This is the second of three articles about the Pine Grove Zoo in Little Falls. Next: Personalities and shenanigans of animals at the Pine Grove Zoo.
When Director Marnita Van Hoecke started working at the Pine Grove Zoo in Little Falls in 2000, it looked nothing like it does today.
The only running water on the zoo grounds was from a little spigot outside. There was also a building that somewhat resembled a one car garage with two freezers inside, a couple of animals that the zoo staff would bring to educational events, such as at the local library or at the school, a desk and a table.
“I didn’t have a sink to do dishes in, so when I began, you had to put this water out of the hydrant in a steel pail and put it on the space heater to warm it up to do your dishes,” she said.
There were also no restrooms on the zoo grounds. The closest restroom was at the Casey’s gas station, located about half a mile down the road from the zoo.
Today, the zoo employs about 11 people during the winter season and about 15 or 16 in the summertime. But when Van Hoecke started working at the zoo, there was one other employee, who had been managing the zoo. However, about two weeks after Van Hoecke started working at the zoo, tragically, he fell and broke his back at home, she said.
As a result, since the employee was unable to return to work, Van Hoecke took over the caretaking of the zoo.
Prior to starting her work at the zoo, Van Hoecke had worked in the veterinary field for 16 years. With a heart for animal welfare, she set out to implement change.
Van Hoecke said at the time, the animals weren’t receiving the best diet in the world.
“They were feeding what they knew what to feed, but coming from the veterinary field, I knew of some things a little differently,” she said.
Van Hoecke said veterinarian Dr. Rob Orr was really helpful and was a catalyst in the improvement of the zoo animals’ health care and other aspects.
“It kind of began there,” she said.
Over time, other improvements were made to the zoo, including a sink.
While the sinks and other amenities are plumbed today, Van Hoecke said the original sink wasn’t. It drained into a five gallon pail. However, since it had a stopper, doing the dishes became instantly easier, she said. Eventually, a water heater was installed, as well, she said.
The Friends of the Pine Grove Zoo were also instrumental in the work that was done in improving the zoo. The animal welfare was placed on the forefront and Van Hoecke, the Friends of the Pine Grove Zoo volunteers and others spent a lot of time visiting different places, sharing their vision of improving the zoo for the animals.
“It was quite sad. Where the dog-eared fences are now was chain link, so people could shoot firecrackers into the animals. They weren’t always the kindest at night, when we weren’t here,” she said.
Besides finding fire cracker debris in the animals’ habitats, Van Hoecke said sometimes people fed the animals Dum Dum lollipops, stick and all. Regardless of people’s intent, it made the animals sick, she said.
“It was not a good situation, so we really wanted to change it and get the animals away from there. There are a lot of great people in this world, but it doesn’t take very many naughty ones to make it a bad situation,” she said.
At that time, the Zoo was managed by the Park Committee. As such, Van Hoecke was then considered a city employee, which also meant she was pulled away from the zoo to tend to other tasks, such as help flooding ice rinks in the winter.
That changed in 2006 when the it became apparent that the zoo really needed to be able to break away a little from the city, she said.
“The city would still own it, but not manage it,” she said.
The goal was for the Friends of the Pine Grove Zoo to take over the day-to-day operations of the zoo. The change also meant a change for Van Hoecke, since no longer being a city employe changed her benefits. Even so and although the zoo’s daily operations had never been separated from the city, Van Hoecke said it was something they all wanted to try. At first, it was done with a one-year contract. Since it was successful, the following contract was for 10 years and it has worked out well ever since.
“We’ve now entered into our second 10-year contract with the city and it has really proven to be an amazing partnership,” she said. “They’ve given us great support. The Council has been wonderful.”
Van Hoecke said the support from the communities in Morrison County have been great. When she first started working at the zoo, the Friends of the Pine Grove Zoo had nearly 60 members. Today, there are more than 4,500 members of the non-profit organization.
Throughout the history of the Pine Grove Zoo, it was free for visitors to attend. However, needing funds in order to operate the zoo, as well as improve the animal welfare, such as by building larger habitats, improving their safety and more, Van Hoecke said the knew they needed to start charging admission.
“We decided fairly quickly after the Friends of the Pine Grove Zoo took over that if we were going to have a zoo that could keep up to the high quality of standards that animals in captivity was being required, we would need to charge, because you can’t run anything on $0 and we were trying to minimize the impact what we had on the budget for the City of Little Falls by helping with raising money through admissions, memberships and things like that,” she said.
While the City of Little Falls still gives the zoo the certain dollar amount it asks for each year and that the City feels it can afford, Van Hoecke said the Zoo makes up for the rest of that in admission fees, memberships, educational camps and more.
The Zoo also partners with various civic organizations and businesses, which have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to improving the lives of the animals and the activities at the Pine Grove Zoo.
“We’ve got such great support. We couldn’t ask for anything better. We’re kind of spoiled that way,” she said.
Van Hoecke said the people she’s worked with over the years, as well as those who are working there currently, have been great.
“They’re incredible. They’re the hardest working people I know. They’re out there when it’s 40 below (Fahrenheit) and 100 above. They make sure that these animals have world-class care year round. I’m just super proud of them. The zoo has come a really long way and of course, like anything else, there’s always more to come,” she said.
Many of the animals at the zoo came from rescue situations. Besides them being given utmost care and large habitats, their areas are always equipped with logs, pools, toys and other items to keep them well stimulated. The toys for the animals are also set on a daily rotational schedule, so they get “new” toys every day, Van Hoecke said.
One indicator that the zoo is providing good habitats and care for the animals at the zoo is found in the river otter habitat.
Besides the dry land in the habitat area, the river otters also have a 6,500-gallon tank to swim around in. The tank has 30 feet of viewing glass on one side and a 10-foot glass tunnel, which allows visitors to crawl through and lay underneath to watch as if they were in the tank itself.
Van Hoecke said when they received the river otters, they were informed that river otters rarely ever breed in captivity. The reason for it is that the conditions have to be just right. However, the couple of river otters at the Pine Grove Zoo have had babies. To Van Hoecke and others who work with the animals, it is a testament to their care at the zoo.
At this time, the Pine Grove Zoo plans to replace the perimeter fence and is currently raising funds for the project. Van Hoecke said as the current perimeter fence is the original fence and is about 70 years old or so, people may not always realize the huge changes that have been done in the zoo from when they traveled through two decades ago.
The replacement of the perimeter fence is necessary, as the height no longer meets the height requirements recently set by the United States Department of Agriculture.
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