Category — Night Hunters

The countdown is on – 22 days until the Night Hunters exhibit is scheduled to open! This will be quite a busy three weeks for everyone as the deadline approaches. There still seems to be quite a bit of finishing work to do…

Here’s some of what’s happening on site this week:

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This week’s post is all about painting…

When the Carnivora House was renovated and transformed into the Cat House in 1985, local artists John and Emily Agnew painted beautiful, naturalistic murals on the walls of the new animal enclosures. During this renovation, we wanted to be sure to preserve as much of that original artwork as possible while freshening and touching up the exhibits that needed it.

The public areas, however, are getting an entirely new, fresh layer of paint. Once the final coat dries, subtle silhouettes of various nocturnal predators will be painted on the back walls in a slightly darker shade of blue. As a guest, you might not even notice these or perhaps just catch a glimpse of one as you pass by if the lighting is just right. It just adds another dimension to the mystery of the journey through the night, we hope.

Now that the signage is out to print, I’m focusing my attention on the digital interpretive components. In particular, I’m pulling together the plan (and text and images) for what we’re calling the media wall.

The purpose of the media wall is to visually capture the visitors’ attention and draw them to the message that wild cats, even the small ones, play a vital role in nature and that the Zoo is working to protect them.

Four flat screen monitors are tucked into a larger photo collage of a variety of cats. Images, brief video clips, and quotes/text are displayed on each monitor. There is no intended linear progression within the programs that would require visitors to stick around and watch each one from beginning to end. It’s more like the digital images are just a dynamic part of the collage.

The current state of the Night Hunters media wall. It still needs a bit of work.

We are proud to be a leader in small cat reproduction, research, and conservation. The five small cats we focus most of our work on are the fishing cat, sand cat, black-footed cat, Pallas’ cat, and Southern Brazilian ocelot. These are the species that are featured most prominently on the media wall. Learn more about our cat programs on our web site.

The five small cats on which we focus our conservation and research programs.

Here are some other recent snapshots of the construction process:

Construction crew rolls in the glass window front of the new fishing cat exhibit.

Graphics Manager, Greg Hanson, checks the placement of an ID sign mock-up. Can you find the error on the sign itself? Good thing it's just a mock-up!

Painting the walls inside the vampire bat exhibit; the mood is blue throughout the building...