2 by 2, or Not, Zoo Animals Escape Flood

Jordan Wald, a zookeeper, with one of the camels, which have staged escape attempts and flicked light switches with their tongues.

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Sarah Schoenberg of the Roosevelt Park Zoo in Minot, N.D., prepared a flamingo for transport to another zoo on higher ground.

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A pair of reindeer in their temporary home in an old furniture warehouse, where the Roosevelt Park Zoo has relocated.

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A lamb named Noah, who has become the mascot for the zoo's operation, has been granted some freedom to wander.

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Flooding of the Souris River and high waters that had been predicted for Minot, N.D., arrived in full force on Friday.

And yes, the zookeepers, trying to make the best of a bad situation, were fully aware of the joke. So they named a lamb Noah in honor of the occasion, and at times grant him freedom to wander through this menagerie.

Now the sounds and smells of these displaced animals, more than 100 in all, fill the drab confines of an old furniture warehouse, situated between a used car lot and a clothing store.

Several dozen pens inside hold the animals — chain link for the deer and emu; metal walls for the warthogs and bobcats; wire mesh for the tamarin monkeys and chickens — as a round-the-clock crew of zookeepers labor in vain to create an atmosphere of normalcy.

The camels have shown a mischievous side, trying several escapes and, recently, operating the light switches with their tongues. The whining of the gray wolves, recently relocated to another zoo, spooked some of those working the overnight shift. And on Friday, a zookeeper chased after a potbellied pig while little Noah pranced happily alongside the pens. He had learned from experience, though, to steer swiping distance clear of the bobcats’ abode.

“All of it is very strange,” said Haley McClure, a seasonal zookeeper with the Roosevelt Park Zoo.

The floodwaters climbed to levels never before recorded in this city on Friday, pouring over protective barriers and into the low-lying neighborhoods that more than a quarter of this city calls home.

The spreading Souris River, known here as the Mouse after its French name, filled houses, closed bridges, washed out railroad tracks and, as more and more water arrived, left residents wondering how high it would rise. There was growing concern that the city would be effectively split in two by the water.

The flood was long predicted, forcing an evacuation several weeks ago and again this week as warnings of devastation escalated. As a result, many residents had time to save belongings from homes that now stand in rushing water reaching close to some roofs.

And for the workers at the 90-year-old zoo, which straddles the river and also was flooded in 1969, when the animals were taken to a livestock yard, that extra notice allowed for the safe evacuation of every animal, right down to the river otters.

The evacuation, most of which occurred during the first flood scare and the rest of which occurred in the past week, was chaotic.

“From the pictures I’ve seen of Noah’s Ark, the animals came on board pretty easily, two by two, marching right along,” said David Merritt, the zoo director. “That’s not exactly what happened.”

It took a frantic search to find someone in Wisconsin with a trailer able to accommodate a giraffe. And it took quite a bit longer to convince the giraffes that the trailer was accommodating.

On the other side of the zoo, a team of workers took the better part of the day to corral the bison. A team of police officers was on hand when the three bears were anesthetized. The tiny Sika deer bounced out of captivity. And many more animals fought as they were loaded into cages.

“It was the saddest day I ever experienced,” said Jondrea Crawford, a seasonal zookeeper. “Because you could see the terror in their eyes.”

The head of the Dakota Zoo in Bismarck (it was also partly evacuated because of flooding on the Missouri River), drove up to lend his new expertise.

“If you’re picking up furniture and throwing it up on a truck — anybody can do that,” said Terry Lincoln, the director of the zoo, which has been protected by newly constructed levees and is now housing several of Minot’s displaced animals. “In a zoo setting you can’t take someone off the street and, say, ‘Go get the 500-pound lion.’ It just doesn’t work that way.”

The smaller reptiles are being housed in a locker room at the hockey rink. Local farmers agreed to take some of the llamas, alpacas, bison and elk. And many of the more challenging animals — the bears, jaguars and lions — were sent directly to other zoos in the region.

But a majority were taken to the former furniture warehouse, nicknamed the “north zoo,” which is now a government building used for storage, including sandbags for the flood.

“They really designed an awfully nice little zoo in hours,” said Ron Merritt, executive director of the parks department.

Most of the zoo animals have spent more than a month in the building, now heavy with the smell of hay and excrement. Each day, though, some of the remaining animals are being moved to those other zoos; six flamingos and a pelican were packed, squawking, into crates on Friday for transport.

The high waters are expected to remain well into July. And though the parks director expects the zoo to reopen next year, it could be longer before all the animals can return.

In the meantime, as the city sank deeper into the Souris River, the kookaburras continued their cacophonous chatter, the camels munched on hay bales, a lone alligator soaked silently in a large tub, the ground hornbills greeted visitors with curiosity, and the lamb named Noah continued his rounds.