The office staff was lined up behind the glass door that looks out on Creative Loafing's parking lot. Anticipation was high, and everyone was angling for a peek. Would there be a monkey? How about a cow? Outside, Marousa Eckley of Noah's Ark On Wheels was setting up a wire fence, inside of which a parade of assorted barnyard animals would soon march, cavort, eat hay and distract slacking employees.
There was no cow and, alas, no monkey. But there was a wide enough sampling of other species — goats, ducks, bunnies, chickens, a rooster, a tortoise, a goose and a lamb wearing a yellow bandana — to keep us rapt for over an hour.
Texturally, the menagerie was a pretty mixed bag. And there's nothing like a bunch of animals to keep the comedy quotient high.
The ducks, their feathers stiff yet soft to the touch, mingled with a rambunctious goose with a hard beak who seemed to have more on his mind than friendship. A soft-as-a-pillow baby goat named Fudge Swirl (many of the animals are named after desserts, thanks to the kids who occasionally get to name them) repeatedly climbed a bale of hay, only to fall off each time into a bucket. The tortoise, oblivious to the two- and four-legged chaos all around him, slowly made his way across the impromptu zoo, eating grass and plowing over all obstacles. A few Loaf staffers brought their children, but it was hard to say who dug it more: the little kids or the full-grown ones.
Although most closely associated with touch (it is a petting zoo), getting up close and personal with representatives of the animal kingdom is a feast for the senses. The noise alone was fascinating: a symphony of quacks, screeches, honks, beeps, coughs, pants and screams rang out from the pen (and that was just the editorial staff, ba-dum-bump). The goose sounded like a screen door in desperate need of WD-40; one of the ducks liked to fart. The interspecies mingling was just as much fun to watch, with mothers defending their young, ducks dunking their heads into a water bucket and spreading their wings, chickens pecking the ground and each other, and two bunnies hopping through the legs of bickering goats.
Noah's Ark is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and in the petting zoo business this is a long time. Many zoos have closed recently, due both to rising insurance costs (Noah's Ark's have doubled in the last year) and public concern about the relative dangers of petting zoos in the wake of a string of E. coli infections linked to a traveling zoo that visited the Strawberry Festival in 2005. Eckley, the owner of the zoo, takes precautions to keep everything safe and infection-free. No one gets out of the cage without a blast of Germ-X hand sanitizer, and the zoo is fully licensed and inspected by the U.S.D.A. (Yes, That's the same U.S.D.A. that certifies the meat you buy at the grocery store.) According to Eckley, petting zoos are perfectly safe provided everyone follows the rules. "You're more likely to get E. coli from an undercooked burger than a petting zoo," she says.
Which is good, since hanging with the animal kingdom is plenty of fun. In addition to the usual kids' birthday parties (which include a zoo like the one we had, plus — a pony!), Noah's Ark has found a niche catering to non-traditional gatherings. Eckley's roster of barnyard superstars has been seen at nursing homes, museums, festivals, corporate events and even last year's Sammy Hagar show at the Ford Amphitheatre. In the next month, Noah's Ark On Wheels will be appearing at public events at Great Explorations museum in St. Petersburg, the Bayside Bridge Plaza in Clearwater, the City of Safety Harbor's Easter egg hunt, and at the Arts Center St. Petersburg.
Feel free to go hang out with the animals, but remember: Leave the barbecue sauce at home.
For more information on Noah's Ark On Wheels, visit their website at noahsarkonwheels.com.
Upcoming Noah's Ark On Wheels events
3/31: Bayside Bridge Plaza, located at the corner of McMullen Booth Road and State Road 590 in Clearwater. From 1-4 p.m., Noah's Ark will have a large zoo, two ponies and Eckley's son in a chicken outfit(!).
3/31: The City of Safety Harbor's Easter Eggstravaganza, 940 Seventh St. S., Safety Harbor. Hours are 10 a.m.-1 p.m. For more info on the event, check out the website at http://www.cityofsafetyharbor.com/CurrentEvents.asp?EID=398
4/7: Great Explorations Children's Museum, 1925 Fourth Street N., St. Petersburg. The petting zoo will be on hand from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. (greatexplorations.org)
4/15: Arts Center St. Petersburg, 719 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. The petting zoo and a pony will be there from 1-4 p.m. (theartscenter.org)
Urban Explorer's Handbook 2007
Sensory Overload Edition
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This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2007.