It’s 6:30 in the morning as contractors start to arrive at the Amur leopard’s new construction site and start mapping out their day. During the summer months this was ideal because the sunrise came a lot earlier and it was a great way to beat the heat. Now that we are into October, it’s a bit of a different story as the sun tends to rise a bit later and the temperatures quite a bit colder. But they still come. Meeting up with them each morning, is a lot different. As equipment is warmed up for use, the lights of the equipment illuminate the construction area. Contractors with headlamps begin to appear and start preparing their tools for the day as they await enough light to safely get started. Most of the holes are now backfilled, but there are still open holes and trenches that must be respected when walking the site before sunrise. Each day is one step closer to the finished product, but safety is always the top priority. While the project is a bit behind the original schedule, who could have predicted the 4-feet of snow in April or the last-minute battle over how many poles were necessary to support the enclosure mesh? No project of this magnitude gets done without a few hiccups along the way. Always expect the unexpected when trying to renovate a 50-year-old exhibit with few historical records attached to the structure. The sewer line , for example, was a mystery with only an old drawing from the city to show a sewer line running toward the gibbon enclosure. Old cleanouts were identified after the caps were broken off and then when a sprinkler by the gibbons ran overnight it eventually flooded the construction site and backed up in the leopard building. As the maintenance crew uncovered the sewer lines and a camera was run through the line, we were able to determine how those old sewer lines ran. As the camera ran under the building all looked good until they got to the opposite side and hit a wall. Actually, it was a concrete pier recently installed for one of the mesh poles. After more digging, all made sense as they determined the line ran from the gibbons to the leopards, under the building, then tied onto the main. To make a long story short, we ended up running new lines for both the gibbon and leopard enclosures and dug back on the existing line to cap it. With a myriad of contractors coming in and out it’s been a feat to keep them from getting in each other’s way and trying schedule them on-site knowing we were just one of many jobs they were working on. Windows of opportunity for specialty contractors from out-of-state often took precedence but still other contractors continued their work. It has been an experience watching the old structure be transformed into its new design and to appreciate the variety of work and skills required to get it there. Once completed, the leopard will be one more jewel for the zoo, but to know what it takes to get there is a story all by itself.