Book Review: The Grail Bird - The Rediscovery of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

"And so the ivory-billed woodpecker once more crossed into the nether regions between existence and extinction."

 They say that Comedy is Tragedy plus time.  That may be true, but sometimes if you wait long enough, it boomerangs back to Tragedy.  Consider the case of the ivory-billed woodpecker, that giant among Piciformes that, for many years, was the Holy Grail of American birdwatchers.  For decades, biologists have played the "is it or isn't it?" game, trying to figure out if this mysterious denizen of the Deep South still existed or if it was extinct.  When I was a student, the consensus was that the bird was extinct - until it was dramatically (if controversially) "resurrected" by a small team of scientists in 2005.

Tim Gallagher of Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology was one of the scientists who trekked out into the swamps to seek out the ivory-bill.  He recounts his quest for the woodpecker in The Grail Bird: The Rediscovery of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.  At the time of Gallagher's team's sighting, the bird was believed to have been gone for almost sixty years.  The book offers an engrossing history of this species, the largest of American woodpeckers, and what has made it so special to so many people.  Even without its rarity (both natural and human-induced) it was a very impressive animal.  I've seen stuffed museum specimens, but those are only a somewhat suitable substitute for seeing animals in the flesh.  Woodpeckers as a group are poorly represented in zoos and aviaries, and there are almost no records of ivory-bills in captivity.  I say "almost" because Gallagher tells the story of one naturalist who tried keeping a newly-captured ivory-bill in his hotel room.  It went... about as well as you'd expect.  I'd hate to get stuck with that bill...

Apart from a few dramatic flashes of sightings, none of them super-great, Gallagher's account is largely one of the toil and drudgery of fieldwork.  Lots of slogging through the muck, lots of spying out promising hiding spots, and lots of waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  It doesn't always make for excitement, but it does offer fascinating look into the life of a field biologist, and the slow build-up makes the final reveal more exciting.  It ends on a triumphant, hopeful note.

Now, about that...

Earlier this week, the US Fish and Wildlife Service officially took 23 species off of the Endangered Species List, declaring them extinct.  The ivory-billed woodpecker was among them.  This wasn't the case of the Carolina parakeet or the passenger pigeon, where we had our eyes on one last bird and knew the exact date that the light of this species winked out.  Instead, the government basically said, "It's been long enough - we're saying that they're gone."  And so it becomes official.

Official, but not necessarily universally accepted.  As Gallagher reminds us in his book, the ivory-bill has been written off before, and plenty of people have refused to let go.  There have always been sightings of the ivory-bill, and I suspect that those will continue to trickle in.  Some of them will be from people who see pileated woodpeckers or other species, cases of mistaken identity.  Some will be outright lies.  Still, there will be some which will be just tantalizing enough to keep hope alive.  And hope, as Emily Dickinson wrote (and as Tim Gallagher reminds us), is the thing with feathers.

The Grail Bird: The Rediscovery of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, on Amazon.com

From Russia, With Love

A few years back, an owl escaped from my local zoo after a tree dropped on its enclosure.  The bird was a fully-flighted, non-native species, and it quickly took to the sky.  For a month it made surprise appearances in the trees around the zoo, usually not venturing more than a block or two away.  After several weeks, keepers spotted it dozing in a low, reachable spot, and were able to grab it.  It had been a stressful week for them, trying to snare the elusive owl under moderate media scrutiny.

I doubt any of them would be happy to trade places with the National Aviary right now.

Earlier this week, "Koda" (sometimes "Kodiak"  or "Kody") the Steller's sea eagle escaped from his enclosure at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh.  Keepers and trainers have been working hard trying to secure the bird, but sightings have been infrequent (if my memories of the owl escape I mentioned are correct, probably complicated by lots of false sightings) and they haven't had a chance to get close yet.  Hopefully he can be coaxed back soon and restored to his habitat.

One advantage that the National Aviary has, at least, is that Steller's sea eagles are very cold hardy birds, so the onset of fall and cooler temperatures won't risk his health in the way that it might if he were, say, a harpy eagle from the tropics.  Eagles are opportunistic scavengers as well as hunters, so hopefully he's finding something to eat while he's on the lam, though he might be so stressed and confused that he doesn't want to.  No matter what, he'll be better off as soon as the Aviary gets him back.  

It's been a stressful week for them, I'm sure, but if any of them are reading, just remember that owl I mentioned in the beginning.  She was loose for a month.  You still have plenty of chances.  Good luck.

The Best of Enrichment

The Pinola Conservancy of Louisiana shared this beautiful footage of a pair of its Australian freckled ducks, hard at work building their nest.  Pinola is one of the powerhouses of avian reproduction in the United States, having one of the largest collections of birds - especially waterfowl - anywhere.  They supply many birds to other facilities, helping to maintain sustainable populations under human care.

We don't always think of it from this perspective, but reproduction in waterfowl isn't just important for the continuation of the species - it's also great enrichment. The ducks have to engage in courtship material, construct the nests, and defend that nest from any perceived intruders (you know, like the keepers - parent swans always have a great sense of humor about us coming by for a visit). Even the act of sitting on the nest for long periods of time, while maybe not the most exciting behavior from our point of view, is enriching - the parents have to make constant decisions about what to do with the eggs, and for that month or so of incubation, their lives and daily activity budgets are essentially identical to what their wild counterparts would be doing.

If the bird is part of a very social, colonial species, like flamingos, penguins, and puffins, the constant bustling action around the nesting site as parents jostle for nests (and partners stray) provides more drama than a season of Gossip Girls. Sometimes stressful, sometimes messy, but guaranteed to keep the minds and bodies of the parents in keen shape.

And that's not even touching the behavioral stimulation they receive when the eggs hatch...

Breeding isn't just good for building up healthy populations - it's great for providing an outlet for natural behaviors.

Huffin and Puffin

The three species of puffin - Atlantic, tufted, and horned - are often confused with the penguins, and not without cause.  Both groups are predominately black and white.  Both eat fish and aquatic invertebrates.  Both are associated with oceans in cold climates - the puffins in the Northern Hemisphere, the penguins in the Southern.  Both live in large colonies.  And both have a body plan that looks roughly like what you'd get if you were somehow able to cross a duck with a bowling pin.  Visitors seeing puffins often walk away with the assumption that they were penguins.

The two groups are very different, however.  Puffins are more closely related to gulls and other shorebirds.  Puffins break up their black-and-white monotony with big, colorful bills of red and yellow.  Also, whereas penguins are famously flightless, puffins can fly.  Their big beaks and cheeky antics have sometimes earned them the nickname of "Parrots of the Sea."

Maybe because they have everything penguins have, plus the added dimension of flight, but I've always been more interested in puffins than penguins.  Maybe that's in part because I see so many more penguins that puffins always strike me as a bit of a novelty.  Penguins, especially the warm-weather species, like the African penguin, are much, much better represented in zoos.  I've probably seen more African penguins this year than I have puffins - of all three species - in my life.

Penguins are just easier to deal with.  They are flightless, so they don't need enclosed exhibits.  Some species are temperate, and so can be kept outdoors in parts of the country.  Outdoor puffin exhibits do exist, but I've never seen one... yet.  Penguins also benefit from better name recognition.  Everyone knows what a penguin is.  Mention "puffin" and you've got maybe a 50-50 shot of someone knowing them.  The latter is especially surprising, because unlike penguins, puffins are actually native to parts of the US, to say nothing of much of northern and western Europe and zoo-loving Japan.  Plus, you'd think as much as zoos love polar bears (even though they are far less common than they used to be), more zoos would consider adding puffins as a side exhibit.

In the places where I have seen puffins, I've found them to be great exhibit animals - though the fact that they can fly means that they are kept behind glass, which tends to get water-stained and make photography challenging.  I've definitely seen a few small, indoor African penguin exhibits which I feel like could have been better repurposed for puffins.  I've spent a considerable amount of my career in the company of penguins - not much of it as a keeper of them, but usually in zoos where they are omnipresent, transporting them, answering visitor questions about them, etc.  I've never spent quality time with puffins.  I'd like to see them from the other side of the glass one day, if only to see if they really are as parrotlike in person as I like to believe.

Species Fact Profile: Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata)

                                                                      Tufted Puffin

Fratercula cirrhata (Pallas, 1769)

Range: Coastal Northern Pacific Ocean, from Japan through Northeastern Asia to Alaska and Canada

Habitat: Coastlines, Islands

Diet: Primarily fish, also squid, octopus, crabs, jellyfish, sea urchins, and algae

Social Grouping: Large breeding colonies 

Reproduction:  Breed from March through May, forming large colonies.  Nest in burrows on slopes of cliffs.  Single off-white egg with some blue or brown markings incubated by both parents for 40-53 days.  Chicks remain in burrow until they fledge at 45-55 days, then head out to sea.  Sexually mature at 3-4 years old.

Lifespan: 20 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern

•       Largest of the puffins.  Body length 36-40 centimeters; wingspan about the same.  Weight 520-1000 grams.  Birds in the western Pacific tend to be large from birds in the east.  Males tend to be slightly larger than females
• A stocky, large-headed seabird.  Adult breeding plumage is primarily black except for the face, which is white, and the long blonde plumes that curl over the head down the neck (sometimes called the crested puffin).  The large bill is red and orange with a bright yellow plate at the base, the feet and legs are bright red.  Non-breeding adults and juveniles have a gray face, no head plumes, and no bill plate, duller feet.  Eyes are yellow in adults, dusky in juveniles
• Feed by flying low over the water then diving after prey, swimming underwater using their wings.  They use their tongues to hold fish against the spiny palates of their mouths, which enables them to hold up to 60 (but usually 10) fish in their bills at a time, helpful for bringing food back to the young.  They are capable of staying underwater for up to 30 seconds
• Sometimes has difficulty taking flight from the water, must thrash along the surface to get airborne.   Incapable of gliding.  Breast muscles are rich in myoglobin, which allows them to beat their wings for long periods of time.  When nesting, seems to prefer higher sites which make it easier to get airborne.
• Predators include sharks, arctic foxes, and raptors, such as bald eagles and snowy owls, as well as gulls and ravens.  Puffins try to select for nest sites that are inaccessible to terrestrial predators.    Rats and foxes have been introduced to some islands where they nest.
•       Latin name: Fratercula comes from the medieval Latin for “Friar” (the plumage was thought to resemble monastic robes), the species name is Latin for “curly-headed,” referencing the tufts
•       Historically (and to a lesser extent still) puffins were hunted for food, as well as for their skins, which can be used to make parkas.  Today, puffin colonies are popular tourist destinations
•       Major threat to some colonies was drift-netting, which killed large numbers of birds.  Use of the drift-nets on the high seas has largely ended, but some are still used in coastal areas, impacting puffin colonies.  Die-offs in some areas have been attributed to ecological changes caused by climate change.  Numbers have declined in some areas due to pollution and a decrease in food supply.  Nesting colonies are easily disturbed and may abandon a site if humans make them feel unsafe 

WGAS Anyway?

There was a period of time during which monorails were in vogue among the larger American zoos, many of which are now out of service.  Dallas Zoo had it's Wild of Africa monorail, which took visitors across a variety of African biomes to see different ungulates.  Minnesota Zoo's monorail followed its enormous Northern Trail yards, sparing visitors nearly a mile's worth of trail and offering panoramic views of hardy northern hoofstock.  Without a doubt, though, the most celebrated of the monorails was the Wgasa Bush Line of the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

With individual paddocks larger than many entire urban zoos, the San Diego Wild Animal Park was (and perhaps still is) as close to Africa as many zoo visitors will get.  The only ways to appreciate the size and diversity of these yards was either 1) book a photo caravan tour, in which visitors could be driven out into the middle of the paddocks in the bed of a truck, given closeup encounters with rhinos, giraffes, and other ungulates, or 2) take a monorail.  My first time to San Diego, I did both.  Both experiences were incredible, but the monorail, while not as intimate as the photo caravan, was still magical.  I saw many species for the first time on that train, some of which I haven't seen since.  I took the hour-long ride twice that day, and given the option, I probably could have gone two or three times more.

What goes "Wgasa" mean, though?  The zoo legend, which I've never found any real evidence to contradict, is that the planners of the monorail couldn't come up with a good name for it, something sound African, if not actually from an African language.  Then, at the bottom of a memo that sent out looking for ideas, they saw five letters scrawled - WGASA.  They loved it, and the name was adopted.

It was only later that they discovered that it wasn't an African word, or even a word at all.  It was an acronym - and not even one that was meant to be a suggested name.  What the writer (reported to be Chuck Faust, Chief Designer of the San Diego Zoo) had meant to convey was - "Who Gives A Shit, Anyway?"  By that point, however, the name was out there and in use.  When asked by the press, the tongue-in-check Faust replied that it was the "World's Greatest Animal Show Anywhere."

The Bush Line has been out of service for years, meaning that parts of San Diego's vast acreage are currently off-exhibit.  I've heard rumors that a replacement could be coming back - but if it does, I wonder what name it will carry.

Photo Source: Fact Republic

Burn Out

 From Maslach C, Leiter MP.  Understanding the burnout experience.  2016

Let's Ride

As soon as I saw the sky ride - basically a ski-lift - over the African Plains exhibit at the Kansas City Zoo, I knew I'd probably end up riding it.  Not because I particularly love heights -  I don't - but because I wanted to see the zoo from a different perspective.  I could have ridden the zoo train, chugging past the camels and kangaroos, but this seemed a little more adventurous and unique.  I'd ridden skytrams at other zoos before, but the most recent was at Metro Richmond Zoo, and that was a decade ago.

My love of zoos and aquariums aside, I've never been all that into their kissing cousins, amusement parks and theme parks.  I still haven't been to Disney's Animal Kingdom or Busch Gardens Tampa, the two biggest animal theme parks in the country, and it's been ages since I went to a SeaWorld.  A big part of it, I suppose, is that for me, animals are all the attraction that I need.  I don't usually feel much inclination to go on rides.

Not that zoos are ride-free.  Many have trains and carousels geared towards kids, which I remember using when I was much younger.  Some of the larger zoos had monorails, many of which have since fallen out of use from the difficulties and expense in maintaining them, with Dallas Zoo ("Wilds of Africa") and Minnesota Zoo ("Northern Trail") being two examples.  Elephant rides have gone by the wayside, but some zoos do still offer camel and pony rides.  I've done all three, and even worked the later for many grueling years before the pony and I both headed out for greener pastures.

Recently, I've developed an interest in the idea of rides not as rival attractions to animal exhibits, but as incorporated components that highlight the experience.  I especially like rides that allow visitors to see animals from different perspectives, possibly enhancing the appreciation of the animal.  For example, seeing animals from a boat ride, such as the "Jungle Cruise" at Naples Zoo, or from a zipline, such as Brevard Zoo, where arboreal rainforest animals can be seen at eye level as you zip by.  Many non-AZA zoos I've been to with large hoofstock mixed exhibits offer safari hayrides, driving guests out to be surrounded by animals.  One idea that I don't know has ever been implemented would be a rock climbing wall built into an exhibit of some sort of mountain goat or sheep (bighorn, ibex, markhor, aoudad).  Visitors could observe the animals from the base of the exhibit, then climb to the top of the rock wall, getting a view from a new perspective.

One thing I would like to encourage is that, when rides are included, it still always be possible to view the exhibit without going on the ride.  Some people just want the chance to sit or stand and watch the animal without a lot of fuss or being jostled along.  Usually, I'm one of them.

Zoo Review: Kansas City Zoo, Part II

Continuing yesterday's tour of the Kansas City Zoo, we follow the trail to the zoo's enormous African area, one of the most complete displays of African wildlife of any zoo in the US.

The exhibit starts off with the largest of African mammals, the African bush elephant.  The four-and-a-half acre elephant exhibit stretches for a quarter of a mile, with the holding barn at one end and a deep swimming pool at the other.  It is segregated into sections so that it can be blocked off for introductions or breeding access or opened up into one large habitat.  The habitat is long and thin, which keeps the elephants in sight easily, though I do prefer exhibits with more depth.  No one was in the pool on the day of my visit, but I can imagine that it would be a very cool experience watching the elephants bathe from the stadium seating that faces the waterfall-fed pool.  Fun fact: in 2019, two of the elephants temporarily escaped by scaling a wall, which must be a first for elephants in a zoo.

The remainder of Africa is accessed by crossing a long footbridge over a river, after which visitors enter the concessions and gift shop complex.  Africa is ostensibly broken into five countries - the elephant exhibit being "Botswana," but considering that three of the five countries - Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda - are adjacent to each other with similar wildlife, and that occasional inaccurate animals pop up in regions where they wouldn't be found, we'll ignore that.  The distinction isn't harped upon too much in the layout, anyway.  The more important divide is that between the dominant East Africa section and the much smaller West African.

The trail loops around a very large central grassland yard, grazed by scimitar-horned oryx, addax, springbok, and common eland, among other antelopes (the first two species being North African desert dwellers, the third a South African native - a fair bit of geographic muddying that so many zoos are guilty of).  The exhibit is very attractive and can be seen from many vantage points, including a covered porch looking out over a waterway.  The exhibit has surprisingly few animals for its size, which I assume to be an attempt to keep it from being overgrazed, and it is a pretty verdant yard.

Along the trail, visitors pass a number of stand-alone exhibits featuring such East African zoo staples as cheetah and warthog.  Birds are well represented, with standalone exhibits for saddle-billed stork and southern ground hornbill, aviaries for lappet-faced vulture, white-necked raven, and bateleur eagle, and a small walk-through aviary with hamerkop, marbled teal, and lilac-breasted roller among the denizens.  The birds that enchanted me the most were the smallest in the exhibit, the diminutive Taveta golden weavers which were cheerfully building their intricate nests on all sides of the walkway.  Side-exhibits attached to the main aviary house silvery-cheeked hornbills and red-ruffed lemurs (if the zoo was determined to do different countries, they might at least have made Madagascar one).

Other African exhibits along the loop include lions (a bachelor pride of neutered males, which results in their having scruffy little manes), black rhinoceros, and Nile hippopotamus (the later, unfortunately, without the underwater viewing that makes them such spectacular exhibits, though the pair on exhibit were very active when I was there).  Giraffes and plains zebras have exhibits adjacent to the main antelope yard.  There is also an abundance of smaller mammals - blue duiker, bat-eared and fennec foxes, rock hyrax, and three species of small cat: caracal, sand cat, and black-footed cat.  Reptiles are not especially well-represented on the trail.  There are a few tortoise species, including gigantic Aldabras, as well as a small building with an exhibit of slender-snouted crocodiles which, to be frank, was the least impressive exhibit in all of Africa, in terms of size, complexity, and attractiveness.

Just before the hippos and crocodiles, a path spurs off that visitors not paying attention might miss.  That would be their loss, because the chimpanzee exhibit at the end of that path is the crown jewel of the zoo, almost hands down the finest chimp exhibit I've ever seen.  It's enormous, nearly the size of the elephant exhibit, with sloping, lush hillsides and towering live trees which the chimps clamber up (this might have been the first time I saw chimpanzees in real, live trees).  Visitors can watch from an overview, or enter a research station (filled with the kinds of hands-on interactive devices that I love) and watch the chimps through giant windows.  No less an authority than Jane Goodall described this as one of the finest chimpanzee habitats she ever saw; before reading that she said that, my main thought was, "This must be what it's like to see chimps at Gombe."

Outside the chimp exhibit is one of two loading stations for an cable-car sky ride, which carries visitors back to the entrance of Africa, passing over the main antelope exhibit.  You can purchase a one-way or two-way ride.  I always forget that I'm afraid of heights until I'm in the middle of doing something that brings me up high, but I did enjoy it, if only for the perspective of just how huge the zoo is.  The rest of East Africa consists of an exhibit of African wild dogs (a fairly so-so exhibit) and an excellent, very entertaining, very attractive habitat of Guinea baboons, a species that you don't see very often in US zoos (it was only the second time I've seen them ever).  There is also a boat ride which allows visitors to see the antelope and other hoofstock from a different perspective, but that was not running on the day of my visit, presumably due to COVID restrictions.

Compared to East Africa, West Africa is a very short walk.  It is (appropriately) in a much more forested section of the zoo, accessed from a bridge that branches off the main East African path, not far from the entrance.  Visitors can see two species of mangabey monkey, bongos, red river hogs, and leopard (the Amur subspecies standing in for the African, as often happens in US zoos).  The leopard exhibit is of the design where half is on either side of the exhibit, connected by an overhead bridge (the exhibit seemed a little small, and I wonder if it would have worked better to have one larger exhibit than two smaller ones).  Absent from the trail are many of the usual stars of West African rainforest exhibits in zoos - okapi, mandrill, pygmy hippo.  There are gorillas, however, in a large, shaded habitat that, if not as stunning as the chimpanzee exhibit, is still very nice.  Like the chimps, the gorillas can be seen either from an overlook or through viewing windows.

Kansas City Zoo has grown enormously over recent years, and its new aquarium, with sea otters slated to be the stars, promises to be another jewel in its crown.  The collection is somewhat uneven - the mammal collection is very impressive, bird collection so-so, reptile and amphibian collection very small.  Much of the zoo is relatively new (Africa, for example, which doubled the size of the zoo, opened only in 1995), so there is very little that is outdated in the facility.   Some of the habitats they've opened - kangaroo, chimpanzee, penguin - have been spectacular (and not just star animals - the tree kangaroo exhibit was fantastic, and I thought the lappet-faced vulture aviary was the best I had seen for that species).  In other cases, it seems like in the rush to grow and develop, other exhibit have been tacked on more as boilerplate, lacking the vision and ambition that the zoo has shown in others.  I hope that, as Kansas City Zoo continues to grow, that the same attention to excellence is lavished on all new additions.

Zoo Review: Kansas City Zoo, Part I

When I bought my first guide to US zoos in the 1990s, the Kansas City Zoo barely warranted mention.  It was one of the largest cities in the country to not have one of the biggest and best zoos, to hear the book tell me.  My, what a difference a few years can make.  By the time the next edition came out ten years later, Kansas City was recognized as one of the fastest-growing and best zoos in America.  That growth has only continued into the present day.  When I paid my first visit this year, an enormous section of the central part of the zoo was a gaping crater, where construction of a world class new aquarium was in progress.

The Kansas City Zoo is located in Swope Park, just next to the beautiful Starlight Theatre. (Nonsequitor - Kansas City is famous for its abundance of beautiful fountains - its nickname is "Paris of the Plains" - so I was very surprised not to see any at the entrance of the zoo).  Upon passing through the impressive entry gates, visitors are greeted by exhibits of North American river otter and trumpeter swan (Kansas City breeding the later species for reintroduction into the wild).  Across from these is one of the newest exhibits, the Polar Bear Passage.  Bears can be viewed either at ground level from the outdoors or from within a viewing building, where theater-style seating faces the 140,000 gallon pool.  This is the best example present, but one thing I really appreciated about Kansas City Zoo was the seating opportunities at many of its exhibits, which encourage visitors to stay a while and watch the animals, rather than just pass through.  When I walked through, one of the bears was playing with an enrichment object underwater, and it was fun to spend some time admiring it - the seating allowed many visitors to all have good views of the bear, instead of jostling for space at the front of the glass.

The Arctic gives way to Southeast Asia next with a beautiful exhibit for Bornean orangutans, Orangutan Canopy, which replaced the old (but visually-striking) Great Ape House.  Visitors can see the apes at tree level, ground level, or in their indoor space, with video narration about the animals provided by mounted TVs.  There are also life-sized statues for photo ops.  Orangutan Canopy blends into Tiger Trail, with habitats for rhinoceros hornbills, lion-tailed macaques (once very common in zoos, these endangered monkeys are now rarely seen), and, of course, Sumatran tigers.  Like the orangutans, the big cats can be seen on two levels, either from the ground or at the top of their sloped hillside habitat.  Francois' langurs and red pandas swap access between a climate-controlled indoor exhibit and another outdoor exhibit, the monkeys having the outside exhibit in the warmer months, the pandas in the cooler ones.  Red-crowned cranes occupy a nearby marshy yard.  Compared to many of the other exhibits at Kansas City, I found the individual habitats of Tiger Trail to be somewhat "meh" - not bad, but lacking in imagination and a little difficult to really appreciate the animals in, especially for photography.

Perhaps the best that Kansas City Zoo has to offer - at least in this half of the zoo - is Australia.  After passing through a small snake house (which, to my disappointment, was a mix-match of snakes from around the world, mostly featuring common zoo species such as kingsnakes and Burmese pythons - I had hoped for an Australian reptile house), visitors enter Australia.  The entire exhibit is one massive walk-through habitat with a giant mob of red kangaroos - about twenty, I'd guess - and you could never be sure where they would pop up - grazing in the distance, lolling by the edge of a pond, or hopping across a trail.  Set within the exhibit were a beautiful walk-through Australian aviary, featuring black swans, straw-necked ibises, silver gulls, and tawny frogmouths, among other species, yards for dingoes and emus, and the absolute best exhibit for Matschie's tree kangaroos I have ever seen - a towering exhibit with indoor and outdoor spaces (I've seen plenty of big cat or primate exhibits that were nowhere near as nice).  Australia terminates in a sheep station, with small habitats for kookaburra and pythons, as well as a yard for dromedary camels, a species which many people might not associate with Australia, but which is feral in the Outback.  At the end is a restaurant and rest station, where guests can sit in rocking chairs on the porch and admire a grassy lea grazed by the kangaroos.

More domestics can be seen in the KidZone children's zoo, including the best goat enclosure I've ever seen, with bridges carrying the goats over the heads of visitors from one yard to another.  Non-domestics can be seen in the area, too.  The Discovery Barn is a two-level playhouse with slides and climbing structures that takes visitors past habitats of macaws, radiated tortoises, squirrel monkeys, and other small animals (including highly endangered Wyoming toads, one of the only amphibians on display in the whole zoo).  It's a fun, interactive little building.  Outside, there is a lorikeet feeding aviary, a yard of Chilean flamingos, as well as a (pretty bland, not even underwater-viewing) pool of California sealions.  The main attractions of this section are two habitat buildings.  The Tropics is a reimagining of the original Kansas City Zoo building (like many city zoos, this zoo was once one building that housed everything).  Tucked away inside are habitats for many rainforest animals from around the world, mostly small and medium-sized primates such as Mona monkey, blue monkey, and cotton-topped tamarin, but also Cape porcupines, capybara, and stingrays, among others.  The most innovate exhibit is the white-cheeked gibbon/Asian small-clawed otter exhibit, which is on either side of the pathway.  The gibbons go overhead the visitors to get from one side to the other, while the otters swim underneath the glass-floored walkway.  Even with the renovation, though, The Tropics is only so-so, and I wish the exhibits could have outdoor access.  

Much, much more impressive is Helzberg Penguin Plaza.  Humboldt penguins have an indoor-outdoor exhibit, which can be opened up into one large habitat by opening up an entire wall of the building.  Inside, the lobby of the building houses aquariums for a few cold-water fish and invertebrate species before presenting a large, beautiful habitat for gentoo, rockhopper, and king penguins.  The birds can be seen above the surface at first, with the path than ramping downwards and around, leading past underwater viewing.

Other small exhibits in this part of the zoo have been removed to make way for the construction of the aquarium, mentioned earlier.  Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the other half of the zoo, which makes up the African section.

Kansas City Zoo

In Living Color

For many extinct animals, we have precious little left to remember them by.  Dinosaurs left us their bones, and a few other fossilized odds and ends, but we still know relatively little of them.  Moving on to far more contemporary species, we have a handful of stuffed mounts of dodos, quaggas, and other modern extinctions.  The Thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, is perhaps the most famous extinct animal that we have actual video footage of.   Not much of it - just a grainy loop of film of a pacing, nervous specimen at Tasmania's Hobart Zoo - the last of its kind, taken not long before it's death.

Not surprisingly, the film was in black in white.  "Was."  Recently, the footage of the last Thylacine was colorized, similar to what's been done with footage for World War I and other historic events.  It looks a little eerie (okay, a lot eerie), like a ghost made flesh.   Perhaps seeing the animal in color is a poignant reminder of how close this animal came to living in our own era, and how tragic it is that we lost it.  I really feel like, if it had held on a few more years, our conservation ethos would have been awakened enough that we might have been able to save it.

Periodic sightings of the creature continue to pop up in Tasmania from time to time, and there are plenty of folks who are unwilling to let the idea of the tiger go.  For now, though, this footage, some pictures, and a few stuffed animals are what remains of Australia's marsupial wolves.

 

From the News: Gorillas at Zoo Atlanta being treated for COVID-19

 Gorillas at Zoo Atlanta being treated for COVID-19

Well, for about a year now, lockdowns have been lifted and our zoos and aquariums have been doing a steady stream of business.  Most of our staff that are able to be vaccinated are vaccinated (sometimes required by the facility as a condition of employment).  Even some of the animals are getting vaccinated, especially higher-risk species such as felids, apes, and mustelids.

And yet...

The gorillas at Zoo Atlanta are expected to be fine.  So far, to the best of my knowledge, every American zoo animal which has come down with COVID has made a full recovery.  However, it is a sobering reminder that just because you might feel like you're over dealing with the virus, the virus isn't necessarily over with you.  Be safe, everyone...

Rhino Eggs, Sunny Side Up

Zoos and aquariums frequently find themselves short on funds for all that they hope to do, which means we're always looking for ways to cut costs.  Whenever I see comments like this, I figure we might as well save some cash by shuttering the education department - looks like it's a lost cause, anyway...

The Long Slow Walk Home

Earlier this week, the London Zoo unveiled its new habitat for Galapagos tortoises.  The last step, of course, was moving the tortoises from their old habitat to their new one.  Based on long, painful (mostly from fingers suddenly getting crunched in shells) experience, I can tell you that there are few experiences less enjoyable than trying to convince a large, stubborn tortoise to go somewhere that it is not inclined to - carrying them is seldom a workable option once they reach a certain size.

Fortunately, the zoo decided that there was a simpler, easier way to get the giant reptiles from Point A to B... and it gave the big guys some enrichment and exercise as a bonus.  The doors were opened, and the tortoises just... walked.  It took some time, and some bribes of vegetables, but everyone got where they needed to go stress free, and no keepers suffered hernias.

That's working smarter, not harder, for you.

The Woody Woodpecker (No) Show

I wouldn't call myself a hardcore birder, but I do keep a life list.  Perhaps because I'm so casual about it, I notice that there are some major biases on it in terms of which birds I see and put on it.  Raptors, which tend to be big and spend a lot of time soaring or perching prominently, where they are easy to see, are pretty strongly represented on the list.  So are waterfowl and wading birds.  One group of birds that I definitely notice wherever I go are the woodpeckers.  I've only got a fraction of my area's songbird species on my list, but I have all of the woodpeckers.

Perhaps it's because they tend to be kind of colorful and striking.  Or that their loopy flight patterns, up and down, makes them noticeable.  Or maybe I just hone in on the hammering sound of their beaks on the trees, which makes them easier to find.  They tend to be pretty common birds as it is, which certainly helps.  Whatever it is, I see a lot of woodpeckers when I go for a hike.

 Which makes it all the stranger that I always never see them in zoos.  I have seen three individual woodpeckers of three species at three zoos in the last three decades.  Neither of those zoos has woodpeckers anymore.

Why is that?  Short answer - I dunno.

Some thoughts?  Woodpeckers can be destructive, their beaks doing damage to exhibit structures.  They can be predatory towards baby birds, or at least aggressive, which might make them ill-suited to mixed-species aviaries.  What I suspect it mainly is is that no one keeps them and breeds them, so no one gets them in the future, so none are available.  There are a lot of people who keep and breed parrots, pheasants, and waterfowl.  Woodpeckers are only available as the odd bird from a rehabber.  I don't know if I've heard of anyone establishing a breeding group anywhere.

Which is a pity - few of our native birds are as impressive as a pileated woodpecker - I know my heart skips a beat whenever I see one swoop by.  They demonstrate some of the coolest adaptations of any birds, with their reinforced skulls, chisel beaks, and crazy tongues.  They could easily be the stars of their own aviaries, maybe housed with a few species that they wouldn't bother.

Not that pileated woodpeckers are in trouble and in need of captive breeding at this point.  They are doing fine in the wild.  Most of their kin are too (especially ironic, considering that the biggest conservation mystery in the US is the fate of its elusive, possibly extinct, bigger brother, the ivory-billed woodpecker).  So maybe the trick isn't to exhibit woodpeckers, but to set up zoo environments that attract wild woodpeckers to where guests can observe and admire them.  And we'll just hope that they leave all of the wooden structures alone.

Species Fact Profile: Pileated Woodpecker (Drycopus pileatus)

                                                                  Pileated Woodpecker

Drycopus pileatus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Range: Southern Canada, Eastern United States, Western United States(absent from the central part of the country)

Habitat: Mature Hardwood Deciduous Forest

Diet: Insects, especially ants and beetle larvae.  Also feed on some nuts, fruits, and berries

Social Grouping: Territorial Pairs 

Reproduction:  Monogamous.  Excavate large cavity nests lined with woodchips in dead trees (about 5 meters off the forest floor), made by male to attract the female.  Breed in the spring.  3-5 eggs incubated for 12-16 days.  Young fledge at one month

Lifespan: 12 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern 

• Second largest woodpecker native to the United States (possibly the largest living species, depending on the status of the possibly-extinct ivory-billed woodpecker).  Body length 40-50 centimeters, wingspan 65-75 centimeters, weight 250-400 grams.
• Primarily black plumage with a white line down the side of the throat and white under the wings (mostly visible in flight).  Prominent red crest ("pileated" means "crested").  Males have a red line from the bill to the throat; in females, this line is black.
• Feed by hammering holes into trees, then using long, barbed tongue to extract insects
• Announce their territorial status by drumming on trees with their bill, up to 30 taps per second (preference of using hollow trees, which allow for the loudest drumming).  If confronted with intruders, they may chase them off, beating with their wings and striking with their bills.  More tolerant of intruders during the winter months.
• Fly in an undulating pattern characteristic of many woodpeckers, slow and strong, but somewhat uneven (overall steadier and less-undulating than many smaller species of woodpecker)
• Nest cavities are abandoned after chicks are fledged, and then serve as important shelters for a variety of other species, such as owls, wood ducks, bats, and raccoons
• Potential nest predators include martens, weasels, snakes, and foxes.  Adults have few predators, but may opportunistically be taken by raptorial birds
• Two subspecies: the slightly larger northern pileated woodpecker (D. p. abieticola) and the southern pileated (D. p. pileatus).
• Common across much of their range, numbers increasing in some areas.  Decline in the absence of large trees needed for nesting and feeding.  Disliked by some landowners due to the potential damage that they may inflict on trees and homes

Hurricane Escapes - the Real and the Fake

Hurricanes and other weather disasters are rough on everyone.  They pose a special challenge to zoos and aquariums.  Power outages can knock out life support systems, imperiling aquatic species.  Animals can panic and injure themselves.  Probably the biggest concern, however, is escape.  Between high winds and falling trees, fences and windows can be broken, leaving animals free to wander out.  One such incident happened at the Audubon Zoo this past week, when an Asian deer called a barasingha escaped during the storm.  Zoo staff had to wait for the storm to die down before they were able to successfully recapture the deer, but they were able to bring it back safely.

Swamp deer breaches exhibit at Audubon Zoo due to Hurricane Ida 

Now, what did NOT happen this week was a mass escape of animals (including gorillas... which they don't even have) at the Turtle Back Zoo in New Jersey.  It seems to happen whenever there is an emergency that people feel the need to make up a little extra drama and add a zoo escape.  The same thing happened last summer during the protests and riots that followed the death of George Floyd - many zoos were subject to rumors that anarchists and rioters had unleashed zoo animals on the public. None of these were true.

Rumors like these might seem funny, but they can hamper emergency response during a hurricane as police and firefighters are forced to check on them.  They can also endanger zoo staff by forcing them to (sometimes repeatedly) go out into dangerous conditions and check animals, which sometimes involves rousing already stressed animals from shelters.

Can I Keep It?

Recently, my zoo was looking to deaccession some of its old biofacts, part of an old "Suitcase for Survival."  Some of them looked like straight trash, as old and motheaten as they were from years of disuse.  Others... well, others looked pretty cool.  Cool enough that, were it not for issues of legality or permits (to say nothing of practicality), I would have loved to have asked, "Can I keep it?"

Zookeepers and aquarists, I've noticed over the years, definitely have a strain of packrat-ism.  We have a tendency to want to collect and hold onto things.  Some of it is nostalgic - our animals don't live forever, and it's great to have keepsakes of them - a painting, a pawprint, a feather, a quill.  Part of it is just because a lot of the things that we work with are so cool that it's hard not to want to hold onto them.  Some psychologist could probably draw a link from this to the Victorian compulsion to collect and classify, whether in zoos, gardens, or museums, but I'm not touching that can of worms.

Where this becomes a problem, of course, is that we tend to be a nomadic folk, constantly moving from job to job, which makes the collection of large amounts of (often fragile) possessions problematic.  I've tried to tone down my acquisitive impulses to only a few more prized possessions, either those that are really cool or of great sentimental value to me.  Still, it's hard sometimes not see something absolutely awesome and feel a possessive twitch.

It also doesn't stop with me - I project it onto my zoo.  I am the worst at throwing out stuff, because I'm always convinced we'll want it for later as an exhibit, an educational prop, or whatever.  Left to my own devices, I'd bully and browbeat our admin into building an entire museum wing for all of the treasures that we'd accumulate over the years.

Suitcase for Survival

After loss of habitat, the greatest threat to many of the species that live in our zoos and aquariums is overhunting, especially for skins, horns, tusks, and other body parts.  Sometimes these body parts have purported (but unproven) medicinal value.  Sometimes they are considered fashionable.  Sometimes they are simply curiosities that people like to collect.  Regardless of what they are for, their harvesting can place severe stress on wild animal populations.  Key examples of species threatened by trade in their body parts include elephants (tusks), rhinos (horns), and pangolins (scales).

This illegal harvest of wildlife often ends up confiscated by governments, who are then faced with a choice - what do you do with it?  One option has always been to destroy it (like the elephant tusks destroyed by WCS here).  Some parties would advocate selling it - legally - to raise funds for conservation, though many conservationists fear that this will just drive up demand for those same wild products in an illegal capacity, leading to more poaching.  Another option is to use them for educational purposes.

The Suitcase for Survival is a toolkit used by the World Wildlife Fund, and historically many zoos, to educate people about the wildlife trade.  It features a suitcase that is stuffed with animal "souvenirs" that an unscrupulous (or, to be kind, perhaps informed) tourist may have bought on a trip abroad and tried bringing back home with them, only for them to be confiscated.  These demonstrations do have the potential to upset visitors - I mean, look at the picture above.  The animal's head is clearly attached to the purse.  

They should only be aimed towards audiences that are ready to process the deaths of endangered animals; small children should be allowed to foster a sense of wonder and appreciation for wildlife before getting exposed to more doom and gloom topics as they get older.  For older audiences, though (especially adults, who are the ones who actually make most buying decisions), Suitcase for Survival can hammer home the real implications of the illegal wildlife trade and help drive down demand.  It's especially daunting when you consider that, for every suitcase that does get stopped with illegal wildlife products inside, an untold number make it through unchecked.

Explore World Wildlife Fund's interactive Suitcase for Survival here