PRESS ROOM

ROYAL OAK, Mich., 

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” this week – beginning Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016 – when they are given recycled holiday evergreen trees to play with, roll around, strip and tear apart.

Detroit Zoo staff will provide the animals with Fraser fir and blue spruce trees donated by Home Depot and Lowe’s stores in Madison Heights. 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.

“This donation of these surplus, unused holiday trees provides us a great opportunity to introduce natural ‘toys’ to many of the animals. This will allow them to engage in behaviors that are typical for their species, which for most means tearing them up,” said Scott Carter, Detroit Zoological Society chief life sciences officer.

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.

There will be a scheduled distribution of the trees on Wednesday, Jan. 13, at the following times:
• 10:30 a.m. – grizzly bears
• 11 a.m. – arctic foxes
• 11:30 a.m. – polar bears
• Noon – bison
• 12:30 p.m. – wolverines