Animals have final word
Safari Niagara’s finest make their pigskin prognostications.
New England Patriots or Philadelphia Eagles?
According to a couple of animal prognosticators at Safari Niagara, the Patriots will win Super Bowl 52 on Sunday.
This is the first time the Stevensville zoo has offered a Super Bowl prediction.
“…so we are unsure of how ‘accurate’ they are going to be,” joked Andrea Bouw, Safari Niagara’s marketing manager.
Each animal was given two items in their exhibit — labeled either Patriots or Eagles.
The first item they went to was their pick for the game.
Quinn, an African leopard, for example, had two pinatas to choose from — one with feathers and one with fennel — while Boris, an Argus monitor, was offered two bowls of tempting treats. Other animals who participated in the completely unscientific process were an Andean condor and a pair of African Spurred tortoises.
It was a tight race, with a final tally 3 - 2 in favour of the Patriots.
“We’ll have to wait until Sunday to find out if their prediction is right,” Bouw said.
The exercise was an extension of the animal enrichment process at the facility.
“Animal enrichment is important at Safari Niagara because it allows the animals to mimic their natural behaviours,” Bouw explained. “By offering toys, it allows our animals to forage for the food as they would do in their natural environment.”
A video of the animals’ selections can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xt5zHEFKm0.
In November, a giant panda at the Toronto Zoo picked the Toronto Argonauts to win the Grey Cup over the Calgary Stampeders.
Two cardboard footballs marked with the team logos and filled with treats were placed in the panda enclosure at the zoo. The football Da Mao ate from first was his prediction for the winner.
And, he was right. Toronto beat Calgary 27-24.
Safari Niagara created two animal enrichment videos last year, one for Halloween and one for Christmas.
“We try to switch up the animals in the videos,” said Bouw, who filmed the videos.
“During our Christmas video, our tigers, lions, red pandas, wolves and reindeer received the enrichment so we wanted different animals this time around to capture the different interactions.”
An Easter Egg hunt video is also in the works.