Flooding in Calgary Zoo a black swan event for B.C. Wildlife Park | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Kamloops News

Flooding in Calgary Zoo a black swan event for B.C. Wildlife Park

Tara Geiger shows InfoTel News the pen in which two black swans from the Calgary Zoo are expected to permanently reside.

KAMLOOPS - They're early. 

Two animals expected at the B.C. Wildlife Park next week were supposed to move from Calgary to Kamloops this fall.

However, damage from the extreme flooding in Calgary pushed up the date.

Water poured into the Calgary Zoo because of it's close vicinity to the Bow River. Animal care supervisor for the B.C. Wildlife Park, Tara Geiger, said about three feet of water flooded the Calgary Zoo.

"Obviously they're looking for help," she said.

However, Geiger said the early arrival of two black swans isn't a problem.

"They were looking for homes for them anyway," she said.

Accepting animals in need of a home is nothing new to the Wildlife Park, it also recently accepted two peahens from the Calgary Zoo.

"They came actually just before the flood," Geiger said.

The swans are a little more novel to the park, the breed is more rare, and one Geiger has never seen before at the Kamloops park.

"They're black, they're all black," she said.

The two swans will be quarantined, then slowly introduced to two other swans already at the park, a tundra swan and a trumpeter swan that go by the names of George and Ralph.

"We kind of assess where things go," Geiger said.

As long as they all get along — which Geiger fully expects — they are expected to live together in a multi-species exhibit in the form of a pond that also includes geese.

To contact a reporter for this story, email: jwallace@infotelnews.ca, call: (250) 319-7494 or tweet: @jess__wallace.

News from © iNFOnews, 2013
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