Bobcat Loader is Zoo Treasure
T300 and Attachments Ease Workload for Employees
Zoo development director Peter Rittler keeps his Bobcat T300 active with daily assignments.
A primary focus of Cougar Mountain Zoo, located outside of Seattle in Issaquah, Wash., is endangered species. The zoo, which opened in 1972, is home to elk, cougars, reindeer, lemurs, emus, kangaroos, tigers, alpacas, parrots, cranes, macaws, cheetahs and wallabies. “One tough animal” not on the endangered list — but residing at the zoo nonetheless — is a Bobcat® T300 compact track loader.
“It’s a real treasure,” says Peter Rittler, development director of Cougar Mountain Zoo. “We have used Bobcat loaders for more than 30 years. They have helped us grow and maintain our eight-acre facility.”
After owning a variety of Bobcat loaders over the years, the zoo currently relies on a T300 compact track loader, purchased from Bobcat West, to handle jobs ranging from construction to maintenance to hauling Zoo Doo, a pelleted fertilizer “created by the zoo’s hoofed animals” and sold to gardeners.
“When we first started out we had wheelbarrows and small tractors,” says Rittler, “but once we switched to Bobcat equipment we were able to accomplish much more with fewer employees. The amount of work we can do with our loader and attachments, such as chipper, pallet fork, grapple, auger and three different sizes of buckets, is incredible.”
Many years ago zoo workers used posthole diggers to install fence posts, footings and trees. “In this extremely hard ground, that was a very timeconsuming and difficult job to do by hand,” says Rittler. “The Bobcat auger attachment digs right through the rocky soil, quickly and accurately.”
When a truckload of supplies arrives, one employee can use the T300 and pallet fork attachment to unload and deliver it. Cleaning up all the vegetation growing around the zoo, even in hard-to-reach areas, is easy too. Hooking up the chipper attachment reduces its volume by 90 percent.
“When we first started out we had wheelbarrows and small tractors, but once we switched to Bobcat equipment we were able to accomplish much more with fewer employees.
With a 3,000-pound rated operating capacity, the vertical lift path T300 can handle any project at the zoo, says Rittler. “We are still developing the property, so the loader is often used in construction. The tracks make it very adaptable to the uneven and often muddy terrain. The amount of money the loader and attachments save us in construction costs is incredible.”
Rittler has been very impressed with the way Bobcat loaders have evolved over the past three decades.
“The curve of improvement has been very steep,” he says. “The early machines were great, but each succeeding generation keeps getting better and better. I like the product design, smoothness of operation, controls and the engineering in general. Bobcat is simply the best.”
Go online to read more and see photos and illustrations of Bobcat compact track loaders. Read about the T300 and five other compact track loaders available today at Bobcat Compact Track Loaders.