Very different ilk of creatures at Oakland Zoo
Dinosaurs, SWAT teams, Beyoncé visit for Halloween event, busiest day of year
Wild and scary creatures took over the Oakland Zoo on Sunday.
And it wasn’t just the usual lions, tigers and Malayan sun bears, but thousands of kids and adults dressed as dinosaurs, SWAT officers, prison inmates, “Star Wars” stormtroopers — even Beyoncé.
The occasion was the zoo’s annual two-day Boo at the Zoo event, which draws the largest crowds of the year, said Erin Harrison, a zoo spokeswoman. On Saturday, 5,600 people attended the Halloween event — about double the usual weekend crowd — and when there was no more room to park cars, zoo officials had to stop admitting people for while.
Sunday attendance figures were not available, but when Boo at the Zoo opened at 11 a.m., cars were backed up onto Interstate 580. Talk about scary.
Zoo officials attribute the event’s popularity to the mix of wild animals and decorations, which included pumpkins and split pigs’ heads inside the animal habitats, along with a scavenger hunt, free rides on the zoo’s new gondola and a variety of special activities, including the Monster Mash Dance Party, which offered the chance to dance with Roosevelt the alligator, the zoo’s official mascot.
About half of the visitors wore costumes, some of them family outfits like the band of pirates eating at the top of the gondola. Jennifer Massie, 40, Eric Sage, 45, and Eli Massie-Sage, 1, of San Leandro, were taking a lunch break. Eli was plundering his parents’ turkey sandwich, like a good pirate, while Jennifer expressed her appreciation for the event without saying “aaarrrr!”
“It’s kind of fun seeing other families and kids dressed up,” she said. “It’s a good time to be out and about as a family.”
Many of the kids were drawn in by the Spooky Scavenger Hunt, which offered clues that directed them to animal exhibits where they could collect stamps.
“You might have seen my cousins on a lawn,” one clue read. “I’m known for my beauty and not my brawn. I stand on one leg when I need to think about catching my food, which turns me pink.”
That hint, one of the easiest, directed the scary scavengers to the flamingo exhibit. Once they collected all five stamps, the kids were rewarded with a goodie bag that included some actual candy but mostly healthy snacks.
But the zoo’s denizens were the biggest attraction for some kids.
“I like seeing the animals,” said Brandon Sabais, 9, of Oakland. “I like the cheetah. It’s really fast. And he’s a carnivore like me. Actually, I’m an omnivore.”
Boo at the Zoo wasn’t just a special weekend for the humans. Animals got into the spirit, too, said Adam Fink, the zoological manager. The zoo works hard all the time to keep animals from getting bored, but they especially seem to enjoy holiday activities, he said.
Zookeepers bought 120 pumpkins for the event and placed them around the zoo in different animals’ habitats. Some played with the big orange gourds like balls, others clawed at them like scratching posts and some ripped them apart and devoured their innards.
The zoo’s big cats also got a special ghoulish treat: pigs’ heads, hacked in half, giving the animals a bigger challenge than eating a pile of meat.
“Being a zookeeper, you need to be very creative,” Fink said. “Keeping our animals physically healthy is easy. The enrichment and training is where creativity comes into play.”