Gearing up for the game, animals at Potter Park Zoo made their predictions on Sunday for the upcoming Oct. 21 football game when Michigan State hosts Michigan.
Eight different zoo exhibits experienced enrichment activities, put on by zookeepers and park volunteers to see which team the animals would pick: the Spartans or the Wolverines.
“We usually pick a theme and we pick about eight different exhibits that we stop at and do enrichment with,” Jill Garnett, a park volunteer, said. “Enrichment is something different in the exhibit to bring out an activity or natural behavior, which is really good for the animals both mentally and physically. We get to see some really cool behaviors that maybe you don’t get to see when you’re just walking around in the zoo.”
Food was involved at every exhibit's enrichment at the event.
The two-hour long event kicked off at the arctic fox exhibit. Two cardboard boxes were put into the exhibit, one colored green and the other colored blue, both containing the same food. The fox, Sprinkles, eventually nudged the blue Michigan box first, giving the first point of the day to the Wolverines.
Exhibit number two tested bald eagles, Hal and Luca. Food was put into two paper bags, each bag had a green or blue face painted on it. Luca made his way into the blue bag, giving Michigan another point.
Michigan State finally had a breakthrough at the raven exhibit when the male raven, Rocky, chose the white MSU egg to snack on over the yellow Michigan egg.
For this event, the zoo decided to use cows as one of their exhibits for this event. Garnett said using cows was “in honor of Michigan State," due to the university historically being an agriculture school.
However, the cows did not honor Michigan State in their prediction selection. Michigan received another point after the blue paper bag of hay was touched first. Other livestock in the farmyard had an opposing view, as the alpacas eventually picked MSU as their prediction.
The final three exhibits, including the snow leopard picking a cardboard cutout of a Michigan football player over an MSU football, all earned points for the Wolverines, ending in a final score of 6-2 in favor of Michigan to win this month's game.
This event is not the first to occur at Potter Park Zoo. The zoo holds four enrichment events every year, one in each season, and have been for several years. Attendee Tasha Sairls has been at these enrichment events before.
“I’ve came out in previous years. I used to work for CMH (Community Mental Health) and I used to bring my students out here to this event each year, so then I started bringing my children to this event,” Sairls said.
At last year's enrichment event, Sairls said that Michigan State won. Even though she is hoping for MSU to win the game, she predicted the animals would choose Michigan to win.
Sairls also said that the animals can change from event to event, but some stay consistent. The decision of which animals were being used for this event was dependent on the judgement of Garnett.
“I picked the animals, and I wanted to pick ones that, first of all, I thought might react in someway ... or the ones that might spread out around the different zookeeper areas in the zoo," Garnett said. “Then I tried to think of what can I set up for this one that’s kind of a choice, a food choice, and how they’re going to go get it. I kind of tried to think 'How do we represent the animals around the zoo?'”
Potter Park Zoo is hosting upcoming events throughout this month. On Oct. 7, the zoo is hosting College Day, giving free admission to anyone who shows a student ID. Starting on Oct. 14, and occurring every following weekend this month, the zoo will be holding Boo At The Zoo.
