By Cheryl Jahn

Exploration Place seeks zoo accreditation

Jan 5, 2024 | 4:50 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Exploration place is home to a whole host of Axolotls. And then there’s Loki, the Magpie, as well as many other critters. And the museum is looking for a zoo accreditation. The process starts with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and now has a mentor with the Assiniboine Zoo in Winnipeg.

“And their head vet is working with our team here to start to develop parameters around biosecurity. What animals are we going to bring in? Why are we bringing animal ambassadors in and what is their job here? The same as any other staff. So it’s just a different approach to keeping animals and having them as part of your team, as opposed to thinking them, thinking of them as a collection,” says Tracy Calogheros, CEO of Exploration Place.

The project has been handed over to Alyssa Gerwing, who admits it’s a fascinating process.

“I had to actually take the manual home, sit down and really go into it and I have so many sticky notes over everything that we needed to do that it covers everything from the size of the mesh you use and your quarantine zones to how you’re training your education staff on how to work with animal ambassadors. And that’s what they are. They’re animal ambassadors. We have these great animals out in the wild, but these are the ones you kind of get to know and you know their names and you know what they do.”

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But the process is a very long one, taking as long as five years to attain accreditation, but it is well worth it.

“We went outside national standards and went international and so that means that we’ll have all the proper permits before we start expanding anything. Yes, we have a magpie and the axolotls, of course, but we would like to get a little bit more.

Calogheros says the idea of having animals as part of the quote-unquote”team” is to teach about things that may be not directly tied to flora and fauna, porcupines, for example, porcupines.

“When I moved here in ’92, saw them all the time on the roads. Nowadays you don’t. And that’s a direct tie to climate change, the same as we’re starting to see raccoons in town. They weren’t here when I moved here. Also, something to do with climate change. So not only can you learn about an animal, but you can tie it to what’s going on in the world. The other one that I always talk about is flying squirrels. That’s our most common squirrel here in northern B.C. is the flying squirrel. No one even knows we have them.”

While exploration place is six months into the process, there could be as many as another four and a half years to go.