Zoo News
Oriental Trading Company Adopts Flamingo Flock
Oriental Trading Company adopted the flamingo flock at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo on October, 9, 2009. The corporate symbol and mascot for the company is a pink flamingo, which made the partnership with Omaha’s Zoo a natural.
Omaha’s Zoo currently exhibits 13 American flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber), sometimes called Caribbean flamingos. Flamingos are filter feeders that gain their pink coloration from the crustaceans that make up a majority of their diet. The American flamingo breeds in the Galápagos Islands, coastal Colombia and Venezuela and nearby islands, the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico and the northern Caribbean in the Bahamas, Hispaniola, Cuba and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Flamingos can live up to 30 years in captivity. Males weigh approximately 6.2 pounds and females weigh approximately 4.9 pounds. The goal of Omaha’s Zoo is to increase the size of the flock up to forty and develop a state of the breeding facility.