Get the Long Island Game Farm animals ready for winter at Camp Zoo
Wei Liu, of Center Moriches, with her daughter Daisy Sun, 1, and son Joseph Sun, 3, feed the deer at Long Island Game Farm. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
Children will see what it’s like for animals to forage for food to stock away for the winter during their own hunt for hidden items at the Long Island Game Farm in Manorville.
The activity is part of the farm’s Camp Zoo: How Animals Get Ready for Winter, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Nov. 11, when kids are off from school for Veterans Day. Once they find the “food,” the children will look for places they think would be good places for animals to store it for the winter.
“We’ll also walk through the trails and look for different animal tracks and scat,” says Shannon Swanson, a teacher who will be leading the program, which is aimed at students in second through fifth grades.
Participants will also learn about how the Game Farm’s animals adapt for the winter. The red foxes, for instance, grow thicker and longer winter coats, says Melinda Novak, Game Farm president. “Most of our animals do grow fur coats; even the zebras grow thicker fur,” Novak says. The farm’s giraffe, however, is sent to Florida for the winter, Swanson says.
Children should dress for being outdoors and should bring their own lunch; the game farm will provide hot cocoa with marshmallows.
Can’t make it for Camp Zoo day? This winter will mark the second year the game farm stays open on weekends through the winter, Novak says.
CAMP ZOO
WHEN | WHERE The game farm is at 489 Chapman Blvd., Manorville, 631-878-6644, longislandgamefarm.com.
COST The program costs $65 per child. Advance registration is required.
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
