Countywide : Happy Campers on Exhibit at Zoo

The task wasn’t the most pleasant in the world: sweeping up a sheep pen at the Santa Ana Zoo. But Danielle Galasso went about the somewhat smelly job with a serene smile on her face.

“It’s not exactly the prettiest sight,” the Costa Mesa 11-year-old said as she raked up sheep droppings and dirt. “But if you think about it, it’s just food.”

For Galasso and 94 other young participants in the Zoo Camp program this week, a strong love for animals made even chores such as this a pleasure.

Ten weeks each summer the Santa Ana Zoo, in conjunction with seven area colleges, offers Zoo Camp for children ages 5 to 15. Each week a different group of 95 youngsters attends the five-day camp to get a hands-on education about animals.

The participants are separated into three age groups. Five- to 7-year-olds learn to identify different animals and birds through games in Junior Camp, 10- to 14-year-olds learn more about the animals and how they live in Zoo Camp and the older kids learn to train rats and goats in the Animal Training course.

Wednesday morning, Camp Director Janet Yamaguchi took Galasso and 12 of her fellow Zoo Campers for a taste of the life of a zookeeper.

Armed with rakes and shovels, the 13 pre-teens set about cleaning the sheep and goat yards with gusto. “I don’t mind this part because I get to work with the animals,” said Marisa Almquist, 11, of Anaheim Hills, as she stopped to pet one large sheep that peeked over a half-door.

Like most of her fellow campers, Almquist said a love for animals attracted her to the camp, now in its eighth year. Excitedly recounting what she had learned, Almquist explained that owls can’t digest the small creatures they eat, “so it balls up in their stomach--all the fur and the bones and stuff.”

“We just dissected (one),” she said. “I found two hip bones and the back teeth of a mouse, I think it was. I know it sounds gross, but I couldn’t wait to see what was inside of it!”

Later in the day, the students converged on a goat pen to leash the individual animals they had adopted for the week.

“Pardon me--wild goat!” warned Adam Lentz, 11, as he ran to keep up with Shiloh, a large goat nearly twice the slender boy’s size.

Coached by Tish Flynn, education specialist and founder of the training course, the older students urged their goats to jump over a wooden bar that was raised higher after each jump. The aspiring trainers also adopted rats for the week and trained them to run through mazes.

“You have to be as gentle as you can so you don’t hurt the animals,” advised Lentz, a six-summer veteran of Zoo Camp.

The lessons are easy for lifelong animal lovers such as Nick Dicrisci. The Newport Beach 9-year-old, who has seven frogs, two snakes, two dogs and three cats at home, said Zoo Camp had not taught him anything he did not already know.

“I like working with animals. I’ve been studying them my entire life,” he said. “I come here for the animals.”