Miller Park Zoo to sell Reindeer poop ornaments again

By Kevin Barlow | pantagraph.com

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.

A reindeer dropping Christmas tree ornament is strung together like beads after it is freeze dried, autoclaved, drilled and coated with paint. (The Pantagraph, David Proeber)

“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.

That evolved into the idea of making the ornaments as a fundraiser for the zoo.

Using wire, beads, and some previously dried reindeer dung, volunteers craft ornaments that are sold for $5 in the zoo’s gift shop. Proceeds go to the zoological society to help with expenses.

The droppings are dehydrated and placed in an autoclave to ensure they satisfy local health requirements. Each ornament is hand-drilled and painted.

Susie Ohley, Community Development Advocate for the Miller Park Zoological Society, held a handful of Christmas tree ornament raw material that is produced by two of the part's reindeer. The reindeer poop ornaments have created international buzz and will go on sale Monday. (The Pantagraph, David Proeber)

Last year, the zoo couldn’t keep the ornaments in stock. Lines formed before the gift shop opened, the phone was ringing off the hook and the e-mail boxes were filling up with requests.

The waiting list went well past 100.

“Poop is apparently a big joke with so many families,” Rogers said. “People like to send each other poop or take pictures and just have fun with it. Weird.”

Ohley said the response was a surprise.

“We didn’t anticipate the response,” she said. “The Associated Press picked up the story from The Pantagraph and it just took off.”

Rogers said the zoo staff expects the demand to be high again this year.

“We’re not sure because we had the national exposure last year and so it’s hard to predict what this year will bring without that,” she said. “But we have already had people in the gift shop asking for them. There was actually a lady from California who came by because she was in the area.”

Ohley said she hopes to manufacture about 2,000 ornaments for this season and estimates it will take about 300 person-hours of volunteer work to accomplish that goal.

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