BATON ROUGE - Many of the animals at BREC's Baton Rouge Zoo were removed ahead of the snowstorm this week, but others seemed to enjoy it. 

Zoo Director Jim Fleshman said his team has been operating on a "skeleton crew schedule" to care for the animals.

"The thing you always worry the most about is getting staff from point A to point B, so getting them into the zoo especially when the roads are bad. But when they're here, they're dialed in and focused on taking care of their animals," Fleshman said. 

The staff does heater checks every summer to ensure their equipment works properly. The animals that couldn't be caught and moved, like a group of African birds, got heat lamps in their enclosures. 

"They can pretty much survive cold temperatures because you know they fly at very high altitudes, but they just need enough space to get out of the wind and the freezing part of it," Fleshman said.

Larger animals, like zebras, were particularly fond of the frigid temperatures. 

"The zebras were out in the snow. They enjoyed it for a little bit. Most people don't know that it gets cold in Africa and so there is snow in Africa and so the zebras can adjust to it pretty easily but they have interior barns where they can get in and get out of the weather as well," Fleshman said. 

Most animals will be returned to their habitats and zoo employees plan to reopen the gates Friday with regular business hours.