Animals’ Easter treats prepared as zoo gets ready for celebration

The melons and eggs have been delivered and the dye kits purchased — time for Lisa Cuffy and her team to get busy preparing Easter treats for hundreds of animals at the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium.

Cuffy and five colleagues are animal-nutrition assistants who are charged with getting “enrichment” treats ready for Eggs, Paws and Claws, the zoo’s annual Easter celebration that takes place this weekend.

Although the event features numerous activities, such as meeting various bunny characters and a chance to get a photo with the Easter Bunny, one highlight for visitors is watching animals enjoy their Easter treats.

Depending on the species, most of those treats are either melons (the zoo

uses about 60), eggs (14 dozen), or cooked rice that is shaped like an egg and frozen.

Using commercial eggdying kits, Cuffy and her team decorate a number of the melons and eggs. Some get wrapped in colorful papier mache.

“Some years we get more creative than others,” Cuffy said. “We might carve a few watermelons into the shape of an Easter basket.”

As visitors enter the zoo this weekend, they can pick up an event guide that lists when animals will be given their treats. Enrichment occurs between 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Alec McWilliams, experiential logistics coordinator for the zoo, said Eggs, Paws and Claws typically attracts about 30,000 visitors, making it one of the largest annual events (not counting events such as Wildlights, which stretches over weeks).

“It’s sort of the kick-off to the season,” McWilliams said. “It indicates to guests that everything is up and rolling.”

One change this year, McWilliams said, is that the “Bunny Bonanza” (with the bunny characters and the Easter Bunny) has been moved from the Water’s Edge area in the back of the zoo up to the entrance plaza.

Other activities include “Aqua Bunny” diving into the Discovery Reef to feed fish at 1 p.m. each day and representatives from the Columbus Metropolitan Library reading bunny-themed stories daily at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

For Cuffy and her colleagues, however, the highlight is being free of their food-prep duties. She said she tries to catch some of the animals enjoying her handiwork.

“I like to watch the elephants,” Cuffy said. “They get watermelons, or sometimes honeydew.”

The animals don’t exactly “ooh” and “aah” over Cuffy’s colorful creations.

“They just step on it, really,” she said. “Kick it, step on it and then take it to pieces. You can’t get too attached.”