me what it means. I quote, “My child, then put aside your fear, unbar the door and walk outside. The real tiger waits you there. His golden eyes shall be your guide.” What does that mean?
[0:28:09] SA: Oh, who knows?
[0:28:13] GM: There's a bunch of quotes and poetry and stuff around the zoo, right?
[0:28:16] SA: It's just to let people make their own interpretation of some of that stuff.
[0:28:19] GM: Yeah. To me, it's a metaphor about –
[0:28:21] SA: It’s a metaphor of being outside and –
[0:28:23] GM: The things that are more scary than tigers.
[0:28:25] SA: Yeah.
[0:28:25] KM: What about the lions? Are they old or new? They have a family?
[0:28:29] SA: They live in a pride. We have one male, two females.
[0:28:33] KM: Uh-oh.
[0:28:34] SA: Yeah. Yeah, the girls tell him what to do. They beat him on purpose.
[0:28:39] KM: That's hilarious.
[0:28:39] SA: It’s interesting, because we're so – we are so accustomed to the Lion King and the king of the jungle. That it's this strong male and he just tells everybody what to do. Really, in the real world, it's not like that. You've had the females and they do the hunting.
[0:28:57] KM: Really?
[0:28:58] SA: Yeah. They do their thing and they run in their pack and the male comes in and they might breed with him for a little while, and then he moves on and he might go breed with some other female or something. Really, it's not really where there's a male and he's in charge of a whole bunch of females.
[0:29:17] KM: Of the pride.
[0:29:18] SA: It's just not like that. There's a lot of evidence now that it's the females that are running the show and they're doing their thing. Yeah, it's interesting.
[0:29:26] GM: They keep him around for his one special job.
[0:29:29] SA: His one special job. Which he's happy to perform.
[0:29:33] GM: Sure.
[0:29:35] KM: We don't have giraffes anymore.
[0:29:36] SA: No, we don't have giraffes anymore.
[0:29:37] KM: Are we ever going to get them back?
[0:29:38] SA: We'd love to get them back. It's going to be expensive to get them back, because we've got to build the exhibit in the right way. Giraffes live in harems. One male, several females. We need to get a male and a couple females to get them back. Yeah.
[0:29:52] KM: Otherwise, they'd be unhappy.
[0:29:52] SA: Yeah, it’s quite the exhibit.
[0:29:53] KM: They eat the trees. How do you keep food for them? Because they eat –
[0:29:57] SA: You cut the tree high, so that they can't reach the trees.
[0:30:01] GM: In terms of getting animals through the species survival plan, so is that an application process that you put in and they wait until giraffes become available?
[0:30:09] SA: That's exactly right. Yeah, we notify them and we say, “Hey, we're two years out from an exhibit being built.” Then they'll look and see, “Oh, well. This zoo is having babies. This one will be available.” Or they'll say, “Oh. Well, this zoo has got three males and they can spare a male and this zoo's got five females, they could spare a female.” They'll mix and match it and make it work.
[0:30:28] GM: Sure. There's also, because it's a breeding plan, they're making sure that the right partner goes with the right partner.
[0:30:33] SA: That's exactly right. Yeah. They look to make sure that the genes work and everything. Yup.
[0:30:38] GM: It's a big dance, isn't it?
[0:30:39] SA: It is. Yeah.
[0:30:39] GM: It's not just about buying some new giraffes.
[0:30:41] SA: That's right. That’s right. We call it Tinder for animals.
[0:30:44] GM: Oh, my God.
[0:30:44] SA: It's like a dating app for animals. Yeah.
[0:30:47] GM: I love that.
[0:30:50] KM: All right. That's a good place to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk more with Arkansas Little Rock Zoo Director, Miss Susan Altrui. Still to come, Asian elephants, we've talked a little bit about. But the really interesting one is the soon to arrive, giant Komodo dragon lizard. What is the difference between a llama and an alpaca? We'll be right back.
[BREAK]
[0:31:11] ANNOUNCER: Here's something that doesn't happen very often. You'd know about it if you occasionally visit flagatbanner.com. Two American states have actually changed their state flags recently, Minnesota and Utah. Check out flagandbanner.com for state flags from every state in the union.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:31:29] KM: We're speaking today with Arkansas's Little Rock Zoo Director, Miss Susan Altrui. Before the break, we talked about the elephants, a little bit. They're a family of old girls. Then we talked about the new orangutan that was born at the zoo. Then we talked about the chimpanzee family. That's cute. Now we're going to talk about the livestock barn, Heifer ranch, turtle talk, the diamond express and the Komodo dragon. The Asian elephants, we go by, they're throwing dust all over themselves.
[0:32:00] SA: Yeah. Natural sunscreen.
[0:32:01] KM: Are they mad at each other? Is that why you have to separate them from each other?
[0:32:04] SA: That's such a good question. Elephants have complex social groupings. They will remember each other for years. Our girls were all once in the circus together. We have some interesting social bonds there. Zina does not like elephants, typically. She doesn't like other elephants. When we got her, we were told she's very aggressive. You got to be careful with other elephants with her. But she does like Babe, who is our other elephant. Babe is one of these elephants that she just likes everybody. She just gets along well with everyone. But Zina does not like Sophie. We don't know what the history is there, but they knew each other from the past and apparently, had gotten in a fight years ago. We can't put Sophie and Zina together, but we can put Zina and Babe together.
[0:32:57] KM: Is Babe young?
[0:32:57] SA: Babe is younger. Yeah. She's about 43. Zina is 63. We can put babe and we can put Zina together, but we can't put Sophie in with them. We just trade off. Everybody gets some time with Babe. We'll just tradeoff who gets to be able to have their time with Babe. It's an interesting dynamic, because of that. Sometimes Sophie will get time with Babe, and then sometimes Zina will get time with Babe. Then Babe is just like, “Doot-too-doo. I'll just go wherever I’m needed.”
[0:33:24] KM: You can't ride any of these elephants.
[0:33:26] SA: No, no. We don't interact with them.
[0:33:27] KM: When you come to the zoo and they let you write an elephant, sometimes you'll go to the zoo, have pictures of the kids riding elephants.
[0:33:32] GM: I think that was a thing they did at the zoo a long time ago.
[0:33:33] SA: That was a thing of the past. Yeah.
[0:33:34] KM: They don't do that at all anymore?
[0:33:35] SA: No. Mm-mm.
[0:33:36] KM: There's so many things we don't do that's fun.
[0:33:37] SA: Yeah, I know. We don't do that anymore. I know.
[0:33:40] GM: Okay, mom.
[0:33:41] SA: Dangerous, but fun. Yeah.
[0:33:42] KM: Is that dangerous?
[0:33:43] SA: It is dangerous. Yeah.
[0:33:44] KM: Riding an elephant's dangerous?
[0:33:45] SA: It is. Yeah.
[0:33:45] GM: Just a lot of stuff that we used to do.
[0:33:47] SA: There have been people killed doing it.
[0:33:48] KM: All the fun stuff [inaudible 0:33:49].
[0:33:49] GM: That’s exactly right.
[0:33:51] SA: People have been killed doing it. There have been staff that have been killed by elephants that they were encountered with.
[0:33:57] KM: Well, I always wondered about that guy at the circus that would let the elephant put his foot right on top of his chest and lay on the ground.
[0:34:02] GM: All that stuff. Yeah.
[0:34:03] KM: I can’t watch that. That’s scary looking.
[0:34:05] SA: Yup. Scary.
[0:34:06] KM: What is the difference between a llama and an alpaca?
[0:34:08] SA: They're different species. A llama is about twice the size of an alpaca. They definitely look different in size. That's the biggest difference.
[0:34:18] KM: Because they're right there together at the zoo and you're looking at them.
[0:34:20] SA: We actually don't have llamas. We've got alpacas.
[0:34:23] KM: That little one was not another species.
[0:34:28] SA: What you were seeing was probably our miniature. We have a miniature pony that's in there with them right now.
[0:34:32] KM: Oh, I could see them.
[0:34:35] SA: That's a funny story. She was in the farm. Her name is Lily. She was a troublemaker. She was beating up on the other horses that were there. Then, she’s like a little bitty thing.
[0:34:44] KM: She's tiny.
[0:34:45] SA: Yeah, she’s a little bitty. She was beating up on the other horses that were twice her size. We had to take her out of there and put her with the alpacas, because the alpacas would put her in her place, and they were like, wow, you've got attitude for such a little horse.
[0:34:58] GM: It's always the littlest ones, isn't it?
[0:35:00] SA: It always is.
[0:35:00] GM: That chihuahua complex, Napoleon complex.
[0:35:03] SA: Yeah. Now she's fine. She's settled down and she's good. Yeah, we had to put her somewhere else.
[0:35:09] KM: You have livestock barns. Milled just like, smelled just like –
[0:35:14] GM: Livestock. Livestock. Yeah.
[0:35:17] KM: It smelled like being in a barn. That was fun. It's a petting zoo. You can go through there. It's right by the Diamond Express train. When you walk to the zoo, if you haven't ever been there before, you get the back and there's a train and you can spend a couple of dollars and get on the train and get off your feet and get a little breeze blowing and make go around. It's not very long, but it's – it's almost, I feel like, that's the kitty section. There's chickens and there's goats you can feed. There's these footprints in the concrete. Is that to show people what kind of animals are around? Because they're all different kinds of animal footprints.
[0:35:57] SA: Yeah. It's to show people where to go and what's in that area.
[0:36:00] KM: That's clever. Then there's a Heifer ranch.
[0:36:05] SA: That's a partnership that we did with Heifer when we built that area. We got some animals from Heifer. Some of the heritage breeds came from Heifer. Then, we're showing people a little bit about Heifer with some of the graphics we've got there, too.
[0:36:17] KM: Well, it's time to talk about the Komodo dragon. It is cool. You've got an electronic dragon there to get everybody excited that wags its tail and blinks its eyes or something. I don't know. But the kids like it. Tell us about the Komodo dragon.
[0:36:30] SA: We're super excited. This is a new animal for us and we're going to be breaking ground on this soon. We're going to have a new habitat in the reptile and primate building, and a new Komodo dragon exhibit.
[0:36:41] KM: There's some long folklore about a Komodo dragon. They used to get 20 feet long.
[0:36:47] SA: Oh, I'm sure there is.
[0:36:48] KM: Some Chinese folklore about Komodo dragons being –
[0:36:51] SA: Well, they are from the island of Komodo in Japan. There's no telling what lore there is about Komodo. I'm sure there is some.
[0:37:00] KM: Are they venomous?
[0:37:01] SA: They are. Yeah. They are.
[0:37:04] KM: Is ours going to get 9 feet long?
[0:37:06] SA: They'll get pretty big. Yeah. They do get pretty big.
[0:37:09] KM: Is he going to come by himself?
[0:37:11] SA: We're going to have two. We'll have one and then we'll eventually get another. We're hoping we get a breeding pair.
[0:37:16] KM: Don't you have some campaign going to sponsor him, or to get him here? I remember when the chimpanzee was born.
[0:37:22] SA: No, we don’t have a campaign right now for that.
[0:37:25] KM: I remember when the chimpanzee was born that you had, like a not a bridal registry, but a baby registry.
[0:37:33] SA: Yeah. Yeah.
[0:37:35] KM: So that you could register for the baby and get baby –
[0:37:37] SA: We do that with baby animals sometimes. It's super cute. Yeah.
[0:37:40] KM: Is that your idea in marketing? We do that to get what we call animal enrichment items. It's a cute way to get some stuff for them. Yeah.
[0:37:49] GM: It’s brilliant. I love them.
[0:37:50] KM: The toys for the elephant look like you went to the hardware store.
[0:37:52] SA: Oh, yeah. They're huge.
[0:37:54] KM: They're huge.
[0:37:55] SA: Yeah. Yeah. Durable, huge. Yeah. We have these things we call boomer balls and we use those for the big cats and for the elephants. There's a company that makes them. It's a real hard durable plastic. Yeah. Really hard.
[0:38:09] KM: When you dream about your zoo and I know you shut your eyes at night. I know you think about it nonstop. I can't imagine there's so many moving parts to a zoo. What do you visualize and dream about that you want the zoo to be? What's your goal?
[0:38:23] SA: Well, I'm glad you asked that, because we've put a lot of those dreams on paper and you can see that dream at littlerockzoo.com. If you go and look at our master plan, that's exactly what that is. We have looked at the future and talked with a lot of our stakeholders and stakeholder groups to develop that future. A facility master plan does just that. It is the dream for the future. It's within reach. It's something that we really need to do. We need to invest in our zoo.
Our zoo, we have a great zoo right now, but our zoo can be so much more. We just recently invested in a wonderful new art center. We put 150 million dollars into that art center, and look at what we've got, a world-class museum. It's time we did the same for our zoo. We need to make that investment in our zoo. What's great about doing that is when you invest in our zoo, you get tourism, you get families coming, you get that investment in conservation learning, so many wonderful things.
We've done some studies and shown that the economic impact is huge when you invest in a zoo, especially a zoo like ours. You get the return on the investment of about 10 to 1. Every dollar you invest in the zoo comes back tenfold, because when you get those tourists coming in, they're doing things, like shopping at the local area shops and eating in restaurants and staying in hotels, because families will travel to come to zoos. We see that a lot. We see people traveling to go to the Memphis Zoo and traveling to go to the St. Louis Zoo and traveling to go to the Tulsa Zoo. We need them coming to travel to come to the Little Rock Zoo. We don't have that happening right now. We need that to happen. It's possible.
If you take a look at that master plan, we've got things in there, like a really great new addition of a mixed species habitat for giraffe and rhino where you can feed the giraffes. I mean, how cool would that be to have a deck where you can feed the giraffes? That would be so exciting to have some great things like that.
[0:40:18] KM: Yeah, really high. Oh, that would be so good.
[0:40:21] SA: Bring giraffes back to the zoo and have a new exciting habitat for our sloth bears. We've always been great with sloth bears. We're known for being a facility for breeding sloth bears, but our bear exhibit is just not great. We need to level that thing out and build a new exhibit for those sloth bears and do something that's better for their care, conservation and also, something that's good for the guests, so they can see the sloth bears up close and personal and see how great they are and learn something about their care and conservation.
[0:40:53] KM: I like where the restaurant is now. I think it used to be the tiger cage.
[0:40:56] SA: It was.
[0:40:57] KM: It was sad that those poor tigers paced in a circle –
[0:41:00] SA: Oh, it’s horrible.
[0:41:01] KM: - in a 12 by 12 square. Now they've got this beautiful exhibit that they get to run around and jump around. I see what you mean. We definitely need to do something really nice for the giraffe, if we're going to have giraffes.
[0:41:16] SA: It's interesting, because here in Arkansas, there's a lot of kids that will never be able to afford to go on an African safari.
[0:41:23] KM: Well, sure.
[0:41:24] SA: A lot of kids in this country will never be able to afford that. Zoos are the place where you're going to be able to see animals up close and personal.
[0:41:32] KM: It's outdoors.
[0:41:33] SA: That's right.
[0:41:34] KM: I mean, we don't get enough outdoor activities these days.
[0:41:36] SA: No, we don’t. We are stuck in our electronic devices, aren’t we?
[0:41:39] KM: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. The young kids just go nuts over the zoo. You take your young kids there.
[0:41:45] SA: Yes. That's right. We see it every day.
[0:41:48] KM: Yeah. Who's the most playful? Which of the animals is the most playful?
[0:41:51] SA: Probably our penguins.
[0:41:52] KM: Really? I thought you were going to say, monkeys.
[0:41:54] SA: Well, they can be. I think the penguins are so playful, because they jump in the water. If you come up to the glass, they'll follow you on the glass. The kids love that. They love to see that.
[0:42:06] KM: Well, and you have to go into this little cave and look through underwater through the glass. It's like being in a big aquarium. It's cool also, if you get out of the weather, and you get a minute out of the sun when you go in there.
[0:42:18] SA: That's right.
[0:42:19] KM: It's really, really is special to have a zoo in our town.
[0:42:22] SA: It is. It's so special.
[0:42:24] KM: Do we build your new facility that you're talking about your big dream? Is that going to be done with taxpayers? Do we have to do a tax –
[0:42:30] SA: It can be both. It's public and private. There's some ways to do it. Mayor Scott has a tax proposal right now that's going to be voted on in November. Little Rock voters will have a chance to look at that.
[0:42:40] KM: Is the zoo included in that?
[0:42:41] SA: The zoo is included in that. Yes.
[0:42:44] KM: That's good to know.
[0:42:45] SA: It's great. Yup. Great opportunity for Little Rock.
[0:42:47] KM: I think the pygmies are really cute, too.
[0:42:49] SA: Yeah. They are, aren't they?
[0:42:50] KM: Yeah, they're in the dark and you have to get in there and look for it.
[0:42:52] SA: Those are the most adorable little things.
[0:42:55] KM: They really, really are. All right. This is our last break. We're going to go to a quick break and let you know that we've been speaking with Arkansas's Little Rock Zoo Director, Ms. Susan Altrui. We'll be right back to wrap up and give you tips on the best times to visit the zoo, the holiday events for the family. Susan will be thinking, you need to be thinking about what you want the listeners to take away from this show today. What do you want the big takeaway to be? We'll be back in a minute.
[BREAK]
[0:43:21] ANNOUNCER: We're happy to announce that tours are available of the Dreamland Ballroom, right where flagandbanner.com is located in Downtown Little Rock. Check out dreamlandballroom.org. Find out more about these great tours. They last about an hour.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:43:35] KM: We're speaking today with Arkansas's Little Rock Zoo Director, Miss Susan Altrui. Before the show, we talked about all the exhibits and the animals and it really does wet your appetite and paint a picture of what you want to do. When you go there, you need to get out on a pretty day. What time does the zoo open in the morning?
[0:43:48] SA: 9 a.m.
[0:43:49] KM: What time does it close?
[0:43:50] SA: 4.00.
[0:43:51] KM: Oh, really? You can't go after work. You need to go. Then on the weekends, it's actually the same.
[0:43:56] SA: Same time.
[0:43:57] KM: But you have holidays.
[0:43:58] SA: We do. We do.
[0:43:58] KM: On the holidays, you stay open evenings.
[0:44:01] SA: We do.
[0:44:03] KM: Holiday event, Halloween. What are the one – you've got Halloween, Christmas?
[0:44:06] SA: We do have some adults-only events that are a lot of fun –
[0:44:09] KM: Oh, really?
[0:44:10] SA: - and those are in the evening. One that we've got coming up, well, actually we've got two things coming up. We really talk about this, which is our carousel is turning 100. We are doing a celebration for the carousel on September the 10th. That's going to be a blast. We're going to do an after-hours event sponsored by Centennial Bank. That's going to be a wonderful way to come see the zoo after hours and celebrate the carousel's 100th anniversary.
[0:44:35] KM: It's an adult event, or can you bring the kids?
[0:44:38] SA: That's going to be a family-friendly event. Then one of our adults-only events is the Zoobrew, which is two days later on September the 12th. That's our Zoobrew and Cocktails 2 event, which is a beer and cocktail event with food trucks and live music. That's a fun way to come see the zoo.
[0:44:56] KM: How many people come to these things usually?
[0:44:58] SA: We have about 1,000 people that come to Zoobrew. It's all over the zoo. It's a lot of fun. If you haven't been to the zoo in a while, great way to come see the zoo.
[0:45:07] KM: What time does it start?
[0:45:09] SA: It's at 6.00.
[0:45:10] KM: You get to come and have cocktails and walk around the zoo.
[0:45:12] SA: Yeah.
[0:45:13] KM: Oh, I'm in on that.
[0:45:13] GM: I was going to say, that sounds great. What's the activity in the zoo like when you're in there in the evening, and walking around with your brew? Are there animals out?
[0:45:24] SA: Animals are out. We have animals out throughout the first hour and a half. We also have some of our animal ambassadors that are out, too. Some of those up close and personal experiences with the animals. We also have stations set up, where you can do some of those tastings with the seltzers, cocktails, beer. You get a commemorative glass. Then we've got food trucks and then live music on some of our stages. It's a lot of fun. A lot of fun. Yeah.
[0:45:49] KM: You can rent those. You can rent some of your facilities for your own party, can’t you?
[0:45:53] SA: You can rent the whole zoo. If you want to do an after-hours event.
[0:45:55] KM: No way.
[0:45:56] SA: Yes. We have people do it.
[0:45:57] KM: The whole zoo. That's got to be expensive.
[0:45:59] SA: It's not terrible. It's not terrible. Yeah.
[0:46:02] KM: You’re going to tell me what it is?
[0:46:03] SA: It’s a couple of grand.
[0:46:04] KM: A couple of grand.
[0:46:04] SA: A couple of grand to rent the zoo after hours. Yeah.
[0:46:07] KM: That is not terrible.
[0:46:07] SA: No, it's not. Then we can we can get catering there for you for your group. We've had several thousands of corporations that have had their whole group there for after-hours parties and had the whole zoo open. Yeah. Animals out and everything.
[0:46:21] KM: How creative would that be? If you're just tuning in, Susan was in marketing before she became the director of the zoo. It's feel like, I can really tell.
[0:46:33] SA: Well, I appreciate that.
[0:46:34] KM: I mean, these are some pretty family fun events. If you go to your website, they really graphic and interesting and you learn about. You got these great pictures of the animals that have so much expression on their face.
[0:46:50] SA: Well, thank you. Well, we've got a great team, too, right now. I've got some wonderful people that are working with me now that help with that, too.
[0:46:57] KM: What's the best day and the best time to go to the zoo?
[0:47:00] SA: It really depends. The mornings are always a good time, because the animals are coming out at that time. Usually, 10 a.m. is a good time to come to the zoo. It's also a little cooler around those times. Really, it just depends. In terms of a good day to come to the zoo, we are not as crowded on Mondays and Tuesdays. If you're looking for the ideal day to come and you don't want to be there with crowds. Sometimes it's fun to come on a Saturday, because we have more programs going on. Our education staff will be out and about on Saturdays, usually doing a lot of programs. It might be a little bit more crowded on a Saturday, but then you can take advantage of some of those things. It really just depends on what you want to do.
[0:47:39] KM: Do they have the lady training with the falcon on her arm?
[0:47:42] GM: That's what I used to do when I was a docent there.
[0:47:44] KM: You did the falcon?
[0:47:45] GM: Uh-huh. I learned how to tie falconers knot and did the whole thing. Yeah.
[0:47:48] KM: Do you still have volunteers for kids? Do kids still get to volunteer at the zoo all the time?
[0:47:52] SA: We do have some of those opportunities. We actually have a really robust teen program right now and teens can volunteer.
[0:47:58] KM: Matthew worked in the turtle, not you, Gray, but your younger brother. He worked in the turtle section.
[0:48:04] GM: I thought he worked with the monkeys.
[0:48:06] KM: Well, thank you. You graduated. I think you did it for a couple of years.
[0:48:08] GM: Graduated with the turtles.
[0:48:09] KM: No, no. I think he started at the turtles, because it's horrible. You have to clean out the turtle river. When he would get in the car, I had to bring a towel for him to sit on and roll all the windows down. He loved it.
[0:48:23] GM: Oh, he sure did. I remember. Yeah.
[0:48:24] SA: Oh, that's so great.
[0:48:25] KM: It’s so gross. I thought you were going to say, that’s so gross.
[0:48:27] GM: Oh, well. Being gross could be great.
[0:48:29] SA: It’s such a good thing to learn.
[0:48:30] GM: It is, though. Yeah.
[0:48:31] KM: For boys. When he left, they gave him a poop sculpture.
[0:48:38] GM: Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[0:48:39] KM: They gave him a sculpture made out of poop.
[0:48:40] SA: How funny. How funny.
[0:48:42] KM: I think he kept it for a long time. Halloween. Boo at the zoo has always been a big one.
[0:48:45] SA: We don't do boo at the zoo anymore.
[0:48:47] KM: What? Got too big, probably.
[0:48:50] SA: Well, part of the problem is the cost of the event just got to be too much. We were paying so much money for all the candy. Really, the biggest reason we stopped doing boo the zoo is we started doing Glow Wild. It's such a better event for us. The setup for Glow Wild happens the same time we would have had to do boo at the zoo. We just couldn't do both events. Glow Wild is such a better event for us.
[0:49:11] GM: So cool, too.
[0:49:12] SA: Oh, it's an amazing event.
[0:49:13] KM: Tell our listeners what Glow Wild is.
[0:49:15] SA: Glow Wild is an event where we've got animal lanterns set up all over the zoo. They literally glow in the dark. We have interactive features with it, too. It's a holiday event that starts in November, it goes through December and part of January. It's beautiful. It’s wonderful.
[0:49:29] KM: You mean, it's every night?
[0:49:31] SA: It's almost every night. We have 45 nights in that time.
[0:49:33] KM: It's not one night?
[0:49:34] SA: That's right. Yeah. 45 nights, you can take advantage of it.
[0:49:37] KM: Goes from all the way through November to the first couple of weeks of –
[0:49:41] SA: Yup. November, December and part of January.
[0:49:44] KM: Oh, wow.
[0:49:45] GM: It’s very cool.
[0:49:46] SA: Yeah, it's after hours. You can even buy alcoholic beverages during it. If you want to sip an alcoholic beverage while you're there.
[0:49:54] KM: But you cannot bring it in.
[0:49:55] SA: You can't bring your own. No.
[0:49:57] KM: Okay. Okay.
[0:49:57] SA: No, can't BYOB. We sell.
[0:49:58] KM: It's not BYOB. You sell it.
[0:49:59] SA: We sell it. Yeah. We sell concessions and have items in the gift shop that glow. It's a really fun event.
[0:50:06] KM: Well, I think the gift shop is one of the best places for people to go buy Christmas presents. They have very unique gifts for kids. What kid doesn't love to look at another face and looking at those animals are so cute. I know that you kids all had lemurs, and you love –
[0:50:23] GM: From Little Rock Zoo.
[0:50:24] KM: - the stuffed animal lemurs. I think they're the cutest little stuffed animal. Plus, there's just a lot of unique gifts in the gift shop. What do you want our listeners to take away from this interview that we're having that gets them excited about the zoo?
[0:50:45] SA: The thing that I always tell people, anytime that I do one of these, or if I do a presentation is just come and visit the zoo. Come out and see our Little Rock Zoo. If every single person in Arkansas came to the zoo, that would be three million visitors coming to the zoo. That would be such support for the zoo. Then all of those people would see what our Little Rock Zoo was about. So many people have come to the zoo years ago and they have an old impression of what the zoo is, like what you were saying. You hadn't been in the zoo in years.
[0:51:17] KM: Right.
[0:51:18] SA: It's changed so much. We've made so many improvements and it's such a better place than it was years ago. Come to the zoo. It's a great thing to do with your family. It's a great place for recreation and it's a great place for conservation learning. Then second, if you come to the zoo regularly, become a member. It's a great place to support the zoo, a great way to support the zoo if you have a family, it's a great value.
[0:51:41] KM: It is a great value for a family.
[0:51:42] SA: You can get your money back after two visits, and it's a great way to provide financial support for the zoo, because that money comes right back to the zoo whenever you become a member.
[0:51:51] KM: How many people go to the zoo a year?
[0:51:52] SA: We've got 300,000 that come to the zoo every year. We're actually one of the largest attractions in central Arkansas.
[0:51:58] KM: I bet.
[0:51:59] SA: Yeah.
[0:52:00] KM: All right. If I want to learn more about the zoo, which social media platforms do you post the most to? Instagram, Facebook?
[0:52:08] SA: Facebook and Instagram. Then we always tell people, check us out at littlerockzoo.com, too. There's lots of information there.
[0:52:13] KM: You're changing your website all the time.
[0:52:15] SA: All the time.
[0:52:16] KM: How big is your marketing staff now?
[0:52:18] SA: We've got two people that help us out. Then we also work with Bines and Brookshire. They're one of our agencies, too.
[0:52:23] GM: Oh, so do we.
[0:52:24] SA: There you go.
[0:52:25] KM: Let's tell everybody again what the admission is.
[0:52:27] SA: $12.95 for adults, $9.95 for kids. We also do $2 off for seniors and military and veterans. We do the discount for EBT.
[0:52:38] KM: I love it. Thank you so much. I want everybody to know that we've been talking to Arkansas's Little Rock Zoo Director, Ms. Susan Altrui. She's been a wealth of information. If you're just tuning in, you might want to go back and listen to the beginning of the show, because there's some fun stuff about the monkeys and the elephants, the old girls, and the new babies at the zoo. Thank you for spending time with us, Susan. Here is your gift. You have a US and an Arkansas desk set that go on your couch.
[0:53:03] SA: Oh, thank you so much. That’s great.
[0:53:04] KM: Are you from Arkansas?
[0:53:05] SA: I am.
[0:53:06] KM: All right.
[0:53:06] SA: Arkansas native.
[0:53:08] KM: All right. There you go. We want to tell our guests, thank you for spending time with us. That this show was recorded in the historic Taborian Hall in Downtown Little Rock, Arkansas, and made possible by the good works of flagandbanner.com, Mr. Tom Wood, our audio engineer, Mr. Jonathan Hankins, our videographer, daughter, Ms. Megan Pittman, production manager, and my co-host, Mr. Gray McCoy, the fourth son, Gray.
We'd like to thank you for spending this time with us. We hope you've heard, or learned something that's been inspiring, or enlightening, and that it, whatever it is, will help you up your business, your independence, or your life. I'm Kerry McCoy, and I'll see you next time on Up in Your Business. Until then, be brave and keep it up.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:53:47] GM: You've been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. For links to resources you heard discussed on today's show, go to flagandbanner.com, select radio show, and choose today's guest. If you'd like to sponsor this show, or any show, contact me, Gray. That's G-R-A-Y@flagandbanner.com. All interviews are recorded and posted the following week. Stay informed of exciting upcoming guests by subscribing to our YouTube channel, or podcast wherever you like to listen. Kerry's goal is simple, to help you live the American dream.
[END]
