COAL VALLEY, Ill. — It's a sight officials at Niabi Zoo never dreamed they would find.
Early January snowstorms dumped about 25 inches of wet, heavy snow onto the Quad Cities in just a few days. All of that snow piled up on top of the animal enclosures at Niabi, adding an estimated nine tons of extra weight to the roofs of several exhibits. After a few days, it all came crashing down.
No animals were outside in their enclosures when the collapses happened. The animals were safe, inside buildings to ride out the winter storm, according to the zoo.
But outside, it was a different story.
The snow collapsed the wire meshing and steel roofs above all four big cat exhibits. When the tops fell down, it also pulled the barrier polls along the outside of the enclosures up and out, bending and cutting the steel into twisted heaps on the ground.
All of the falling metal created structural problems for the big cat building. When the mesh was pulled down and compressed by the snow, the interior walls and concrete blocks of the building itself started to separate, creating even more dangerous conditions for the animals and staff.
Nearby, the netting on bird exhibits such as the bald eagles was stretched out from the weight of the snow. The roof of the pallas cat enclosure bent in on itself. The lorikeet hut completely collapsed. Damage was also sustained to the guinea pig areas and great horned owl enclosures.
Gutters were ripped off of buildings while melting and refreezing snow damaged the masonry and concrete of several animal exhibits including the giraffe and red wolves.
"As far as I can tell, nothing like this has happened in the history of Niabi Zoo," Zoo Director Lee Jackson said. "It was pretty incredible. It was like nothing that I've been through."
The zoo is unsure of what this will mean for opening day. Niabi was set to open for the 2024 season on April 15, but first the zoo needs to figure out which of the exhibits can be repaired and which need to be replaced entirely.
Still, Jackson says Niabi will eventually open again to the public.
"We're talking to zoo exhibit designers and engineers right now to kind of start that process and get an idea of what that will cost," Jackson said. "We will decide very soon if we will actually open on April 15. We will open this season, but it will be a much different experience."
None of the buildings or areas open to visitors, such as the entrance, public walkways or viewing areas, sustained structural damage, Jackson said. The worst impact to those areas included damaged gutters. There is no danger to the public, according to Niabi.
Over at the big cat exhibits, Jackson gave a tour of the damage to News 8, pointing out piles of broken steel and mesh.
"That was the roof. [The snow] just bent it like pretzels. And on that side it just snapped all the welds off and they all came down," Jackson said.
While he can't be sure yet, he estimates the big cat building and four exhibits will remain closed for the rest of the year.
Primary carnivore keeper, Jessica Lench Porter, was watching the damage unfold in real-time while waiting at home during the snowstorm.
"It's crazy. I mean, it's a very unsettling feeling," Lench Porter said. "We were just thankful we had made the right decision to keep the cats secured inside and everybody was safe."
All of the animals had been brought indoors because of the impending storm and the bitterly cold temperatures. It's protocol at Niabi to bring animals in when the temperature dips below a certain level.
"Our biggest priority here is them," Lench Porter said. "We make sure they're safe no matter what."
But the zoo's problems didn't end there.
When the big cat building sustained so much damage, both in its exhibits and structurally, it meant conditions were too dangerous to continue housing the animals there - even indoors.
Suddenly, Lench Porter and her team had to find homes for eight very big, very dangerous animals.
"The biggest part is we didn't just move the cats, we had to move other species to make room for the cats because you can't just move a large carnivore into any area," she said.
Within two days, the team had shuffled the rest of the zoo around enough to make space for the displaced cats. A pair of bobcat brothers, for example, are now being temporarily housed in the exhibit where you would typically find binturongs.
When asked if she had ever done anything like that before, Lench Porter just shook her head and laughed.
"I've been here 20 years - never seen anything like this. I have done many cat sedations. But never like this. Never in this short amount of time," she said.
The only cats that were not re-homed within Niabi were the popular two amur leopard cubs. Those cubs were born at Niabi through a coordinated breeding program and were always meant to move on to other zoos by the end of 2024. However, Niabi said those zoos were willing to take the cubs early, given the situation.
While all of the big cats are reportedly doing well and settled in to their new homes, once the season finally opens you most likely won't be able to see them.
"it's disappointing to have to come to the zoo and not see the cats but you know, you have to realize we have to do things in order to make it a better environment for them," Lench Porter said. "We just really hope that the community is supportive of us and helps us move forward in this because unfortunately we don't want it to be like this."
Moving forward, the rebuilding process will be slow. There aren't many companies that make zoo enclosures and Niabi says it will take some time to get a specialist in Coal Valley to look at everything.
Then there's the question of what to rebuild. The zoo has to consider if it wants to put up similar steel structures as to what was already up, or if it should go in a different direction to prevent this from happening again.
"These heavy storms are sort of like the 100 year floods we used to hear about that are happening every three years now. I think this is the new normal," Jackson said. "We're going to rebuild with that in mind. We're going to build things stronger and build things with a little more permanence."
Despite all of the headaches, Jackson says the situation is a success story, thanks to Niabi's staff.
"I can't say enough about the staff. Everyone jumped in and did everything they could to make sure that the zoo was safe, the animals were safe," Jackson said. "No one was injured, no animals were injured in this entire process. And you can imagine it's not easy moving large, dangerous animals at a moment's notice. So everyone did an amazing job."
Now the zoo is turning to the community for help in the rebuilding process. Insurance is expected to help somewhat, but Niabi officials don't expect it will cover much of the rebuilding cost.
While there are no dollar amounts in just yet, Jackson says it will take significant support from the community to help Niabi get through this damage.
"We got through Covid just fine with a lot of great support. And now we're going to get through the snow fine as well," Jackson said. "It's just going to take a little time and a little patience on everyone's part."
If you want to donate to Niabi or learn how else you can help, you're encouraged to contact them here.
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