A zoo in the Bahamas rushed to save 150 animals as the tropical destination prepares for Hurricane Irma to hit on Saturday.
The tiny zoo of Ardastra Gardens, Zoo and Conservation Center in Nassau seemed like a chaotic Noah’s Ark as a handful of employees moved dozens of the park’s 200 animals indoors on Friday.
Workers were relocating the creatures to a manager’s office while Hurricane Irma’s first bands of high winds and rain started pounded the Caribbean country.
Nassau, a city of 250,000 people and 184 miles east of Miami, was scheduled to be rocked by winds more 100mph and heavy flooding early Saturday.
A tiny Bahamas zoo in Nassau seemed like Noah’s Ark on Friday as employees moved 150 of the park’s 200 animals indoors. Hurricane Irma is expected to hit on Saturday
A rare white peacock sits on the gloomy day. Peacocks are one of the few animals that are considered safe during hurricanes and are allowed to stay outside
Bonnie Young, an animal curator at the zoo, holds a native bird that was just rescued in Nassau
Small caimans are being held in a safe housing at the zoo. Officials say they did not lose animals during Hurricane Matthew and they don’t intend to lose any during Hurricane Irma
And with humans finishing up preparations and hunkering down in their homes after flights to the United States were stopped, the animals were next.
Creatures at the zoo, which is next to the Atlantic Ocean, were getting evacuated from their regular cages and put into the offices of General Manager Jeff Nash.
‘We did this last year for Matthew and while there was some damages to the trees and some fences, the animals did well,’ says Nash, who is American.
Some of the cages that were damaged last year are yet to be repaired.
But Nash’s offices happen to be in a century-old building with thick walls, as the space was converted from a jazz club during the roaring twenties.
Today, the only music in the aged building are quacks, howls, meows, growls, chirps, hisses and squawks.
Secured in cages, crates and kennels stacked up on higher shelves, the zoo’s servals, capuchin monkeys, meerkats, owls, iguanas, caimans, snakes and parrots seem oblivious to the commotion around them.
Bonnie Young, animal curator at Ardastra Gardens, Zoo and Conservation Centre, holds a native snake as 150 of the other animals were stored in the manager’s office
A Sykes’ monkey is seen in his storm holding pen at the Ardastra Gardens, Zoo and Conservation Centre, in Nassau, Bahamas. The purpose of the open wall is so the monkeys can exit the pen after the storm has passed
Birds are kept in protective pens. Some of the cages at the zoo were damaged last year due to Hurricane Matthew and are yet to be repaired
Ducks are seen at the Ardastra Gardens, Zoo and Conservation Centre, in Nassau, Bahamas, as Hurricane Irma quickly approaches the island
Dexter, the Bahamian boa, gets taken out for fresh air while the coati, a South American raccoon-style animal, roams its cage for more food.
Nash points to a serval curled up in a ball of fur at the bottom of its cage but unable to sleep.
‘They’re more stressed out and anxious,’ Nash says. ‘The birds and the snakes have been biting us, and they’re getting really feisty.
‘We don’t like to take them out of the exhibit because that involves some risks to the handlers and the animals.’
The manager’s office happen to be in a century-old building with thick walls, as the space was converted from a jazz club during the roaring twenties. Pictured: Small caimans
Preparations are underway and many places that are usually populated with animals are now empty in Nassau’s main zoo
Nash added: ‘It can happen, an animal gets hurt. But in the case of Irma, it’s a no-brainer.’
Indeed, Irma has been deemed the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record and has killed at least 23 people in the Caribbean region so far.
The storm also reduced 95 percent of the homes on Barbuda, one of the first islands hit, to piles of rubble earlier this week.
Nassau’s 80-year-old private zoo, meanwhile, is on lush four-and-a-half acres where a network of small canals was designed to keep flooding to a minimum.
A favorite with cruise-ship passengers, the zoo features 47 pink flamingos that are actually trained to march like soldiers.
Three times a day, a trainer introduces the flamingos into the zoo’s arena and makes them march forward, to the left and to the right in unison.
A Sykes’ monkey eats while other animals were being moved to safer spots around the zoo. Inside the pen is a protective wall that monkeys can enter and exit on their own
Indeed, Irma has been deemed the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record and has killed at least 23 people in the Caribbean region so far
There were a few stragglers during the evacuation, mostly birds who roam the grounds freely and won’t let themselves get caught, including some rare white, blue-eyed peacocks, moorhens and ducks
Bonnie Young (left) and senior keeper Henley Haley (pictured right), 27, are seen rescuing native birds on the facility’s grounds
For Irma, the flamingos are housed in their own concrete, padlocked reinforced-concrete bunker built to withstand hurricanes.
‘Bahamas pink flamingos were nearly extinct because they were hunted for their meat,’ explains Bonnie Young, the animal curator.
He added: ‘The zoo decided to same some and they’ve been doing well here. They’ve become our star attraction.’
There were a few stragglers during the evacuation, mostly birds who roam the grounds freely and won’t let themselves get caught, including some rare white, blue-eyed peacocks, moorhens and ducks.
‘They’re are going to weather the storm outside,’ Young says. ‘They also survived Matthew. ‘At this point, we can’t worry about things we can’t control.’
Bonnie Young, animal curator at Ardastra Gardens, Zoo and Conservation Centre, holds a native snake in Nassau, Bahamas as Hurricane Irma quickly approaches the island
The storm also reduced 95 percent of the homes on Barbuda, one of the first islands hit, to piles of rubble earlier this week
Nassau’s 80-year-old private zoo, meanwhile, is on lush four-and-a-half acres where a network of small canals was designed to keep flooding to a minimum
The latest forecasts show Hurricane Irma hitting Miami Sunday morning and then travelling directly up the state