Between the San Diego Zoo and its offshoot San Diego Zoo Safari Park there are close to 800 species, each with different needs and requirements for its diet. So the Nutritional Services team at the Zoo — lead by director Andrea Fidgett — spends nearly all of its time understanding the diets of these animals and figuring our how to feed over 7,500 of them (including 3,000 in the Safari Park) on a daily basis.
“Our animals are incredibly important to us,” Fidgett tells me in this episode of How to Make It. “Many of them are species that are very threatened, so it makes no sense to cut corners on the quality of the food because that could have consequences for their health.” The fruits and vegetables used to feed the animals are coming from the exact same purveyor that provides for the dining options at the Zoo, just one of the many ways the team here takes care of each and every animal at the Zoo.
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