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The Minnesota Zoo has received the Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s (AZA) 2008 Significant Achievement Award for its renovated Medtronic Minnesota Trail. Zoo Director/CEO Lee Ehmke accepted the award at the AZA annual conference in Milwaukee last week.
The Association of Zoos and Aquariums, through its annual Exhibit Award, recognizes excellence in the area of live animal display and exhibit design by an AZA-accredited zoo or aquarium.
“AZA congratulates the Minnesota Zoo for this significant achievement,” said AZA President and CEO Jim Maddy. “The people of Minnesota should be proud to have such an outstanding resource for wildlife conservation and education.” 
Following a year-long renovation, the ‘new’ Medtronic Minnesota Trail opened on July 7, 2007, featuring exciting exhibits for raccoons, coyotes, and gray wolves together with long-time residents like beaver, otter, puma, and lynx. Smaller Minnesota favorites, like turtles, frogs, and salamanders, are featured in the exhibit’s “trailhead,” a warm and welcoming lodge. The quarter-mile Trail takes guests through more than fifteen wildlife exhibits where they experience a variety of Minnesota landscapes, ranging from views into a beaver pond, a walk alongside a northern forest glade, and a bird-watching perch in the treetops.
“As the state Zoo of Minnesota, we are proud to present our new and improved ‘Medtronic Minnesota Trail’ exhibit,” said Minnesota Zoo Director and CEO Lee Ehmke. “While the Zoo displays amazing animals from across the globe, we are lucky to serve and to represent a state with its own incredible wildlife heritage. We've used a lot of the Zoo's own in-house (and ‘in-Minnesota’) creative talent to provide our guests with a brand new environment that is inviting, comfortable, exciting, educational, and fun! Given the high caliber of the other projects nominated for the Exhibit Award, it is a real testament that the AZA deemed our project worthy of Significant Achievement recognition. The ‘Medtronic Minnesota Trail’ now ranks among Zoo guests’ very favorite exhibits in our annual visitor survey. The recent gift of a million dollars by the Medtronic Foundation to support and name the Trail is further evidence of how enthusiastically Minnesotans have embraced this terrific improvement to our Zoo.”
Watch KARE 11 news story from July 2007 about the Medtronic Minnesota Trail
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