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September 7, 2001

Call it
'Edzootainment'

By Mike Barnett
Editor

In less time than it takes to drive from Waco to San Antonio, visitors to Fort Worth Zoo's new Texas Wild! exhibit can travel every region of the state's 250,000 square miles, visit every ecosystem and be surprised by the variety of animals that inhabit the Lone Star State.

But this isn't your typical zoo exhibit. A bold combination of fun and fact carries strong conservation messages and notes the contributions of farmers and ranchers, private landowners and yes, even hunters, to the state's wildlife, ecology and natural resources.

"In Texas, about 97 percent of the land is privately owned. And there are a lot of wonderful, good stewards in Texas doing wonderful things—bringing wildlife populations back from the brink," says Linda Gerhart, senior director for external communications for the Fort Worth Zoo. "And we wanted to talk about that in an empowering way and an educational way so that urban visitors would understand, for example, where their food comes from...how important the whole process is to their everyday life."

Romona Bass' brainchild

Texas Wild! is the vision of Fort Worth philanthropist Romona Bass. As a long-time conservationist and staunch supporter of the nationally-ranked Fort Worth Zoo, Bass says she believes that zoos possess a unique opportunity to do more than simply showcase animals. In fact, she says, zoos share a common obligation to benefit both education and conservation. These beliefs laid the foundation for Texas Wild!.

"Texas Wild! is all about entertaining and education. We call it edzootainment," Bass says. "It's one part zoo, one part museum and one part themed-park attraction. I don't think there is anything like it anywhere."

Bass says her lifelong connection to the land, generated from time spent on her family's South Texas ranch during her youth, created a platform for her knowledge of the state's amazing diversity. She says her childhood experiences taught her that the inhabitants of the land—both wild and domestic—share its natural resources.

"Texas Wild! explores the inextricable bond between man and wildlife and illustrates that every individual, from landowners of large ranches to families in residential neighborhoods, has the ability and the duty to be a responsible steward of the natural world," Bass says.

Texas' Backyard

Highlighting Texas' backyard is the function of this interactive exhibit. Throughout the eight-acre, $40 million exhibit, guests not only learn amazing facts about animals in the Lone Star State, but discover the role of farmers, ranchers and private landowners as stewards of the land, and investigate their conservation successes and challenges. In fact, a large part of Texas Wild! is devoted to the agriculture industry.

For example, in the "Texas Town" portion of the exhibit, a special Play Barn lets children explore life on the farm through a number of hands-on experiences. Children can see how heavy they are on a modified livestock scale that weighs them in cows, goats and chickens (the average 4th grade class, according to Gerhart, weighs two cows, eight goats and four chickens!).

There's also a stall cleaning/vegetable dig, where a unique "pooping bull" and a dung-thirsty vegetable garden visually explains what every farmer and rancher understands—that everything comes from, and eventually returns to the land. In this exhibit, children can use miniature shovels and wheelbarrows to transport the plastic dung balls from the cow stall to the vegetable garden. When the "dung" is plugged into the garden, vegetables grow.

Consumers learn the benefits of foreign concepts such as controlled burning and can compare the contrasts between well-managed and poorly-managed land.

Strange stuff for a zoo, where cows and horses and sheep and pigs share equal billing with some 300 wild creatures that creep and crawl over the vast expanses of the state.

Perhaps even stranger and somewhat controversial is this groundbreaking exhibit demonstrates the important role hunting plays in the ecological health of Texas' wildlife populations.

"Basically, we're trying to state and show to people that managed, regulated, lawful hunting does not harm wildlife populations. It never has and it never will if it's done the right way," said Lyndsay Nantz, communications coordinator for the Fort Worth Zoo. "Actually, hunting and fishing contributes more than $130 million a year back to the Texas Parks & Wildlife conservation fund. That money is dispersed across the board. It goes across the board to help conservation measures throughout Texas."

Farming and ranching is good; hunting and fishing are okay: these are strange and different messages from what zoos normally portray. So why this approach at Texas Wild!?

"It is the private citizen that can make a difference...the hunters and fishermen that can make a difference. It's the farmers and ranchers who do make a difference," Nantz says. "And we want to tell that story, because a lot of people don't. No one is truly trying to tell that story. We want to make sure everyone knows..."

The Fort Worth Zoo is located at1989 Colonial Parkway in Fort Worth.