The Slice
Bridging a Gap at the Zoo
7/3/2026 | 1m 34sVideo has Closed Captions
You'll soon see some changes inside the Lake Superior Zoo's Griggs Learning Center...
You'll soon see some changes inside the Lake Superior Zoo's Griggs Learning Center, including an overhead tube where both visitors and resident sand cats can easily check each other out.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
The Slice is a local public television program presented by PBS North
The Slice
Bridging a Gap at the Zoo
7/3/2026 | 1m 34sVideo has Closed Captions
You'll soon see some changes inside the Lake Superior Zoo's Griggs Learning Center, including an overhead tube where both visitors and resident sand cats can easily check each other out.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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So we are currently in our Griggs Learning Center, which is where a lot of our ambassador education animals are housed.
My name is Emily Perala and I'm the curator here at the Lake Superior Zoo.
And today we are doing behind the scenes peek at some new construction for some new habitat improvements we are doing at the zoo.
We are building a new habitat for our box turtles.
This is a mixed species habitat that we've had the zoo for quite a long time, where our box turtles lived with our bobwhite quail.
And we are hoping with this new expansion, we might bring in some new species to the zoo as well.
So this new habitat will provide a lot more space for reptiles and also for our box turtles in particular.
It also provides more opportunities for them to engage in natural digging and brumation behavior, which is something they weren't really able to do in their previous space very well.
And it also be a lot easier for guests to hopefully see all the different animals, and for the keepers feel to work in the space.
So the other project we have some fan favorites here at the zoo are sand cats.
And people may have noticed that we have our male and female sand cats separated right now into two different habitats.
We're working on a really interesting aerial bridge between the two habitate sides, so that our cats can migrate between habitat spaces hoping that'll be kind of a 360 degree feeling for the guests to come in, because the sand cats will literally be over your head, and you can see them, and they can see and smell the guests a little bit easier than they can right now.
One of our goals for our department is to always be providing something new for people to see every time they come to the zoo, and this space is one that has been stagnant for a while, and we're really excited to have something new to show people.
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