KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (Story courtesy of WVLT) – As spring begins to make an appearance, yard work also begins. Here’s how you can make an impact that helps the animals at Zoo Knoxville with something called “browse.”
“So browse is used every day here at Zoo Knoxville for our animals, from feeding to helping elicit natural behaviors, all the way to furniture to make our exhibits look nice and beautiful for our guests and animals. So for browse, a lot of our animals eat it, of course. browse is what we call tree branches, basically,” said lead grasslands keeper Amber Howard. “We kind of derive that from… A lot of animals are either, like, grazers, gatherers, foragers. And then there’s browse, like our giraffe. They’re a great example of that. They eat up high from out of trees”
Branches can be given to many different animals at Zoo Knoxville, and they’re used for more than just food.
The Knoxville community is always coming together to help when help is needed; here’s how you can make a difference by donating what you’d normally throw away.
“We like to rely on our community to help with donations. So if you’re trimming trees, cutting back shrubbery and stuff like that, a lot of times that helps in feeding the animals. So if you can contact the Zoo, we have an extension and an email that you can just send us. Say, hey, we’re cutting something. We’d like to know if we can donate to the Zoo,” said Howard. “We do have a short list of species that we accept here at the Zoo. And that is just for health reasons. Some things are considered toxic to different animals. So we do try to limit our list. Also, if you don’t know what the browse is, you can always take a picture of it and email it to us. We’d be happy to help you guys identify it.”
Howard said donating branches is a good way for zoo-goers to play a part in the zoo’s mission of conservation.
“When we put out a call for donations, asking our community to help out, I feel like it’s a really great opportunity for the people of our community to get involved. I mean, they come and see the animals, but this is a way they can directly help them in feeding them and keeping them healthy and allowing them to elicit natural behaviors. And so, you know, you don’t always have to donate money to help out the zoo. You can just donate browse,” said Howard.
