COUNTYWIDE : At the Zoo, Kids of All Kinds Meet

Orange County schoolchildren are learning to appreciate exotic and domestic animals this summer during a series of behind-the-scenes instructional programs at Santa Ana Zoo.

The Zoo Camps and animal training sessions for kindergartners through 15-year-olds are designed to be fun for the children while fostering care and concern for all animals, said Kent Yamaguchi, the zoo’s curator of education.

“A lot of kids just aren’t exposed to animals” other than dogs or cats, Yamaguchi said. He said even the zoo’s barnyard creatures are a big hit with the young students.

“It’s always amazing to me how excited they get about seeing the chickens or the rabbits,” he said. “It’s real fun. It’s very satisfying to be able to give them that experience.”

Recently, children in Junior Zoo Camp spent part of their morning brushing the goats and raking a corral in the petting zoo area.

“Today, they’re zookeepers,” Yamaguchi said. “They’re learning about the importance of keeping the zoo clean.”

Older children in Zoo Camp scientifically examine “pellets” regurgitated by owls, and use stethoscopes to hear the heartbeats of snakes, goats, chickens, rats and other animals.

There is also a bone lab for the campers, who attempt to reassemble “Fred,” a full-size plastic model of a human skeleton. When the bones get mixed up, Fred sometimes ends up with “very long arms,” said Yamaguchi. “It can get really funny.”

Junior camper Caroline Wilkinson, a 6-year-old from Santa Ana, said her favorite experience was “being one of the zookeepers.”

“We cleaned up the goat pens and brushed their hair,” she said. She said some of the goats tend to “butt their heads.”

Lindy Tober, 5, of Newport Beach, said petting the animals was her highlight of the week.

“I liked the goats and the lambs,” she said. “I really made a lot of friends with the animals. I don’t know their names.”

Tober said she and the other campers learned about species that are endangered, and about some that have already vanished from the earth.

“They told us what scientists think the dinosaurs died of,” she said.

While the junior campers were outside playing a game, Yamaguchi was working over a stove making a “bird nest” mixture out of butterscotch, peanut butter, chocolate and shredded wheat. In what has become a tradition, the children create “little nests” out of the sticky concoction as edible souvenirs of their week in Zoo Camp.

“Half the fun is watching them lick their fingers after they’re done,” Yamaguchi said.

The weeklong summer programs for children are continuing through Aug. 26. Junior Zoo Camp is for kindergartners to age 7, Zoo Camp I and II are for ages 8 to 14, and Animal Training in Zoos is for ages 12 to 15. Field trips are conducted to the Los Angeles Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

Registration is available by calling Santa Ana Zoo at (714) 836-4000. Parents can also register their children through the community education departments of Cerritos, Golden West, Irvine Valley, Orange Coast and Rancho Santiago colleges.