Keeping Everyone Safe When The Weather Gets Bad
February 10, 2021
These past few years, Turpentine Creek has been lucky enough to have mild winters with only some scattered snowfall and winter weather. This year, however, has been a little more eventful. We’ve had multiple snow days with inches of snow accumulating on the ground. These snowy play days are a lot of fun for the big cats and our team members. Snowmen, snowball fights, and snow piles are fun to romp in and rarely cause any issue. This week is a bit different. Our forecast was filled with freezing rain, sleet, slushy snow, and below freezing temperatures. This makes for a very cold, slick, work and living environment. Due to this, we have decided to suspend tours until at least Monday, February 15, 2021.
All week we’ve been battling with frozen locks, slippery hills, ice incrusted food bowls, and frozen water. Being outside, caring for the animals, in these extremes can be dangerous, and so to protect our people and animals we decided to stop tours for a few days. This will allow our team to quickly and safely care for the animals and get out of the weather as soon as possible.
Luckily, our big cats have very few issues with the cold temperatures. Senior animals and African animals all have heated dens to snuggle up in. The rest of our animals have warm bedding and dens that typically are 20 or more degrees warmer than the outside air. Their thick fur coats were made for cold temperatures and their dinners are served to them on a ‘silver’ platter so they don’t have to go out into the cold to hunt for food. They get fresh water multiple times a day so they also don’t have to worry about frozen over water dishes.
Please stay safe and warm during these blustering cold winter days. We appreciate your support and ask, if you can, to donate the price of an adult admission ticket $25 to help us recuperate the lost income from needing to be closed during one of our busiest winter weekends – Valentine’s Day. Have a fun and safe weekend!