Page 5 - Gateways_Winter2016-17
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Perspective
AMUR LEOPARD By Stuart D. Strahl, Ph.D. While many of you make Brookfield
President & CEO Zoo a summer destination, I encourage
you to visit the leopard cub and reconnect
This time of year invites introspection, with your favorite animals during the
and as I watch the leaves fall outside my winter. Holiday Magic, for example, is
office window, it seems like the perfect a great time for an evening visit to view
time to extend my heartfelt thanks Chicagoland’s largest and longest-running
to each of you for your Brookfield Zoo lights festival. As you wander among
membership. Your loyal partnership with more than a million LED lights, you will
the Chicago Zoological Society allows us discover that many of our animals—
to provide the highest level of welfare including polar bears, Mexican gray
for the animals, create blockbuster wolves, Amur tigers, bison, and reindeer—
exhibits and special events, and offer are active and engaged, providing you with
educational conservation programs an incredible experience. From extra layers
to Brookfield Zoo guests and to those of fat and nonslip footpads to long, thick
living in under-resourced communities coats and manes, these species are adapted
around Chicagoland. for cold weather.
Of course, this is a particularly For a warmer experience, stop by
poignant autumn due to the loss of our Brookfield Zoo on a Sunday morning
beloved Cookie Cockatoo, who up until to feed the parakeets in Hamill Family
his passing in August was our only animal Wild Encounters or stroll through
resident original to the opening of Brookfield Tropic World and enjoy a visit with Nora
Zoo in 1934. You can read about this special Gorilla or Kecil Orangutan. We promise
cockatoo’s life and peruse some snapshots of a fun, one-of-a-kind experience that will
him on page 12. But don’t forget to offset delight your whole family while you learn
those emotional memories with some good how to help conserve wildlife and nature.
news, such as the story on our new Amur
leopard cub on page 11. Thank you for being a member
and for being a part of our family. I look
forward to seeing you around the zoo
this winter.
All the best for a happy and safe
holiday season!
BROOKFIELD ZOO | WINTER 2016/17 5
