Team carves ornate pictures of animals on hundreds of pumpkins spread throughout Milwaukee County Zoo

When the pumpkin began growing from a seed earlier this year, its fate was sealed.

The 500-pound orange behemoth was destined to become an unusual portrait parked outside the Milwaukee County Zoo's new elephant enclosure.

Frequent zoogoers who glimpse the Cheetos-colored gourd and notice a 2-D picture of an elephant with one broken-off tusk will immediately know — it's Ruth, the 37-year-old pachyderm who has called Milwaukee home since 2006.

Pumpkin carvers Titus Arensberg and Jason Bartlett from Ohio-based Rock On Ice arrived at the zoo on Wednesday and were finishing up carving Thursday afternoon. While Bartlett made etchings of animal footprints, acacia trees and leaves on the front of dozens of pumpkins, Arensberg transformed the 500-pound pumpkin from a Wisconsin farm into the head of African elephant Ruth.

"We're just playing with our food," said Arensberg.

The carved pumpkins will be spread throughout the grounds for Boo at the Zoo on Friday and Saturday evenings as well as the zoo's Halloween Spooktacular Oct. 25 and 26.

There will be 600 pumpkins for Boo at the Zoo, which requires a separate ticket ordered in advance, plus an additional 600 pumpkins for the Halloween gathering the following weekend.

"At zoos across the country, Halloween is a big holiday because you've got space and you've got animals. It's a family-friendly way to celebrate Halloween," said zoo spokeswoman Jennifer Diliberti-Shea.

Because so many people come to the zoo for the Halloween events, officials began requiring visitors to register for tickets in advance last year because of sellouts.

Arensberg is mainly an ice carver, but during Halloween he's hired by places like the zoo to transform pumpkins into pictures of zoo animals.

"I do have a culinary school background. Everything I do I learned there," said Arensberg, who carved his first pumpkin when he was 8 or 9. "I tell kids I started carving pumpkins and never stopped." 

On smaller pumpkins, Arensberg and Bartlett sketch out on paper their designs and then trace them on to the pumpkins before cutting them. For the 500-pound pumpkin, Arensberg had an idea of what he wanted to do and began cutting, Ruth's trunk, eyes and ears slowly emerging from the orange flesh.

His tool kit is filled with cheap paring knives, melon ballers, X-Acto knives, clay sculpting tools, graters and cheese slicers. Arensberg also carves cheese and melons when he's not sculpting ice for weddings and events.

On Wednesday, Bartlett and Arensberg carved 75 jack-o'-lanterns in the shapes of hippos, big cats, snakes and other zoo animals that will be filled with lights. Then on Thursday, Arensberg spent around nine hours on the big elephant pumpkin while Bartlett focused on etchings of several dozen pumpkins — carving shapes from the pumpkin skin but not busting through to the interior.

"The design is pretty important. Smaller pumpkins, you've got only an inch or so before you break through," explained Bartlett, picking up a pumpkin to examine its skin. "Generally, you want ones without a lot of ribs to get more detail."

Mistakes can sometimes be rectified by sticking on carved pieces of pumpkin. In fact, that's usually a tell-tale sign a pumpkin carver committed an "oops." But sometimes things must be added because, in the case of Ruth the elephant, there's no way to carve her tusks so they stick out from the pumpkin.

It can be exhausting and dirty work, with garbage cans filled with pumpkin innards and seeds sticking to their clothing. Arensberg wears a special pair of orange-soled Nike Air Jordans with orange shoelaces he calls his pumpkin shoes. Weeks later he sometimes finds pumpkin still ground into the bottom of his sneakers.

Arensberg's favorite pie is pecan and he claims he can't really think about eating pumpkin pie until at least Thanksgiving. Bartlett, though, loves pumpkin pie and has no problem eating a slice of what he has spent much of October carving.

While zoo visitors stopped to watch Bartlett and Arensberg make pumpkin art, others were curious to see what they were doing. Like a couple of ostriches and a herd of impala who crowded next to the fence overlooking the carvers' work area.

Ruth, too, gazed over at them from the elephant enclosure.

"Making sure we're not doing something we shouldn't," joked Arensberg.

After Halloween, many of the pumpkins are given to the animals, including tigers, grizzly bears, the polar bear, rhinos and the beef cow, to eat or for enrichment.

If you go

 Boo at the Zoo will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Milwaukee County Zoo. Tickets must be purchased in advance — shop.milwaukee.zoo.org/#/SpecialEvents. Halloween Spooktacular will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 25 and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Oct. 26. For more information: milwaukeezoo.org