MinnPost/Audra Otto

Patwin Lawrence, TORCH Community co-director of partnerships, and Melitta George, Network of Indian Professionals

Palm trees? Check.

Sandy beach? Got it.

Exotic animals? You bet.

Warm breezes and high humidity? Done and done.

The Minnesota Zoo sure knows how to throw a party for the winter-weary.

On Saturday, the zoo hosted Warm Up in the Wild, an event to celebrate the launch of its young professionals group, AZUL.

The Tropics Trail -- an indoor living rain forest featuring lemurs, macaws, tamarins and agile tree kangaroos -- provided the perfect backdrop for the celebration. Partygoers eagerly traded the silence of snow for the rustling, cawing, squawking of the balmy jungle -- if only for a few hours.

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Missy Remick, AZUL coordinator, and Josh Le, Minnesota Zoo guest services

"Where else can you have cocktails with colobus monkeys?" remarked Missy Remick, executive assistant for the Minnesota Zoo Foundation and coordinator of AZUL.

Despite the biting 20-degree temperatures outside, attire was "winter beach causal" -- a distictly Midwestern classification. Sporting flowered dresses, bright Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops, attendees mingled with zoo staff and conservation experts, played beach games, strolled the winding forest paths and sipped drinks beneath the green foliage.

AZUL -- which is run by an 11-member Young Professionals Advisory Committee (YPAC) chaired by Minnesota Zoo Foundation board trustee Leslie Holman -- aims to engage young people in the zoo's programming and inspire lifelong committment to the zoo and to global wildlife conservation.

"Everyone comes to the zoo when they're little," said Megan Hard, special events coordinator for the Minnesota Zoo Foundation. "But after grade school, they tend to stop coming. It's not until they have kids of their own that they start visiting again. There's this 15-20 year gap in people's lives when they're not familiar with the zoo. AZUL is intended to engage those 20 and 30-somethings."

MinnPost/Audra Otto

Michael Parish, Minnesota Zoo Foundation board of trustees, and son Christopher Parish, Minnesota Zoo YPAC

"We want to get young people back to the zoo," said YPAC member Christopher Parish, "to teach them about the zoo's conservation initiatives through programs like the Our Backyard/Our World adult lecture series."

Parish's father, Michael Parish, chair of the Minnesota Zoo Foundation board of trustees, was a key proponet for establishing a young professionals group at the zoo.

"He really pushed for AZUL," said Parish. "He recognized the importance of getting young adults excited about the zoo's mission: connecting people with animals and the natural world. Building future leadership is vital for the zoo's continued success."

During its first year, AZUL plans to hold offsite cocktail receptions for networking, an exclusive exhibit preview of Penguins of the African Coast (which opens in July), a wine tasting and more.

According to Remick, every AZUL event will include one or more educators -- zoo conservation scientists Dr. Tara Harris and Jeff Munitfering, for example -- in order to keep AZUL members informed and inquisitive about environmental issues.

"The zoo hasn't typically marketed to young professionals," said Josh Le, a Beastly Ball intern. "I think we realized that if we wanted young people involved in the zoo, we needed to reach out to them and offer events they'd find appealing."

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Lee Ehmke, Minnesota Zoo director and CEO

When Lee Ehmke, Director and CEO of the zoo, took the podium to address the crowd gathered for the launch party, he stressed the zoo's mission of sustainability and conservation.

"The zoo is not just for kids!" he said over the screeching of quarreling gibbons. "The zoo is for anyone interested in conservation, in positively impacting the environment. We are the largest environmental educator in the state. More than 1.3 million people come through the zoo each year -- we're in a unique position to teach the public about wildlife and promote activism."

"It's great to talk about what 'the next generation' can accomplish, but it's this generation, the people standing in this room who must take action on behalf of animals, action to save the environment. The need is immediate. Animal species are dimishing at a rapid pace. I'm sure you've seen the zoo's logo -- an amur tiger. Today, there are only 3200 wild tigers left on planet earth. And that's just one example of the decimation." 

The zoo has worked locally, nationally and internationally on many species recovery and reintroduction projects. Since 2002, 129 individual awards have been given to zoo staff on 93 different projects in 40 countries.

A world leader in tiger conservation, the zoo is currently working with two national nature reserves in China to develop a long-term plan to restore habitat, prey species, and eventually, South China tigers to the wild.

"We've also started a new conservation program in Namibia," Ehmke informed the audience, "as part of our strategic plan to secure wild lands and wild life beyond the zoo's fences."

The program in Namibia supports conservation efforts for the desert black rhino and Hartmann's mountain zebra. According to zoo staff, these animals serve as umbrella species for wilderness conservation because protecting them also safeguards numerous other species.

The Minnesota Zoo itself is home to 59 endangered or threatened species and runs captive programs for numerous species to prevent against extinction in the wild and also promote education, research and protection of wild habitats. Currently, the zoo participates in 24 Species Survival Plan programs, designed to help ensure the survival of selected threatened wildlife species through breeding and management of the captive population in U.S. zoos.

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Leslie Holman (far right), Minnesota Zoo Foundation board of trustees, and other members of YPAC

Since becoming zoo president in August of 2000, Ehmke (who has a background is in environmental law) has guided growth of the zoo's educational programming and conservation outreach initiatives and presided over the transformation of the once-stagnating zoo into a champion of environmental conservation and sustainable design.

Through immersive exhibits like the award-winning "Russia's Grizzly Coast," which opened in 2008, and the forthcoming "Penguins of the African Coast," Ehmke is bringing visitors closer to the animals and revitalizing interest in the zoo. Since 2005, attendance has increased by 40 percent, and now stands as one of the top zoos in the nation.

And Ehmke isn't stopping there.

"You probably dodged all the construction going on when you came in tonight," he told the crowd, motioning to the building's south side. "We're in the midst of building the Heart of the Zoo, which will house a new education center, the Target theater, and the Penguins of the African Coast exhibit."

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YPAC members

The cutting-edge addition and the programs it will house will greatly further the zoo's three central mission principles: education, conservation and recreation, said Ehmke.

As Warm Up in the Wild wound down, the message of the night was clear: the zoo is growing, innovating and thriving, but in order to ensure its continued success, the millennial generation must take up their cause, educate themselves on environmental issues, and work for preservation, conservation and sustainability.

AZUL's next event -- a cocktail reception -- is scheduled for May (date and other details forthcoming). The exclusive Penguin Preview will take place at the Heart of the Zoo on July 12.

To join the Minensota Zoo's young professionals group, visit the AZUL membership page.

MinnPost/Audra Otto

Lan Freitag and Bridget Ulrich, The LEAD Project board of directors

To view more photos from Warm Up in the Wild, visit MinnPost's YPN on Facebook.

Involved in an upcoming young professionals event MinnPost should know about? Email ypn [at] minnpost [dot] com.