A trip to the Polar Bear Capital of the World helped teach Como Zoo keeper Kristin Riske new ways to talk about climate change

Back in 2008 when the polar bear became the first animal listed under the Endangered Species Act to be threatened primarily by climate change, we all learned how individual choices here at home can help improve conditions in the Arctic. From turning off unneeded lights, to driving less, to choosing products with less packaging, many zoo visitors at Arctic Ambassador Centers like Como Zoo are now well-versed in all the individual choices that can contribute to a more sustainable future. 

But could there be a better way to talk about what’s happening to polar bears?

That’s the question Como Zoo aquatics keeper Kristin Riske has been exploring as a Conservation Champion, the Como Friends program that funds professional development experiences and on-site field work for several zookeepers and horticulturists each year. With support from the program, Riske joined a cohort of other keepers and educators in the Climate Alliance Program, a unique Polar Bears International partnership program aimed at empowering conservation professionals—many, like Riske, who care for polar bears every day—to effectively communicate about climate change and inspire real-world solutions.

“Como has been part of the Arctic Ambassador Network for years, and this program is designed especially for institutions like ours,” Riske says. “As zookeepers, we’re in a great position to get the message out to the public.”

The program started early in 2023, as Riske and other zookeepers and educators took part in an eight-month online learning course, created in partnership with National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation. Through the training, Riske learned about the latest best practice communication strategies around climate change, and how building awareness and support for climate solutions has evolved over time. 

“Having this training through Climate Alliance really changed my view on how to get the message across,” says Riske, who got her start as a Como Zoo intern back in 2014. “Back when I started, it was all about how we should turn off our lights and recycle, but through this program, I’ve learned it’s more about the collective action that we need to take—voting for the climate, creating community gardens, shifting to renewable energy, advocating for community-wide or city-based sustainability programs.” 

Last month, the Climate Alliance Program culminated in a week-long trip to Churchill, Manitoba, the polar bear capital of the world. “It was really early in the season, still in the 40s and 50s, so we only saw one bear—a female sleeping near the coast,” Riske says. “But being out in the Tundra Buggy exceeded my expectations in every way. We got to see ptarmigan and caribou, and got the chance to meet and talk with the indigenous people of Churchill who told us more about the land around us.” 

Now back at Como Zoo where she cares for polar bears Neil, Nan, and Kulu, Riske says her Conservation Champions experience continues to inspire her. “There really are no words to encapsulate what I experienced,” she says. “I went into this Climate Alliance program to learn more about polar bears, climate change, and what we can do to help. What I didn’t know was the bond I would form with all of these amazing people from different facilities that want to do the same thing. I am still processing my experience up in Churchill, but one thing I do know is I have become more empowered, and a spark has grown in me that wants to advocate for climate change. I can’t thank Polar Bears International, Frontiers North Adventures, Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, and Como Friends enough for this once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Your support for Como Friends helps to make the Conservation Champions program possible, supporting Como’s talented staff’s participation in conservation partnerships and in their continued professional development. Thank you!

The dazzling colors of Día de los Muertos are the inspiration for the second half of the Sunken Garden’s fall flower show now on display.

“As gardeners, we’re always interested in trying new things in traditional spaces,” says Lisa Philander, the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s horticulture curator. “The goal was to create a feeling of undulating waves of color, rather than making each side of the room a mirror of the other.”

The dazzling colors of Día de los Muertos are the inspiration for the second half of the Sunken Garden’s fall flower show now on display. With orange and yellow mums, accented by bright magenta celosia, this season’s flower show is a fiesta for the senses.

One featured flower is the orange marigold, a Mexican native plant known by the Aztec name cempasúchil. A flower that’s strongly associated with the holiday, the color and fragrance of marigolds are said to show departed souls the path to their family homes. Gardening sources report that demand for marigolds has also risen considerably since the 2017 Disney Pixar film Coco, which introduced a worldwide audience to the customs of Día de los Muertos. 

Visitors to the Sunken Garden may also notice that the design of this season’s Fall Flower Show is asymmetrical, breaking up the bilateral design pattern that’s commonly been used in the room. “As gardeners, we’re always interested in trying new things in traditional spaces,” says Lisa Philander, the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s horticulture curator. “The goal was to create a feeling of undulating waves of color, rather than making each side of the room a mirror of the other.” 

Always free to visitors thanks to your contributions to Como Friends, the Sunken Garden Fall Flower Show is now on display through November 26. 

With chrysanthemums playing the starring role in this season’s Fall Flower Show, it’s a guarantee that thrips will also be part of the cast. 

Also known to gardeners as thysanoptera or thunderflies, these needle-thin sucking insects love to feed on mums, causing damage to plants, or worse, transmitting viruses from one plant to the next.

Fortunately, Como’s horticulturists have a tiny but mighty weapon to keep thrips from ruining the show. Known as the cucumeris mite, this half-millimeter predator insect has just been deployed throughout the mum crop destined for the second half of the Fall Flower Show. With an appearance like that of a transparent wood tick, and the ability to prey on thrips and survive on plant pollen, these super small super predators play an important role in the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s Integrated Pest Management plan. 

“People sometimes think that spraying pesticides is the only way to control pests, but integrated pest management is an approach that combines anything you might do to make a plant healthier, from the condition of the soil it’s growing in, to your nutritional program, to how you’re pruning the plant,” explains Como horticultural supervisor Bryn Fleming. While Como has been a low-pesticide growing facility for decades, Fleming says, “our reliance on beneficial insects has increased more recently,” as the gardening industry embraces more sustainable ways to manage greenhouses and gardens.

While beneficial bugs show great promise in cutting the use of pesticides, monitoring how well predator insects perform can be time consuming and complex. What’s the right dosage of beneficial insects for a particular plant or crop? How do shifts in such inputs as light, water or temperature affect the efficacy of beneficial bugs? Are some pest predators better than others?

To help answer those questions, the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory is now equipped with a new integrated pest management scouting system called IPM Scoutek. Made possible by your support for Como Friends, this new digital technology tracked on a tablet allows horticulturists to collect data from greenhouses and gardens to make even more informed decisions about how to care for crops and manage pests. 

“This technology is used by large-scale growers who are producing bigger agricultural crops, but is also used for nursery or floriculture production.” says Horticulturist Jen Love, who recently shared news about Como’s software scouting system during an American Public Gardens Association symposium at the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Columbus, Ohio. “As far as we know, as a public garden the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory is an early adopter trying this approach, and there’s a lot of interest from other institutions in seeing how this process works. If it’s successful, it’s a model we can share with other botanical gardens.”

As Como’s horticulturists discover what digital technology can do for pest management, Fleming says the Conservatory’s early adopters are already impressed by what they’ve seen. “I think this software is going to help us to keep track of things at a much closer level, so when problems come up we can respond to them even sooner,” she says. “To care for a living collection requires constant adaptation, and this technology will help us be a little more proactive than reactive.”

Conservation Champion Jill Erzar traveled to Tanzania to help Wild Nature Institute track giraffe across the Serengeti

“Giraffes have been very underestimated, and under-researched for a long time,” says Como Zoo keeper Jill Erzar. “But over the last decade or so, that’s begun to change, and we’re beginning to understand that giraffes are, in fact, highly intelligent, with social hierarchies and relationships that are as complex as elephants and chimpanzees.”

Reaching heights of 18 feet and beyond, giraffes are the tallest mammal on earth. 

But with brains that are relatively small compared to their body size, scientists haven’t always been sure if their elevators go all the way to the top. 

“Giraffes have been very underestimated, and under-researched for a long time,” says Como Zoo keeper Jill Erzar. “But over the last decade or so, that’s begun to change, and we’re beginning to understand that giraffes are, in fact, highly intelligent, with social hierarchies and relationships that are as complex as elephants and chimpanzees.” 

Thanks to a recent grant from Como Friends’ Conservation Champions program, Erzar herself has been contributing to that body of research as a volunteer for the Wild Nature Institute. The conservation group behind the largest demographic survey of giraffes in the world, Wild Nature Institute takes a non-invasive approach to giraffe research, relying entirely on photographic identification to track the births, deaths, movement and social bonds of about 4,100 individual giraffes across 25,000 square miles of the Tarangire and Serengeti ecosystems in Tanzania.  

As a seasoned giraffe keeper who can spot the subtle difference in every giraffe’s unique markings, Erzar’s well-trained eye and expertise were a welcome skill set on the Serengeti this summer, as the conservation group worked to compare and analyze more than a decade’s worth of data about wild giraffe. “I was able to make more than 9,000 matches during the 10 days I spent in country,” says Erzar, who also got the chance to meet and learn from giraffe experts in the field.  “For me the biggest take-away from this trip is that giraffes need protected areas because poaching is still their number one risk. Even with projected climate change impacts in that area, nothing threatens their survival as much as illegal hunting and poaching.” 

Though it will take time for Wild Nature Institute’s findings to be published and shared more widely with other conservation researchers, new discoveries about giraffes are coming to light all the time. For instance, scientists who once considered giraffes to be aloof and anti-social have discovered that in fact, giraffes live in complex social systems and super communities, and even prefer to eat with favored companions. A 2023 study found that giraffes are capable of statistical reasoning, while a 2021 study found that giraffes prefer a fair fight, and will only spar with individuals of the same size. Another growing topic of interest within the giraffe field is the so-called “grandmother hypothesis,” a theory that suggests that menopausal female giraffes may have an important role to play in raising young. 

“It’s really cool to see that giraffes are finally having their moment, and I absolutely love being on the forefront of a group that believes that non-invasive [data gathering] is the best way to study them,” Erzar says. 

Como Friends’ Conservation Champions program, funded with donations from our generous supporters, has made it possible for Jill to travel to Africa three times in recent years, supporting conservation partners in the field, while bringing home new experiences and insights that can help enhance the care she gives to animals at Como Zoo every day. “Making the trip to work with Wild Nature Institute helps me to tell the story of our own giraffes better,” she says. “I can tell visitors that our giraffes really do look and behave just like the giraffes in Tanzania. And the more we learn about giraffes, the more we can do to improve their welfare in the wild and here at Como.”

Blind at birth, Como Zoo’s newest snow leopard is using her other four senses to explore her new world

One of the most anticipated new arrivals at Como Zoo, the seven-pound female snow leopard born on May 6 is taking her time getting acquainted with her new world. Like all snow leopard cubs, spending quality time with her mother is crucial to getting a good start in life.

“With snow leopards, the father is involved in the breeding process, and then he is actively pushed out of the environment in the wild,’’ explains Como Zoo keeper Hans Jorgensen. That’s why Como visitors may notice that father Moutig is almost always outside in the snow leopards’ public habitat, while mother Alya has been behind the scenes, nursing and bonding with her newest cub. “Alya’s an excellent mother, and with this cub, she’s 100 percent invested.”

Moutig

Alya

“Baby and mom are doing great, and I don’t even know if Alya can tell that her cub has no vision,” says Jorgensen. “Six weeks is the point where snow leopard cubs start to get super active, and though she’s blind, she’s very mobile and seems to love exploring.” 

An eager eater, the young cub is also busting her way through the baby growth charts. “She’s a milk-drinking machine,” Jorgensen says proudly.

While she’s hitting all of her developmental milestones, her keepers are also being mindful about ways to make her as comfortable and curious as possible as she grows into her new home. “Milestones for her agility might be pushed back a little later as she figures out the geography of her habitat,” he says. “There might be some accommodations we’ll make for her, things we’ll need to be aware of in terms of keeping her environment very consistent.’’ 

As part of Como Friends’ Sunset Affair fundraising gala this month, the winning bidder in the event’s silent auction will have the chance to select a name for the new cub that captures her native curiosity and fighting spirit. 

“She’s getting fluffier by the day and her claws and paws are gigantic at this point,” says Jorgensen, who’s gotten accustomed to being scratched, clawed and peed on every time he scoops the new cub up for vet care and occasional weigh-ins. “It’s all in a day’s work, but it’s also a big deal to have a new snow leopard cub. Once we could see mother and baby were doing well together, there was a big sigh of relief, and now we’re just enjoying how unbelievably cute they are together.”

A horticultural tradition with roots that go back to 1894, Como’s beloved mosaiculture is back in season

Marjorie McNeely Conservatory assistant gardener Marie Day was wrapping up her work watering the Gates Ajar installation recently when a nearby pedestrian caught her eye to convey a message. 

“She didn’t speak English, but she pointed to Gates Ajar and she started clapping,” Day recalls. “She got the point across.”

Located just east of Lexington Parkway, Gates Ajar earns applause every year from visitors who appreciate the fresh new ways Como’s horticulturists have interpreted this historic horticultural attraction. Created back in 1894, when building topiary-like sculptures from plant material was the height of European flower fashion, Gates Ajar has been a fixture at Como for more than 100 years. With a name inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1851 poem “The Golden Legend,” Gates Ajar is essentially an elaborate upright flower bed that requires more than 100 gardener hours to bring into bloom. 

Day, who designed this year’s installation, says that work starts with bringing new soil into the structure, a “mudding” process similar to putting up drywall. Next, a team of four gardeners and five interns began planting this year’s sun and moon motif out of nearly 10,000 Conservatory-grown annual plants—a  mix of colorful alternanthera and echeveria, a fast-growing succulent. 

Once fully installed, Gates Ajar requires continued and painstaking care, from hand-pulling weeds and trimming overgrowth, to nearly 45 minutes of watering each day. The vertical structure can also be a challenge, says Day. “I’m not very tall, so I have to bring in a step ladder and try not to crush the plant material below me.”

Day says she took her inspiration this year from the more traditional floriculture of the 1940s and 50s, but if she gets a chance to design 2024’s installation, purple would be the dominant color. “Next year is the 40th anniversary of ‘Purple Rain,’” she says. “I’m pretty sure that would be a big crowd-pleaser.”

How to spend a summer day at Como… without spending a dime

With a full roster of daily public programs and the long-awaited return of Como’s fantastic interpretive volunteers, there are more ways than ever to connect to conservation at Como Park Zoo & Conservatory. As the crowds make a comeback, here’s how to make the most of your summer days at Como, Minnesota’s most visited cultural institution. And with free admission for all, making great memories won’t cost a thing…

By removing economic barriers to career-building experiences, Como’s new apprentice program is working to build a more diverse future workforce

For the last year, college junior Joshua Lee has been trying his hand at a variety of zookeeping jobs at Como, from caring for the zebras in the hoofstock building, to climbing in with the penguins to take a crack at cleaning the rock work. 

“That’s not easy,” Lee admits. “When the penguins are nesting, they’re very protective of their space.”

A zoology major at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Lee is curious about the career paths available to him in animal care. Getting the chance to see the inner workings at a zoo has historically required signing on as a volunteer or an unpaid intern—a traditional career path that can be a major barrier to young people who can’t afford to take time away from paid employment. But over the last year, Lee has been earning money and learning about his future options as part of Como Park Zoo & Conservatory’s new paid apprentice program through the City of St. Paul’s Right Track program.

Mayor Melvin Carter’s youth employment initiative, Right Track engages nearly 1,000 young people from cost-burdened homes throughout Saint Paul in a variety of internships. Launched in 2014 through a partnership between the City of Saint Paul, the Saint Paul Public Schools and the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, the program’s goal is to establish a pipeline of career development opportunities for Saint Paul youth. 

Como’s campus managers helped launch the program at Como in 2022, but the program has been in the works for several years, creating a new, fully paid pipeline for young people who are interested in zookeeping and animal management careers. “The program is also designed to ensure that youth don’t have to work multiple jobs to take advantage of an internship opportunity,” says Lianna Sanders, the Como project manager who oversees the Right Track apprentices. “During the school year, they work 20 hours a week, and during the summer months it’s a full-time job for these apprentices, who also take part in professional development training that’s part of the program.” 

Right Track operates out of the City of Saint Paul Department of Parks and Recreation, building on the department’s long history of providing youth development and employment opportunities for Saint Paul youth. While Right Track apprentices at Como are paid minimum wage, a partnership with Como Friends also helps to pay for the gear that apprentices need to be successful on the job, like uniforms and sturdy boots. 

“Como’s audience is incredibly diverse, and it’s important to be recruiting a workforce that reflects the surrounding community,” says Como Friends president Jackie Sticha. This summer, Como will say goodbye to Joshua who completed the program this year and Gil and Gabby will stay on and continue with their work here as Como welcomes additional Right Track apprentices for roles in both animal and plant care at Como Zoo and the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory. 

As Lee returns to college for his senior year, he says his experience at Como has given him many new options to consider. “I still don’t know what I will want to do after I graduate, but what I liked about zookeeping was that every day was a different day, and I had a chance to work with so many different animals,” he says.

To learn more about the Right Track program, visit here.

From animal transport to medical treatments, spring is a busy season at Como Zoo

Humans aren’t the only species that seem to get a spring in their step when the weather turns warm. Jill Erzar, a senior zookeeper at Como Zoo, believes animals anticipate spring just as we do. 

“It seems like animals are always a little more excited this time of year,” she says. “The ice has thawed, there are new smells in their habitats, and of course, many more visitors.” 

On your next visit to Como, you may notice some changes, as zookeepers take advantage of the spring weather to welcome new animals, say goodbye to old friends, and provide best practice veterinary care to animals. Here’s a look: 

Volunteers from Minnesota Bonsai Society have helped the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory cultivate one of the Midwest’s best collections

With their Lilliputian leaves, undulating branches, and fairytale trunks, bonsai can sometimes seem like they come from another world. That’s why Como horticulturist Reva Kos tries to take the mystery out of these miniature potted trees when she talks with curious visitors at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory.

“I want visitors to know that really anyone can create a bonsai,” says Kos, who has served as the curator of Como’s bonsai collection for the past decade. “They’re special trees because of how we take care of them, but they’re just trees. They’re not magically small—they’re just well loved.”

Over the last three decades, the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory’s bonsai collection has been very well loved—not only by Como’s horticultural staff, but also by the Minnesota Bonsai Society. Starting in the early 90s, when First Bank donated a sizable collection of bonsai to the Conservatory, a long list of dedicated volunteers from the Minnesota Bonsai Society (MBS) have contributed their time and expertise in training one of the best bonsai collections for public display in the Midwest. “We wouldn’t have the collection we have without the Bonsai Society,” says Kos. “Working with our volunteers is a collaboration. Everyone who works with bonsai is opinionated about what should happen next with a tree, and it’s fun to bounce ideas off each other.”

MBS member Kirk Hedberg agrees. “With other kinds of artwork, like painting or sculp- ture, you’ll reach a point where you know it’s done, but the thing that’s fascinating about bonsai is that you’re never done—the tree keeps growing and adapting, and you come to an agreement with the tree over a long period of time about how it’s going to look. The tree has ideas and you have ideas, and they’re not always going to mesh.”

A bonsai enthusiast since the 1970s, Hedberg, a retired chemistry teacher from Afton, makes the trip to Como every week to help prune, wire, clean and repot the Conservatory’s collection of more than 130 trees, which range from traditional Japanese maples and junipers, to Ponderosa pines from the Rocky Mountains and Tamarack from Minnesota’s north shore. The wide variety of species, sizes and characteristics of Como’s bonsai allows Kos to select the trees that are blooming or look the best at a given moment for public display in The Ordway Gardens. The upcoming Mother’s Day Bonsai show, slated for May 13 and 14, is a great time to discover the beauty of bonsai, with a few of Kos’ and Hedberg’s insider tips.

Leaning In: Bonsai trunks often tip toward the viewer, a visual trick that draws viewers in to the miniature world bonsai masters are trying to create. But leaning in is not a requirement. “Once you learn all the rules of bonsai, you discover that some of the most beautiful trees break them all,” says Hedberg.

Asian Roots: Bonsai has roots that go back to China in 700 AD where crafting elegant potted trees or “pun-sai” was only for the elite. By the 1200s, bonsai had become a mainstay of Japanese horticulture, spreading through Europe and the West by the late 19th century. As a result, every culture has a certain style, says Hedberg, from the more densely “helmeted” trees you might see in a European collection, to the airier American style influenced by California bonsai master John Yoshio Naka, who believed branches must “leave room for the birds to fly through.” No matter where they come from, Kos says, bonsai are typically planted in a soilless mixture of pumice, lava rock, and akadama, granular clay-like material mined from the volcanic soil near Japan’s Mount Fuji.

Bonsai Styles: Como’s collection includes a wide range of bonsai styles and plant materials, like the Ponderosa pine featured above. Each inset also features a distinct aesthetic style: examples shown above, the Trident Maple with an S-shaped trunk is trained in the informal upright style (Moyogi ); the Japanese Greybark Elm are arranged in a forest style (Yose-ue); the White Cedar represents the formal upright style (Chokkan); and the Chinese Elm features a semi-cascading style (Han-kengai), with branches that drop below the top of the pot.

Artificial Aging: Some of Como’s bonsai are more than 450 years old, but many more are just trained to look that way, with winding trunks and flaring root systems (Nebari) that make the tree look like it’s survived the elements. “Age is an important part of the aesthetic,” says Hedberg. “If you can make a 20-year-old tree look like it’s 200 years old, that’s a successful bonsai.”