
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 8, 1990                   TAG: 9007080202
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ZOO'S BEAVER GETTING NEW HOME

A recent $10,000 gift to the Blue Ridge Zoological Society will pay for a new beaver exhibit at the Mill Mountain Zoo.

Zoo director Beth Poff said Saturday that preliminary work on the exhibit has already begun, and the zoo's beaver should be in his new home by Aug. 5.

Poff declined to identify the source of the money, saying the individual donor preferred to remain anonymous.

The mountaintop zoo has been home for Theodore, a male beaver, since last fall. The animal was orphaned during Tropical Storm Hugo and was nursed through his ordeal at the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Weyers Cave.

The exhibit will re-create a river's edge and will enable the beaver to try his hand at dam building, said Poff.

Eventually, Poff said, the zoo hopes to add more beavers to the exhibit, which will be built on the zoo's western edge near the Arctic fox and red panda exhibits.

by CNB