With 1,000 Enrolled, This Kids’ Camp Is a Real Zoo

“When you talk to the elephants, do they know what you’re saying?” 8-year-old Hayley Kenny of Irvine asked keeper Fred Marion at the Santa Barbara Zoo.

Marion instructed the zoo’s two Asian elephants, Suzi and Mac, to put their feet on the railing of an iron gate in the elephant compound. The elephants complied.

“They understand me,” the keeper said. “See their big toenails. I keep them filed. In the wild, elephants wear out their toenails. They have five toes in front, four in back.

“Open your mouths,” Marion commanded, and the elephants did.

Michelle Mangum, 7, of La Habra inquired about the weight of the elephants. “How much do you weigh?” Marion responded. Michelle said 40 pounds.

“Suzi weighs 9,400 pounds, Mac weighs 9,200 pounds. It would take 235 little girls your size to weigh as much as Suzi,” the keeper explained.

Bettina Brungsberg, 8, visiting the zoo with her sister, Beate, 7, from Essen, West Germany, asked what the elephants eat. In a year’s time, the keeper said, each elephant will drink 15,500 gallons of water, eat 100,000 pounds of oat hay, 12,000 pounds of alfalfa, 1,500 gallons of grain, 5,000 potatoes, cabbages, carrots and apples and 1,600 loaves of bread.

“Elephants like carrots,” Marion told Bettina, handing her a piece of carrot. “Hold the carrot out in front of you. Suzi will take it from you with her trunk.”

The keeper cut several carrots into small sections and the dozen boys and girls behind the gate walked up one at a time and stood in front of the two elephants. One at a time each elephant raised its trunk and accepted the snack from the child’s hand.

The 7- and 8-year-olds were day campers at the 26-year-old Santa Barbara Zoo, recently acclaimed “a model of excellence among small zoos in America” by the American Assn. of Zoological Parks.

Each summer 1,000 boys and girls from 3 to 11 years old are enrolled at the zoo’s summer camp.

Many of the 140 accredited zoos in the nation, including the Los Angeles Zoo, have modeled similar summer camper programs on the one held here for the last 12 years.

Some campers come only for a day, some for a week, but most sign up for a three-week session, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. The zoo runs three of the full three-week camper sessions. Cost is $20 a day, $90 a week, $200 for three weeks. Some children stay for the full nine weeks.

This is the third summer that Bettina and Beate Brungsberg and their parents have vacationed in Santa Barbara from their home in West Germany. The two girls spend six weeks at the zoo camp each year.

“Our underlying philosophy and objective is to teach respect for the environment, for the animals and for themselves,” explained Carolyn Stange, 24, camp director. Campers learn about the animals of the world. Each day is dedicated to a particular subject, such as:

Habitats, endangered species, animals of South America, Africa, Australia, animals of the wetlands, deserts and rain forests, primates, reptiles, birds, mammals, misunderstood animals, animal communication and animal camouflage.

One night every three weeks the campers bed down in sleeping bags at the zoo, after going on a safari around the 81-acre zoo to see how animals behave at night.

Santa Barbara Zoo is on a hilltop overlooking the Pacific Ocean and a lake that is the Andree Clark Bird Refuge with the Santa Ynez mountains as a backdrop. It is both a zoo and a botanical garden.

The more than 500 animals representing 120 different species, including several that are rare, vanishing and endangered, live in natural settings surrounded by vegetation typical of their habitat. The zoo has 35 full-time employees, 60 part-timers in summer, 135 volunteers and 23 people running the camping program. Students from universities and colleges throughout the state are here on internships.

It is a private, nonprofit zoo with a board of directors made up of civic, business and educational leaders of Santa Barbara. The zoo operates on an annual budget of $2 million.

Zoo campers commune every day with elephants, giraffes, lions, monkeys, otters, pandas, lemurs, capybaras, giant anteaters, white-handed gibbons, iguanas, alligators, spoonbills, flamingos and many other fascinating beasts from the world of the wild.

Campers can be seen every day in front of a dozen flamingos, having contests emulating the dazzling pink and white birds to see who can stand on one leg the longest.