Brookgreen Gardens Lowcountry Zoo prepares for hurricane season
MURRELLS INLET, S.C. (WBTW) — Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet has plans in place for potential natural disasters as hurricane season nears.
The Lowcountry Zoo at Brookgreen Gardens exhibits around 230 animals native to the southeast, and they all have their own routine for when bad weather comes.
Vice President and Curator Andrea DeMuth said they have specific plans for flooding, wildfires and hurricanes.
“If a tree falls on a fence and takes it down, they’re out and then that’s an issue,” DeMuth said. “So, we have double fencing which should prevent some of that. There’s perimeter fence around the animal fence.”
The zoo collection has been around for decades. It currently houses cows, goats, ducks, foxes, an alligator and other animals.
“If we have a hurricane coming to this area, we go around the zoo, and we get all the animals prepped,” DeMuth said. “We make sure we have extra food made up so if we don’t come in for a day, there’s diets to be put out beforehand and then we’re gone while the storm’s hitting the area.”
DeMuth said most of the animals can stay in place during a storm, but they do lock the otters up.
“Who knows what they’ll get into, but it’s the same thing with trees hitting the fence,” she said. “And if they were out, they would be able to get out into the wild.”
DeMuth said the red wolves exhibit is the newest and they have 4 of 250 still alive in the world. She said along with the otters, the red wolves are brought inside so workers are able to bring them food and water buckets.
“It has three stalls, so this group can have two stalls and the one in the back pen can have one stall,” DeMuth said. “And we’ll know that they’re in there and that it’s air conditioned and it has heat in the winter, but air conditioning during hurricane season.”
DeMuth said herding animals is not an easy task, but they’ve had to do it a couple times. She said when they do, it takes all five zookeepers as well as other staff members.
“We hold nets and catch polls to makes our arms look bigger and we all stand in a line and then you’re trying to move them up into the corner to where they follow along the fence line,” DeMuth said. “It’s kind of a natural animal thing for herding, but if we can get them to follow the fence line . . . they’ll go right in the catch pen and someone will be hiding in the little booth behind the catch pen that drops the door.”
DeMuth said the only time they’ve had to move animals was in 2018 during Hurricane Florence because it was predicted to be a category four storm.
“In the history of the time I’ve been here, we’ve only been told to stay home for the one day of when the storm was going to hit,” she said. “It hasn’t been more than one day, if it was going to be more than one day, we would lobby to have a zookeeper stay here overnight in a safe building so they could come out and check on things when the weather lights up a little bit.”
DeMuth said Hurricane Matthew in 2016 did the most damage to the zoo because of the river swelling and it flooded three exhibits.
“Our natural otter exhibit, our old alligator exhibit, and then our fox one was completely underwater,” she said. “So, we had a devise method to get the food to the animals, we had to wear waiters to get in there.”
* * *
Jackie LiBrizzi is a multimedia journalist at News13. Jackie is originally from Hamilton, New Jersey, and was raised in Piedmont, South Carolina. Jackie joined the News13 team in June 2023 after she graduated as a student-athlete from the University of South Carolina in May 2023. Follow Jackie on X, formerly Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, and read more of her work here.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW.
