Voice First World

Hey listeners, it’s Jen Vellenga. Welcome back to the Speak with Presence podcast or welcome if you’re brand new. This is a really exciting episode about the Kansas City Zoo and Aquarium. And if you didn’t know, the aquarium is brand new. They are having record numbers over at the Zoo and Aquarium. And we are so excited to share the message from Sean Putney, who is the CEO and executive director.

He tells all kinds of stories and you know, we love a good story. So take a listen to zoo stories and conservation efforts, and then go visit your local zoo. Thanks for listening. Here’s Episode 90. 

What can $75 million build you? There’s a lot of work and then you start building on, well, okay, now we’re definitely doing this. What animals are we going to have in here? Where can we acquire them? What stories can we tell, conservationally, educationally?  All that has to fit together. Even though we’re not for profit, you still have to make a profit to make sure it all continues to run.

Welcome to the Speak with Presence podcast.  I’m Jen Vellenga and I’m Jennifer Rettele-Thomas. On this podcast we believe perfection is overrated. Leaders listen and we all speak up to influence change. We are here in the podcast studio at Real Media Kansas City with our guest, the executive director and CEO who has some wild stories. Literally wild, JRT.

In late 2021, after a nationwide search, the Kansas City Zoo and Aquarium selected Sean Putney as their new executive director and CEO, but he was no stranger to the KC Zoo because he started as the animal curator and scaled the ranks to become the chief zoological officer before taking his current role.  Would it be correct in saying that he went from CZO to CEO? That is right.  And he was previously at the famous Omaha Zoo. And during his career, he’s been in charge of everything from the zoo’s animal collection, the vet health department, facilities, animal care staff, to the very important conservation programs.

Well, and I want to point out when we originally visited with him and in 2007, he mentioned that when he came to the Kansas City Zoo and Aquarium, there were about 450,000 visitors a year.  And we’re excited to share that in 2023, there was a record year of 1,070,000 visitors. And I think he’s going to share with us even some, maybe some more exciting statistics, even since we last talked to him.

Big first quarter stats in March, but we won’t steal his thunder. We’re not going to take that away from him. I’m certain this is in part because of Sean’s leadership, and I can’t wait to dive in and learn from him. And hear a few wild stories.

Sean, welcome to the Speak with Presence podcast. I’m elated to be here. Thank you for inviting me. You’re actually here with a couple of monkeys. You are here with a couple of monkeys. So Sean, we’ll just dive, actually, no, we’re not going to dive right in yet. I’m going to ask. So you were telling us before we were on air that you had a really big quarter and a big March.

Yeah, best beginning of the year ever. So, it’s always great to start the year off and not dig yourself out of a hole. And of course, the aquarium, the new aquarium that just opened last September was helpful in that. But mother nature was also amazing in February and March. We started off the year slow in January.  We were about 12,000 people behind. You might recall, we had some snow and cold weather in the middle of the month here.

But in February, we had our best February ever and March, we not only had our best March ever, it was our best month ever. There’s 154,000 people who came to visit. I mean, think about it. That’s almost an average of 5,000 people a day. Oh my gosh. And you can, you have the capacity to manage all those people. It’s a little tough for us in the first quarter. We’re still hiring on what we used to call the busy season, but, February and March were an extension of the busy season for us.

And how long has the zoo been in existence? And aquarium?  We are now, well, with the aquarium, not even a year. Right. But the zoo in total, it began in 1909. So, what’s that, almost 115 years? Yeah. And March 2024 was the biggest month in history. Ever, yes. Wow.

How much do you attribute that to the aquarium? We’re here in Kansas, so, you know, we’re in the Midwest. We had some great weather for the most part, so that’s helpful to get people out, but do you think the aquarium really helped boost that because of just new things and environment? There’s no doubt that it did. And we’ll probably never know how much of the percentage is due to the aquarium.

One of the big goals for the aquarium was to stretch out our, what we call off season and our shoulder seasons. So, I do attribute the aquarium to getting people’s interest peaked for something new and come out to see that as well as what we consider an already great experience. But if it’s 20 degrees outside, most people aren’t going to want to have that experience, even though you can go inside the aquarium to get away from it.  So, Mother Nature did have a lot to play with, too.

Well, and when you decide to do something new, like an aquarium, the leadership team and the board must go, well, let’s hope this works. Or, you know, it becomes part of your mission, of course, but you wonder, will it have the ROI?  But early on, you already know the answer, I think. Well, you hope, I mean, we put 10 years into this. We literally started talking about this back in 2014 right after we built the Helzberg Penguin Plaza. And Mr. Helzberg actually came out to my predecessor and said, have you ever thought about building an aquarium?

And the answer is, of course, sure. So that was the very beginning of the talks. And from there, there’s a lot of work that goes into it. A lot of planning. How much of the budget can you do? How much of a budget do you need? What can $75 million dollars build you. So there was a lot of work and then you start building on. Well, okay, now we’re definitely doing this. What animals are we going to have in here? Where can we acquire them? What stories can we tell? Conservationally, educationally, all that has to fit together. And so far, so good. It has achieved everything that we thought it would.  Very good.

Yeah, your inventory for that is very different than another kind of business and the mission to make sure it’s about conservation as well is so important. And I know it’s really important to you having spoken to you before about that. Yeah, it’s definitely a business. I mean, even though we’re not for profit, you still have to make a profit to make sure it all continues to run. So, it’s a little bit of an anomaly when people talk about not for profit.

Yes, we are mission driven. But in order to make, in order to drive that mission, we still need to make money. We have 244 full-time employees that we have to pay their salaries and benefits for and animal food never goes down. I think our bill last year was approaching $700,000. So all of those things, you have to heat the buildings when it’s cold in January and, you know, really, really expending a lot of energy towards making sure the animals are still comfortable. That costs money.

So, the not-for-profit verbiage doesn’t really go well together in my brain, but, we have been also very successful with our mission because of the successes that we’ve achieved in the business realm.  Absolutely.  So when you think about leading an organization that diverse,  the employees that you manage, the  animals, the stakeholders, and that nonprofit, what are your specific leadership principles that guide you as you are overseeing the whole ecosystem?

I hope you appreciate, I used that word by the way. I did, yes, you brought it right back to home for me.  It is truly my goal is just to shepherd the flock and make sure everything is going in the right direction. We have 10 different departments that all have individual goals that lead up to the strategic plan and making sure that we’re successful.

Each one of those departments has separate goals and it’s my job just to make sure that we’re running in that direction. And we have an amazing group of leaders, whether it be at the directorial level, management level, team leads and supervisors, they’re all responsible for helping to lead the zoo in the right direction. And then of course, our entry level employees, too.  I can’t succeed without everybody else succeeding in what they do on a daily basis.

So you think about zoos. And every time you talk about employees, you immediately go to the people who take care of the animals. And they are the majority of our full-time staff. We have well over 100 people now that are employed that just their main responsibility, I shouldn’t say just because it’s not just taking care of the animals, but that is their main responsibility. But there are a lot of other folks from education. We have a finance department. We have development department, maintenance department, fleet folks, the horticulture folks. It’s all across the board. It’s really like taking care of a small city. Even though local mayors might disagree with me a bit, it’s on a much smaller scale. But a lot of different people doing different things to achieve overall goals that the zoo sets.

You shared with us a story about the penguins, and it was a pandemic collaboration between the zoo and the Nelson-Atkins Museum.  Do you mind sharing with our listeners a little bit about that collaboration and what you do? What made you nervous in how that went?

That’s a good one. In our industry, we will never necessarily be rich monetarily when we’re done with our careers, but we will be rich with stories and that is a great one. My predecessor who a lot of people know, Randy Wisthoff, had worked with the leadership down at Nelson-Atkins and I think at that point in time we either just opened or is just before we reopened from the pandemic. But they unfortunately, like a lot of other businesses out there, weren’t able to open yet. It was all inside and so they were looking for, you know, notice by the public and being in people’s thoughts.

So we had agreed to take some Humboldt penguins down there to walk around, which was fine. Inside the museum?  Yes, inside the museum. And we had several of us who were just penguin herders. How many penguins? We had three. Three, okay. Penguin herders. Right? But I noticed as I walked around one corner that there was a Monet which was literally inches off the ground.  And when I told the story to you all, penguins can projectile poop at times, so it’s not just like, you know, a horse or a cow or an elephant where they’re dropping it, right?  It can often times fly out of there. And all I could think about was this painting, probably tens of millions of dollars, and how do you clean that off? I mean, we had rags and we had cleaning equipment if it was on the floor, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t want us rubbing off a Monet painting. 409.

No archivists running around with paintbrushes behind you. No 409. They all seemed very fine with it. They were all laughs, but I think all of us were more worried about what could happen than they were. And we told them about this possibility. Oh, don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. Okay. Whatever you say.

It’s a very endearing video. You can catch it on YouTube and we will link to it in the show notes. It was heartwarming when all of us, most of us were still stuck at home to see, you know, they were affected too. They maybe didn’t realize it, but their worlds changed as well. And what a smart idea to bring those two things together, the zoo and the museum. So we’ll post that in the show notes. 

Okay, can I ask another? I got another question for a story. Alright. Sean is rich with stories. I’m going for it. Alright.  We talk a lot about presence on this podcast. We’re usually talking about humans.  Today, we’re talking about animals. All context. Is there a way you show up with animals that requires confidence or let’s say adjustments to the way you behave in the space with animals?  So yes, but not necessarily the presence that you’re discussing. Or the presence with a C, either of those, it is important for whatever animals you’re working with. But the higher educated, the bigger brained animals need more enrichment.

And so something along the lines of a chimpanzee, a gorilla, an orangutan, they need more to enrich their brains during the day. So we try to give them things that will keep them mentally stimulated. Sometimes that’s training. So you talk about the presence with a C of the trainers who are there and animal care folks who are taking care of them.

And sometimes it is about presents with a T where you’re bringing enrichment items for them to be curious about. Sometimes it’s food. Sometimes, we have little puzzles that they can look at. Sometimes it’s something as simple as, I don’t know if they make these much anymore, but phone books are usually quite popular.  Just like a two-year-old ripping pages out of a phone book, they enjoy that.

So we have a calendar for all of our animals. And the lower animals, invertebrates, so a cockroach isn’t going to get much enrichment, although they might get a different food every once in a while. But it’s literally on a daily basis for the animals that are, that have a higher cognitive level.

My curiosity, as somebody that has only been around, you know, the traditional animal, right? Domestics?  Sure, we’ll use that word. Domestic? You know, a dog, cat, horse. Let’s just, you know, I have always felt that if you show up, okay, I’m going to use the word, confident around that animal or not having anxiety, that you get a different response from that animal.

Now that may just be my own perception or belief of the animal population, but do you feel like that exists and working with animals? Yes and no. Okay. So, if you’re just talking about you’re having some internal anxiety.  I don’t know the answer to that. They might be able to detect that. We don’t know, but I can tell you, you started talking about how you come in and I could see the looks on your face of maybe you have a different look on your face that they will look at whether it be a dog or chimpanzee or gorilla, elephant. They recognize that you’re doing something different, like, oh, they only make that face when I have to take my medicine. It’s like, you know, you walk down the hallway at a different time during the day. It’s like, what’s that person doing here?

So yes, I think they can detect some things and it is odd because sometimes when we do have a certain procedure, we have a veterinary checkup or if we’re sending an animal out, we try to do everything as normal as we possibly can. And a lot of times the animal acts different or doesn’t do what you want them to do. And it’s like, I can’t believe that this is happening. We did everything. So maybe there is some sort of innate sense that they can hear or feel or just understand by your body motions, that it’s different.

I’ll give you a great story on this. We trained a rhinoceros. We got a crate in months in advance. This animal is going to go out to another zoo. We trained the animal to go in there, and it felt very comfortable. Never closed the back door for a while, so it felt comfortable. Then we closed the back door, so it felt comfortable with the door being closed. The day came, and you have specialized animal shippers who are coming to pick up the crate and take it to the other zoo. And, so you need everything to go smoothly.

We had everything, we made sure everybody at the zoo knew about this, nobody was going to go there with a garbage truck or, you know, filling up a pop stand or things like that.  And that animal would not go in that crate. And it wasn’t a long delay, so we were fortunate in that. But every other day before that walks right in, everything’s fine, you give them a lot of food and enrich them and train them to be comfortable there and that day refused to go in for, I think it was a half hour, maybe an hour. Oh my gosh. So frustrating. It wasn’t, I’m not leaving my friends! It was not getting in that box to go meet some new friends at the new zoo!  And I don’t, it could just be circumstance, coincidence, but, I don’t know. We just don’t know.

You do have that feeling of, we did all of this beforehand. Every other day was fine. The day that it has to happen, something was in that animal that decided not to go in there. It’s like I can feel it. I can feel you guys are doing something. What’s going on? What is that semi doing out there? Although you tried to hide it. We did hide it. I know, there’s something going on. 

Well, I want to ask, I mean, I want to hear so many more stories. I want to ask about conservation, but before I do that, I’m going to say, is there something about the zoo and the aquarium that, you’ve been there a long time, you walk around and you think, God, you know, most people don’t know this.

Is there something that often hits you? Like the general population just has no idea. Well, I think most people would be shocked when they would go behind the scenes and see, for example, the aquarium. I’ll keep going back to that. But even when we had penguins, I think most people just have no idea what it takes to make the facility operate the way that it needs to. Whether it be for the animals or for the humans or a combination of the two, but specifically for animals that need life support systems like fish.

There’s a lot of filtration that’s involved with that. And most people have no idea. It’s literally the entire basement. There’s an entire floor below where the aquarium sits that is devoted to water quality, pumps, filters, water storage, water makeup, all of that. Then we have an additional half floor that’s above everything that has the majority of our filters.  So just the infrastructure that it takes, in addition to the regular infrastructure that we’re all used to, HVAC and heating and air conditioning. That’s normal. But most people have no idea the amount of extra stuff it takes to run it.

Hmm. And I would assume you’re going to be impressed with this.  Let’s see.  So seriously, how many generators, backup, redundancy systems do you have? Because you can’t go down in some situations. For some more than others. We have not only generators, but backup heating systems. So sometimes you don’t necessarily need a whole generator. You just need some additional heat, some additional lighting.

But for things that, like the aquarium or penguins, our Stingray Bay, if those go down, it becomes a life-threatening situation. So you have to have immediate fixes. And they do have backup generators. In fact, again, another good story, when we were going through the process of what are wants and needs for the aquarium. We started off with one gigantic generator and we decided, okay, well, what happens if that dies? Doesn’t fire. Then we’re still having a problem. So we went to two. So what if, you know, on the rare chance that if one of them went down, is that going to be enough? And so we actually ended up with three.  We went through this and we have three generators that sit out back of the aquarium. So if one of them does go down, we still have 66 percent that can operate and make sure that those animals stay alive.

 But that is something that we do have to prepare for and it’s not something that we simply do because we want to, it’s mandated. USDA officially mandates that you have to make sure you have emergency situations in place that if there was, God help us, if a tornado went through there or, if it’s just really cold days, you can’t say, well, I just didn’t have enough.

You have to be prepared for that. And if we did have a building that went down, we do have the ability to supplement heat. We can move some animals around, but you can’t take an elephant to another building, so we have a backup generator there. Yeah. No, you can’t. Or the giraffe. Right. Right. We have backup heaters there.

And every time we build a new building, we talk about those things of what do we need for emergency situations? And each animal’s a little bit different of what the answer to that is.  Thank you. Sure.

So, people who don’t like zoos. There are people, JRT, there are people who rail against zoos. Not us.  We love to be, we understand what they do, and we love the animals. That makes me sad. But okay, I understand. But there are people who have perceptions about zoos that you would know, and you actually mentioned this to us when we talked originally.  What are, what do you do to educate the uneducated. I’m not going to say ignorant. The uneducated public about what’s happening at responsible zoos around the world and the conservation efforts that are a big part of it.  Could you share some stories about that?

Yeah. I’d first like to thank you for having that question. You know, some people might say, well, why would you ask that question? Why don’t we stay positive? But I actually appreciate the opportunity to talk about the negative and oftentimes when I’m on air, whether it be TV or radio or podcast, there’s not enough time to get into that subject.

And you feel like I’d love to have that opportunity. So I appreciate the question. Number one. And the answer to that is there are going to be people who you love zoos and aquariums, no matter what. Anything that goes on, they’re going to be your supporters. But there are equally as many people on the other side that for one reason or another hate zoos and aquariums.

And so you really try to focus your message on the people in the middle who can be influenced. And try to spread that word that the tough part is folks who don’t like zoos and aquariums seem to have all the time and money in the world to spread a message, which their message sounds really good.

I mean, it used to be 20 years, 30 years ago, the messages were just kind of off the wall and you thought, well, that person doesn’t seem right. But now they actually went, if you were to read, if I were to read some of these, they seem very well educated. Someone who cares about animals, I’m sure, yeah.

But they don’t give the whole story. So you’re not getting the whole thing. And they’ll talk about elephants in the wild. They have to walk a hundred miles and they need all this space.  But the reality is we’re giving them a lot. We’re taking care of all of that and a lot of times the reason why they’re walking a hundred miles is because they don’t have any water or they don’t have any food.

And so, yes, you are correct. They are correct in the fact that it is different at the zoo. It is different at an aquarium. They don’t have the same space that they would have in a wild area, but we do provide them with much better care, and much better food and take care of all of their needs.

And I consider them the ambassadors of their species. And there was just an article this morning that came out from IUCN about the red list. And the sad thing is that animals are going on to the endangered species list faster than ever before in history and they’re not coming off. I mean there are some good stories over time.  So oftentimes at zoos we focus on these really sad stories where animals are dying out. The Wyoming toad population.

I know they’re not cute and fuzzy, but it’s a cool story. They were declared extinct in the wild back in 1984, no more animals in the wild. There were only a population that was held at zoos. 17 animals were left. That’s it.  And since that point in time, zoos and aquariums and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife have joined together to reproduce those animals so that you could put them back into the wild.

Are we successful yet? They don’t have a sustainable population yet in the wild, but since that time, over 200,000 tadpoles and toadlets and adult toads have now been sent out from these zoos and aquariums. And without us, where would they be? Extinct? Is it okay? You know, there are some people out there who say, well, if they couldn’t live on their own.

Survival of the fittest. And they shouldn’t be. But the reality is, we as humans, have created some of these problems. And if your goal is not to sustain species, if you don’t care about the species themselves, you might want to take a look in the mirror. Because at what point in time are these animals, we kill off so many species, that it’s now problematic for us and our survival.

So if you don’t care about the animal side of things, think about the human side of things, because I don’t know what that point is. Nobody really knows what that point is, but it’s scary when you start talking about 40 percent of amphibians and 20 percent of reptiles just on the brink of extinction.

So going back to your actual question, are zoos much different than they were back in the 60s and 70s. We’ve come a long way. And we are still about a place where families should be able to come and have fun, have a good time, but we hope that is the hook. That you have a good time, but you fall in love with the animals while you’re there. And by falling in love with the animals, we hope that you leave with a message, and maybe you’ll care about those animals, and the environment from which they come so that as they grow older, a lot of our visitors are younger that they will be become future conservationists.

So, we have a responsibility of zoos and aquariums and I feel that we’re doing so much better in the realm of conservation. When I first started at the zoo, we spent about $50,000 on conservation a year. Some of that was because those were hard times. We only had 450,000 people visiting and now we have a million.

So, some of that money that we earn is going back to conservation. This past year we spent about $350,000 on conservation and we have 20 different projects around the world and close to home. Whether it be the Wyoming Toad in Wyoming, Spotted Skunks in Missouri, Freshwater Mussels. They don’t have cute fuzzy heads, but again, really important animals.

And then we do support things like orangutans in the wild and reforestation and anti-poaching in South Africa. Like I said, it’s global. When we were doing our research to bring you on to the podcast, we saw a few of your staff members talking about those efforts, and they do an incredible job. But they’ve gone all over the world with reforestation and education programs, and it does sound like you must be involved in a consortium of zoos and caretakers of the wild. Is that accurate? 

Yes, in some cases. We have, like I said, about 20 programs where we are very committed. And sometimes that includes boots on the ground. We have program champions. So there’s a person at the zoo who’s responsible for that particular program. And they report back and they work with the groups, whether it be in a different country or here in Missouri, Missouri Department of Conservation.

There are other programs that we’re simply sending funds to. So we are not specifically having boots on the grounds for the tiger programs, but we do support tiger conservation by sending funds to support those programs. And you mentioned, orangutans and reforestation. I think that the count now is 24,000 trees in Borneo that have been replanted.

That’s not just by us. There is a consortium. And AZA, the Zoo and Aquarium Association is creating safe programs, saving animals from extinction. And so there are groups of zoos and aquariums that get together and help to provide funds, help to provide people to help out. It just depends on the program itself.

But, really a great way, because we can’t do it all. And sometimes that becomes frustrating. There are so many stories and so many animals out there in environments that need help. Kansas City Zoo can’t do it all, but we can do our fair share.  That’s so good to know. I think that a lot of people probably don’t know that perspective.

What’s the one animal you’re worried about the most? Oh boy.  Well, I’m the champion of the Wyoming Toads.  You’re like, I already told you, it’s a Wyoming Toad. I don’t know that I would, I mean, they’re extinct in the wild and they’re close to my heart. I’ve been working with them for 16 years.  But each one of those programs that we have are worthy. And there’s so many other things out there too. You know, being in a new aquarium, I could bring up the corals. We aren’t involved in a coral project yet, but you look at last year and the temperatures of the oceans and how devastating that was for these reefs, and it really worries you. And again, whether you’re an animal lover or not, that should really be shocking that these ecosystems are falling apart.

And maybe they’ll bounce back. Maybe this year will be a little bit better, and they can bounce back, and they, animals, if given the chance, they will recover. But the health of the oceans, we’re getting a lot of our sustenance from there. If the acidity increases, to a certain point, some of these animals can’t lay down calcium. So if you can’t lay down calcium to form a shell, there’s no more crabs. There’s no more shrimp.  Things that we eat.  So it’s scary. Yeah, it’s scary across the whole world, the kind of sustainability we’re looking at right now, and it’s inspiring to know the zoo is doing their part in some small way or the way that you can in your own sphere.

So that’s really wonderful to hear from you about that. We are going to go visit the zoo next week or the week after, and we’re going to capture some video there. So we will make sure we find some of these areas, but I’m certain you are sharing some of these things in your displays and in your exhibition so people learn not just from our little podcast, but as they visit the zoo.

Yeah, and as you come through, we’ve tried to do a much better job messaging. So we have, it’s not really a billboard, it’s a conservation board. That’s probably 10 feet high and 20 feet wide that trying to shout that from the mountaintop about the things that we are doing out there in the wild and I do recognize that not everybody might stop by there and read every single thing. But hopefully it draws the attention of a percentage, or you know, especially for our members who come often. Maybe one time they don’t see it, but another time they do. And they take the time to see what we are doing.  And they should be proud of it, too.

Our staff is definitely proud of the things that we’ve been doing, but the members should be proud, too, because a portion of the proceeds we get from the entrance fee is going towards conservation. So, it’s not just us. They should be proud of it, too.  Wonderful.

Well, you know, Jen asked you what is the one thing we may not know about the zoo and you answer that question for me. It’s this last part of the podcast, just hearing about, you’re right, there’s plenty of displays for us to all to read, but oftentimes we just keep on cruising to go really see the elephant or the giraffe or the monkeys, and we don’t stop and read all the details, but I think it’s important for all of us to know how our local communities, our local zoos, are really making a bigger difference from a global standpoint, and I don’t think we take into appreciation that enough.

So thank you for those efforts on behalf of your role.  Because we all have a big part, we should have a big part to play in the things that sometimes we don’t have control over, but  will make a big impact on us down the road or in a few years. I mean, the reality, isn’t it scary to me, you start talking about things that people can, that people know, like elephants and at some point in time, at this rate, it’s, I’m not sure if the rate is still the same today as it was last year, two years ago, but it used to be the saying was 96 elephants a day were being poached.

That’s not sustainable. There are not 96 elephants that are born every day. So, at some point in time, at what generation, is not going to have elephants anymore. So doing our part to educate people here and also being a part of the anti-poaching movement and educating the folks that are in the home ranges for these animals.

You can’t just go in and say, hey, stop killing the elephants, don’t make money to be able to feed your family. You have to give them alternate resources. So there is a ton of money that can be earned from ecotourism, a lot more money on that end of things, as opposed to  probably a few dollars, what ends up being a few dollars on the poaching end of things.

So, educating them about this can be a good thing. If you save the elephants, the elephants are worth much more to you and your community than them being dead.  So you can’t just, conservation doesn’t work without the community. Right.  Well, these stories have been incredible.  We’d love to hear stories on the podcast and you have delivered.

So how can people get involved with the zoo? Is there anything coming up that you wanted to share and make sure that people are coming to see? Any new babies that are born or anything coming up we should know about? Well, anything that has to do with the zoo eventually helps not only the zoo but our conservation efforts too.

I’ll start with the baby since you brought that up. I know this is really exciting for you both. We do have some brand new cotton-top tamarins. They’re two weeks old. Tiny monkeys. And they’re doing very well. Yes, they are tiny monkeys. And believe it or not, they live in the aquarium. It’s because of the fact that the aquarium actually displaced their old home.

So we thought it was only right that we include them in the new building. So they are in there, kind of a 3D effect in our mangrove area. If you look on the backs of the adults, you’ll see little white dots that are hopping around with the adults. Also coming up Jazzoo, is always the first Friday in June.

So if you haven’t been to that for a while, or if you’ve never been to that, I consider it the best party in Kansas City. There’s probably some other folks out there that might disagree, but Jazzoo, put it on a calendar. Jazzoo.  It’s a great time. We already have 65 restaurants that are included. It’s all the food you can eat, and all the drinks you can drink. It’s a great time. Usually we have four or five stages that are of varying music. It’s not just jazz. It’s a ringy, you know that the name makes it seem like it’s all jazz, but I would be good if it was all jazz. It’s across the board.

So come out and visit. And if you haven’t seen the aquarium yet, you definitely need to come out and see it.  Like I said, I think we had a fantastic product before for people that come out and have fun. But the aquarium definitely adds to it. Come on out and see us. We’d love to have your business and tell you about our messages.

We will be there. Well, thank you so much for your time. I’m JRT and I’m Jen V, and this has been the Speak with Presence podcast. Thank you so much for being here, Sean. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. 

I’m Jen V with JRT. Thanks for listening to the Speak with Presence podcast. If you or your team need to gain speaking presence or build communication skills without being perfect,

I can get you there. I use actor training tools but revamped for the professional. So don’t be nervous. Go to voicefirstworld.com/chat to book a free call. Thanks for listening. We’ll be back next week.