NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — There’s a lot of reporting on hurricane preparations in place for people, but what about animals? Lots of pets can evacuate with their owners, but WGNO Reporter Stephanie Oswald decided to find out the game plan when it comes to lions, tigers and orangutans at the Audubon Zoo.
Bob Lessnau, Vice President and General Curator, says that even when it’s a bad storm, “The animals don’t evacuate. You’re talking over 2,000 animals. The manpower and the facilities and resources to do that kind of evacuation would not be feasible, and besides this is their home too and so we think about their welfare.”
A designated team is prepared to go into lockdown and ride out a storm. Lessnau says the 2023 team is even larger than previous years, in order to allow staff better coordinate care for their human families as well as their zoo family.
“We also have our maintenance people, we have our horticultural people, we have a chef to make sure we’re all well fed,” says Lessnau.
The animals need to be well fed as well, even when conditions are dire. That’s when the fully stocked animal commissary comes into play, with a preparation checklist created by Senior Commissary Keeper, Stephanie Watkins.
Watkins is a self-admitted hoarder when it comes to storing enough food to feed all the living creatures at the zoo.
“It’s actually quite a big job. It’s our job to make sure they are all fed, even when we have a hurricane, even when things are shut down, even when we don’t have power,” says Watkins.
She gave the WGNO crew a tour of the walk-in refrigerator and freezer, which are both linked to an emergency generator system. The grocery list for the Audubon Zoo freezer includes berries, worms, mice and rats. Check out the video above to see for yourself!
There’s a pallet of frozen meat that would feed all the carnivores in the Zoo for at least a month.
“Some of our produce comes from Baton Rouge, our hay comes from the Northshore, our grain comes from the West Bank so we have to think about ways things get here and how we can survive if we have to wait a few weeks until we can get the stuff in,” says Watkins.
It’s a game plan that hopefully won’t have to be played, but if a lockdown happens, the Audubon Zoo is ready.
Watch WGNO’s 2023 Hurricane Special
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