Why Are We Helping the Animals of
Miami Metro Zoo?

By: John Birk and Dr. Suzanne Banas

The simple answer is because, as residents of Miami-Dade County, this is our zoo, and the responsibilities of maintaining such a world class zoo as ours requires much more than the price of admission. This is a county run and owned zoo, and private donations from our fund raiser and others help keep the price of admission very reasonable so that residents of Miami-Dade County, both rich and poor can see the wonders of the animal world right in their own backyards.

The zoo is located on 740 acres, 300 of which are currently developed. If you walk around the zoo, you will have gone some 3.6 miles. When the Amazon and Beyond exhibit opens in the not so distant future, it will have around 327 developed acres.

It is hard for most of us to even imagine maintaining so much property, yet every day at Miami Metro Zoo, 365 days a year we see the grass cut, trees trimmed and flowers blooming as if a presidential visit was happening that day. This takes money and a lot of it. Add to that the fact that there are over 1300 wild animals, many requiring unique diets, habitats and medical needs. The zoo in many ways is a small city, but its inhabitants are both people and animals. Also, it is the only sub-tropical zoo in the continental United States.

When you realize how reasonably priced admission currently is, $13.95 for adults and $9.95 for children ages 3-12, you wonder how they can do it. And when it comes to caring for animals, there is always going to be a list of things they’d like to have that just can’t always make it into the budget. That is where our ride and other fundraising activities come into play.

When we started the first year of the ride in 2006 and were looking for an exhibit that had a real need for some additional funding, one of the zoo keepers that we knew that was in charge of the giraffes told us about the real need for a special cage. Seems that she had really hoped that the zoo would be able to purchase a giraffe squeeze, a cage that would enable the zoo keepers and veterinarians to treat and examine these very large hoofed animals in a safe way. Problem was that the price tag for this special cage was in the neighborhood of $50,000.

This is how the idea came into play. While we knew that it might take a few years to come up with that much money, we decided to take on the challenge by organizing a motorcycle benefit ride with the monies raised going specifically for the special cage for the giraffes. We raised several thousand dollars, but knew we had a long way to go.

Seems that our actions did not go unnoticed by zoo and county officials, and a decision was made to get the cage.

The ride scheduled for March 30, 2008 will be our third year raising money for this project. And for the second and now the third year, we will have cars and trucks riding with us. Check out the photos of last year’s ride and you’ll see what we mean.
Don’t forget to check out the Miami Metro Zoo’s website which can be accessed from our webpage.

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