PRESS ROOM

ROYAL OAK, Mich., 

WHAT: The holidays may be over but the fun is just getting started for the animals at the Detroit Zoo.  Many of their habitats will be “spruced up” beginning Wednesday, January 8, when they are given recycled holiday evergreen trees to play with, roll around, strip and tear apart.

WHEN: There will be a scheduled distribution of the trees on Wednesday, January 8, at the following times:
Noon – bison
12:30 p.m. – wolverines
1 p.m. – arctic foxes
1:30 p.m. – polar bears
2 p.m. – grizzly bears

WHERE: Detroit Zoo (Please check in at the Administration Gate – fifth entrance west of Woodward – for a media escort.)

BACKGROUND: Detroit Zoo staff will provide the animals with Fraser fir trees donated by The Home Depot. The unpainted, untreated, never-decorated trees were accepted as part of a comprehensive animal care program at the Zoo that ensures animal habitats are ever changing and appropriately complex.

Trees that have been decorated are not provided to the animals because of the risk of foreign objects still on them.

While not all Detroit Zoo animals can be exposed to or digest the repurposed trees, those that can will find themselves with these new elements in their habitats at any given time throughout the next few weeks.

HOW: Please contact Christina Ross at 248-336-5788 (office), 586-549-6062 (mobile) or cross@dzs.org.