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Miller Park Zoo to sell Reindeer poop ornaments again

02.11.09

BLOOMINGTON -- Jennifer Rogers has heard enough poop jokes, thank you, but the manager of the Miller Park Zoo gift shop says she doesn't mind.

The jokes are prompted by the institution's year-old national reputation as a purveyor of unusual ornaments made from an even stranger material: droppings from the zoo's own reindeer. Sales for this holiday season begin today.

"We hear poop jokes all of the time," Rogers said. "And we tell them back and forth here at the zoo, but the benefit is that we received national attention last year.

"We were on cable network news shows and the response was unbelievable," she said. "Calls came in from all over the country."

Last year, the zoo's marketing director, Susie Ohley, conceived the idea of using pellets of dried dung to make the seasonal decorations. She combined an old family memory from then zoo Director John Tobias and traditional Christmas decorations involving stringing cranberries and popcorn.

"Around 1900 or so, John had an Irish grandmother and she would take chocolate drops and sprinkle them on the ground so the kids would see that reindeer had actually been there," Ohley said.

Source: Bloomington Pantagraph