Mahoney is the zoo’s new veterinarian. She began work at the zoo in late July.

Dr. Logan Wood was the zoo’s full-time veterinarian and became the zoo’s full-time director several months ago. Mahoney now fills the clinical role full time.

When she was looking for a zoo position, Mahoney said she was looking for a facility with a collection she would enjoy caring for and treating its inhabitants and a staff she would like to work with.

She said Roosevelt Park Zoo filled the bill.

Eloise Ogden/MDN Roosevelt Park Zoo veterinarian Dr. Kelly Mahoney said she checks on the zoo’s Amur tiger cubs during her rounds each day and before she goes home. She said she likes to watch the cubs sleep and play. Shown on Monday, Sept. 29, Zoya, the female Amur tiger, is with three of her cubs. The fourth cub was nearby.

Having lived in Iowa for several years while attending veterinary school, she said it gave her an appreciation for the prairie landscape and small city living, where people are friendly, kind and welcoming but it’s also quiet in a way which she said she appreciated.

When it comes to the inhabitants of the Minot zoo, Mahoney said she has an appreciation for animals from anywhere, rather than from any specific area, but she does have a fondness for cats and primates.

She said the zoo’s Amur tigers and African lions and their litters definitely interested her in coming to Roosevelt Park Zoo.

“To me, that’s a really good sign of a thriving zoo,” she said. She said it definitely speaks to Wood’s leadership and his medical care that the zoo’s big cats have litters.

She said the four Amur tiger cubs born at the zoo in May are favorites.

Eloise Ogden/MDN One of the four Amur tiger cubs at Roosevelt Park Zoo in Minot stands up behind Dr. Kelly Mahoney, zoo veterinarian, divided by the glass of the Amur tiger habitat Monday, Sept. 29.

“During my rounds every day I get to watch them playing or sleeping,” she said. Every day before she leaves for the day she makes sure to go around and check on all the animals.

“One of my last things I like to do before I leave is go see if the cubs are playing or sleeping – like a little glimpse of them before I leave for the day,” she said.

Mahoney said she also has a special liking for the zoo’s ground hornbills.

“They’re such a joy to watch,” she said, noting the zoo has a number of birds, including the penguins and the more tropical species in the aviary.

At Roosevelt Park Zoo, Mahoney said they do a lot of medical care.

“We want the animals to be voluntary. We want them to take part in their own care,” she said. She said many of the animals are trained to get injections voluntarily, which is nice for vaccines and if they need to be anesthetized.

“Over the next five years I want to try to focus on getting them trained to where a lot of them get voluntary ultrasound, which can be really nice for looking at the abdomen and seeing anything abnormal going on with the kidneys or liver. And then it would be really nice as well for the birds to be able to get them trained for voluntary ultrasound. They’re so flighty and they don’t really like to be still,” she said. But she said she feels she can train the birds for it.

In the future, she said, “Eventually I want to do some research. I really love anesthesia so most likely it will be anesthesia related.”

Mahoney grew up at Sweet Valley, near Scranton, Pennsylvania, and went to Penn State. Then she spent several years working in North Carolina, followed by a year and a half in Kenya, studying monkeys before going to veterinary school at Iowa State in Ames, Iowa.

When she first applied for veterinary school she wanted to go into primate medicine.

“That was really my focus,” she said. When the opportunity arose to go to Kenya, she said, “I always wanted to do field research. I figured what better time than now before I go to school, so I went there for seven months, studying blue monkeys. It was living in the forest and it was great.”

Afterward, she spent a year in Seattle, on an internship in exotic animal medicine with an exotic animal clinic followed by an internship in anesthesia at Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine at Baton Rouge.

“And then I came here, and here I hope to stay,” she said.