The volunteer group that has helped to run the Oleson Park Zoo in Fort Dodge for the past 15 years is shutting down.

The Friends of the Oleson Park Zoo will be formally dissolved as of Dec. 31, according to Susan Collins, the group’s president.

The group notified city officials that it will end its current contract with the local government at the end of the year.

Collins said its membership has dwindled to three people.

“Unfortunately, the organization has just died off, and we’ve not been able to get new members,” she said Wednesday.

The group’s demise comes at a time when the zoo is empty save for a handful of deer, but a consulting firm is working on plans to revitalize it. Those plans, which are being prepared by ISG, of Mankato, Minnesota, are expected to be presented to the City Council this fall.

“We wish them great luck,” Collins said. “We hope that they get things rolling.”

But she said the Friends of the Oleson Park Zoo will not be around to help with the animal attraction in the future. She said the group is being legally dissolved. She said the group’s remaining money will be donated to 4-H, the Fort Dodge Noon Kiwanis Club and the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines. Any future support group for the zoo would have to be a completely new organization, Collins said.

The Friends group will continue to feed the remaining deer until the end of the year.

City Manager David Fierke said the dissolution of the group will not have any impact on the care of the deer or the plans for revitalizing the zoo.

“The deer will be cared for,” he said.

The city has donated money in an account called the Raymond Taylor Estate Feeding Fund to pay for the animals’ food.

Fierke said city officials hope that a new group will be created to run the revitalized zoo.

“We’d still be looking at a volunteer group to be the operator of this facility,” he said.

The Friends of the Oleson Park Zoo was established in 2001 as an effort to rejuvenate the zoo in the park at the south end of 17th Street was beginning. The late Orville and Joyce O’Connell, who raised exotic animals on a farm just west of Fort Dodge, were key early leaders in the group. Jim Kramer was a past president of the group and Pam Moeller was the volunteer zoo manager. Moeller is still feeding the deer.

From its inception, the group owned the animals. It later assumed responsibility for their care and feeding.

In April 2015, the city’s Parks, Recreation and Forestry Commission declined to renew its contract with the Friends group. Most of the animals were removed after that commission decision. However, the eight deer remained. In September, the City Council approved a new contract with the group to ensure that the deer would be cared for.