She makes little squeaky sounds, and she purrs like an overgrown house cat, and she listens in on the conversations of people she knows, like Valentine and Strong. For all of Alder's sleek sociability, she's still a mountain lion. This is what Vicki Valentine, the zoo's education coordinator, tells the 15,000 schoolchildren she visits in Northern California classrooms each year. This is what zoo docents like Lloyd Strong emphasize to the waves of schoolkids who come through the zoo on tours each year. It's a simple, important message.
Wild animals belong in the wild.
They don't make good pets. You never know the impact you'll have, but you plant the seed. And so she was finishing up a presentation to a group of first graders the other day. It's her mantra, as well as her mission. With 1,200 schoolkids already scheduled for zoo tours in April and another 1,700 scheduled for May, Valentine wants to add to the zoo's small roster of docents available to volunteer on weekday mornings.