The Santa Barbara Zoo will open its new exhibit, California Trails, on Earth Day, at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. Zoo officials, representatives from the U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service, dignitaries, donors and other supporters will be on hand for the debut of the $7.5 million exhibit complex that features California condors and more local endangered and threatened species.
Tuesday’s unveiling will be followed by a community celebration from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, April 25. Zoo members will be allowed early admission at 9 a.m., according to zoo officials.
In addition to the new exhibits, which include California condors, the public can enjoy keeper talks about endangered and threatened animals in California Trails, plus close-up, live animal encounters with several creatures, including Finnegan, a Channel Island fox who was hand-raised at the zoo.
The Samala Dancers and Singers from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians will perform local Native American songs and dances at 11:30 a.m. The Zoo’s theater troupe, Theatre Gone Wild, will present animal-related, kid-friendly skits, and there will be jumpers, a climbing wall, condor crafts and more.
As all California condors (both in captivity and in the wild) are tagged with wing-band numbers, the first 700 zoo guests on Saturday will be “banded” with an arm-band containing the number of one of the zoo’s four California condors or one of their ancestors. Banded guests will receive special gifts at the new Explore Store and can visit www.sbzoo.org to read the life history of “their” bird. Saturday’s activities are free with zoo admission.
California Trails is the largest construction project in the zoo’s nearly 50-year history, and includes new and renovated exhibits, plus a new food concession area called The Wave, and the new Explore Store, which connects how buying “green” directly helps protect the habitats of endangered creatures from California and around the world.
Four California condors, each with a nine-and-a-half foot wing span, are on view in Condor Country, a new, spacious hilltop aviary overlooking part of their historic range, the Santa Ynez Mountains. The four juvenile birds hatched within a two-week period in April 2007 at the Peregrine Fund World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. The exhibit covers 6,000 square feet and 174,000 cubic feet of “glide space,” and includes redwoods, oaks, wooden “snags,” a stream and two different pools.
California condors have recovered from the brink of extinction; there are now 321 birds, with more than half of the population flying free. The Santa Barbara Zoo is now one of only three exhibits in the world displaying this highly endangered species.
— Noozhawk staff writer Laurie Jervis can be reached at ljervis@noozhawk.com.