Raising Oneself

Perhaps the most endearing and remarkable thing about the maleo is that, almost unique among birds (thee exceptions being its fellow megapods) it provides no parental care.  The egg is dropped and buried, mother saunters off, and the chick enters the world by digging its way to the surface and then dashing for cover.  It's more like the birth of a sea turtle than a bird.  The chicks are completely self-sufficient.

Oh, what a treat that must be for maleo keepers.  Raising a baby bird can be a very time-consuming, stressful enterprise.

A newly hatched bird can be described one of two ways.  Some species, such as newly hatched songbirds, are altricial.  They enter the world blind, featherless, helpless, basically a tiny pink morsel that mostly consists of a gaping mouth, in constant need of feeding.  Too long between feedings?  The chick dies.  Mom is off the nest for too long and it gets too cold?  The chick dies.  It's a miracle sometimes that there are any birds left in the world and that they don't all die while still in the nest.

The other side of the coin are the precocial birds, of which the maleo is an extreme example.  Waterfowl might be a more reasonable example - shortly after hatching, ducklings are up and about, ready to follow their parents onto the water.

Mammals also appear on the range of the altricial-precocial spectrum, though none are as precocial as the maleo, since all of them them at least need their mothers to give them milk.  Still, there are some species which are helpless for a long period of time (I mean, you'd be hard-pressed to look at a newly born kangaroo joey and tell what the heck it even was), and those that are out trotting at their mom's heels minutes after entering the world.

Reptile and amphibian neonates would appear to be the champion examples of babies raising themselves - but even there, a handful of species (most notably the crocodilians) receive some degree of parental care.

It's the distinctly unbirdlike independence (along with a fascinating appearance) that makes the maleo such an interesting bird.  Though they are fairly uncommon in zoos - as of now, I've only seen them in three US zoos, but it wasn't that long ago they were only in one - I think that their unique breeding biology actually makes them one of the best candidates for zoo-based conservation programs.  One of the major challenges of any reintroduction program is being sure that captive-bred individuals are able to survive in the wild.  This is especially true in birds and mammals, where a fair bit of behavior is learned, perhaps taught by parents.  A bird that raises itself, however, crawling straight from the shell up through the sand and ready to take on the world, is a bird that perhaps is better suited to being able to survive in the wild.

For a critically endangered species like this, it's nice to think that the bird may have something going for it that will help it survive.

Species Fact Profile: Maleo (Macrocephalon maleo)

                                                                Maleo

                                           Macrocephalon maleo (S. Muller, 1846)

Range:  Sulawesi and Buton Islands (Indonesia)

Habitat: Tropical Lowlands, Hill Forest

Diet: Fruits, Seeds, Small Invertebrates

Social Grouping: Monogamous pair

Reproduction: Monogamous for life.  Breed year round, laying 8-12 eggs over the course of a year.  Females lay eggs in deep holes on a sandy beach, rather than incubating them in a nest (sometimes cover hole with debris to camouflage it).  Females will nest communally.  Incubation 2-3 months.  Chicks dig their way to the surface and are fully independent at birth, capable of flight.  Mature at 2 years

Lifespan: 20+ years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Critically Endangered.  CITES Appendix I

• Body length 55-60 centimeters
• Plumage is primarily black on the back, pinkish-white on the underparts.  The face is bare with yellow skin; the beak is reddish-orange, the feet bluish-gray.  On top of the head there is a bony, dark blue casque.  Sexes are identical; juveniles are duller than adults, with smaller, less pronounced casques
• A maleo egg is approximately five times the size of a chicken egg and weigh about 15% of the female's total body weight
• Predators include monitor lizards, pythons, wild pigs, and felids
• Genus name means "large headed," in reference to the crest.  Species and common name come from the Halmahera name for the species
• Primary threat is loss of habitat, especially isolation of the adult birds' habitat and the beaches which they use as nesting grounds (development of beach front property).  Have to pass through several areas of human-modified landscape to lay their eggs.  Some hunting, egg collection.  Birds will abandon nest sites which have been subject to too much disturbance

Salad, Anyone?

The hoatzin may be a strange-looking bird on the outside, but it's equally a strange bird on the inside.  This is largely due to its unique gut anatomy, which in turn is due to its unique diet.  The hoatzin is unique among birds in being a folivore, or leaf-eater.  It may accidentally peck up an insect now and then, but really, leaves are all that it eats.  This specialized diet, and the challenges of replicating it, are a large part of the reason that the species has typically fared so poorly in zoos.

And it isn't just the hoatzin.  When I look at the list of species that have failed to become established in zoos, leaf-eaters make up a disproportionate number.  If an animal eats grass in the wild, it can often be switched over to hay.  Meat-eaters will eat meat, fish-eaters will eat fish, and insect-eaters will eat insects - the meat, fish, or insects may not be the same as they were in the wild, but the idea is close enough, and the nutritional content generally matches, with some tweaks.  Animals that have diverse, omnivorous diets often adapt very well to zoo-based diets, their biology largely being driven by the mantra, "Everything is edible if you are willing to try."

Many leaf-eaters, in contrast, are very specialized and eat only certain leaves, the nutritional content of which is not easily replicated.  Perhaps the best-known example of this is the koala, which eats only eucalyptus.  The ability of a zoo to house koalas is essentially tied to its ability to provide adequate amounts of the right kinds of eucalyptus, which partially explains why the vast majority of koala holders in the US are in regions where the trees can grow.  (Giant pandas would seem to form a close analog with their attachment to bamboo, but the difference is that the pandas don't need to eat bamboo - they could be fed other food sources and do fine.  Bamboo is just the natural diet, and one which encourages the most natural feeding behaviors).

Unlike eucalyptus, the preferred (or required, rather, as preferred makes it sound like there's a choice) trees of other species are not grown far and wide, around the world.  I'm not saying diet is the only reason, but it's a major contributing factor to why we don't see the indri - the world's largest lemur - in zoos, though I'm sure they'd be extremely popular if they could be maintained.  The longevity record of the species in zoos can be counted in days.  The indri's closest relatives, the sifakas, are also leaf-eaters and can be maintained in zoos, but are considered a far greater challenge than many other, more commonly-kept lemur species.

Other folivores seldom seen in zoos?  Three-toed sloths.  Douc langurs.  Red colobus.  Even species that are kept in zoos that have leaves as a greater proportion of the diet can be much trickier - and more expensive - to maintain than grazers or fruit-eaters.  In some cases, their care may require having regular shipments of browse to provide leaves year round, including working out storage of the browse to keep the animals in the green in the cold winter months.

So, next time you're ordering off the menu, or making dinner at home, never assume that the salad is automatically the cheapest or easiest option.

Lagoon of the Hoatzins

When I travel to another destination, either domestically or abroad, I usually have in the back of my mind a laundry list of animals that I hope to see.  Some are more fanciful and hopeful than others, with varying degrees of plausibility.  Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I'll find myself in the right place at the right time, and will happen to see that animal.  Sometimes, I'm even lucky enough to snap a photo, maybe blurry from the speed of the interaction, maybe too distant, but something to remember it by.

So imagine my surprise when, last year, on a visit to the Peruvian Amazon, I took a short walk from our lodge to the edge of a nearby little lagoon on my first day.  I walked past a few beached canoes, along the edge of the rickety dock, and overlooked the water.  I glanced across and there, not a few yards away, I found myself staring directly into the eyes of one of the most remarkable birds in the world - the bird, perhaps, that I had been the most hopefully of catching a glimpse of in South America.

The hoatzin is a visually striking bird, about the size of a smallish turkey.  Adults have a wild mohawk of a crest, making them look like a cross between a cockatoo and a peafowl.  If you think that the adults look weird, though, you should see the chicks, which are equipped with little claws on their wings that allow them to clamber through the branches, and even dive into the water to swim away if threatened.  These bizarre adaptations reminded many biologists of the bird-dinosaur Archeopteryx, and caused the hoatzin to be seen as an ancestral link between birds and reptiles.

How to Display a Hoatzin, by Katherine McLeod

Hoatzins have traditionally fared poorly in zoos, mostly likely a result of their specialized leaf diet.  I only know of one facility which has kept the birds for any length of time, and even bred them - the Bronx Zoo kept hoatzin in their Aquatic Bird House, though those birds are now all gone.  I knew that I'd likely never see one in a zoo, so my one chance was to spot one in the Amazon.  And, sure enough, barely 24 hours into my South American trip, I was face to face with one.

Soon, however, it wasn't just one.  Then I spotted another.  Then another.  The more I looked around, the more I saw that the trees around me were heavy with hoatzins.  The birds are poor flyers and tend to perch low over the water, which, with their large size, made them highly visible.  They historically have not been hunted on account of the foul taste of their meat - apart from biologists and birdwatchers, no one ever has expressed that much interest in them - so they were remarkably placid.  As it turns out, hoatzins are actually remarkably common, in the right habitat.  I took to walking down to the little lagoon whenever I found myself with free time.  Sometimes, I could see a dozen of them without turning my head, with some of them almost close enough to touch.  Unlike other birds or mammals I'd seen in the wild in fleeting glimpses, these I could sit down and appreciate and watch.

It's hard to say how much of my enthusiasm for the hoatzins came from never having seen one before. It was an evolutionary and taxonomically unique species - the only member of its own order - but part of me suspects that if they were common in zoos, I'd have just given a more passing glance.  I saw lots of other birds on that trip, many of them species I'd seen in zoos before.  None fascinated me like the hoatzin.  Ironically, of all of them, it was the hoatzin that I could most easily envision as a zoo bird.  Seeing three or four perched on a limb overhanging the coffee-colored water, just a few yards away, sitting still and easily photographed, I could easily imagine that we were all underneath the dome of a rainforest aviary.  If their diet hadn't historically been such a challenge, I could easily imagine them being one of the most popular of exhibit birds, a staple of South American exhibits and walk-through aviaries around the world.  

Perhaps with the new technologies and feed formulations and horticultural practices we have now, it would be possible to build on the success of the Bronx, maybe even establish a zoo population.  They aren't endangered, sure, but their biological uniqueness might make them worthwhile as a subject of study and appreciation in zoos.  But then again, perhaps not.  There are such limited resources in zoos, so many species that we could be supporting.  It would be difficult to justify adding another animal to the ark, especially when it's one that has been faring well in the wild and has traditionally been a poor doer in zoos.

And so on my last morning in the Amazon, I made sure to stroll back down to the water's edge to say goodbye.  I saw different birds every time I went down, but only the hoatzins were always there, always visible.  I hated to say goodbye to them - unlike the macaws and aracaris and tanagers and all of the other more colorful, flighty birds, I did not when - or if - I'd ever meet a hoatzin again.

Guess Who's Back?

There's so much bad news out of Washington these days, but at least there's something positive to come out of last week - the return of giant pandas on exhibit at the Smithsonian National Zoo!  Even with the bitter cold this last week, crowds turned out to greet Bao Li and Qing Bao as they made their public debut.  Given Smithsonian's impressive track record with pandas, hopefully they will eventually be joined by cubs!  Congratulations!

First Impressions

Reading about David Hancocks and the transformation of the Woodland Park Zoo, I was most fascinated by one story that he described.  When the gorillas were moved to their new, natural habitat for the first time, their behavior changed - more foraging, more social interactions, less stress behavior.  That was all expected and, indeed, the point of the move.  What may have been less expected was how the behavior of the visitors changed.  They spoke more quietly, didn't bang or make loud noises, and in general treated the animals with far greater respect.

I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise - we're a visual species.  It makes sense that the setting in which we see an animal determines how we view it.

This isn't limited to wild animals in zoos, either - it also is accurate for the wild.  When I was in high school, a teacher took me and a handful of other students on a trip to Big Bend National Park, in west Texas.  We were hiking through down a trail in a valley, choked with heavy scrub on either side, when we head something moving through the brush.  For a few minutes we stood still and watched, occasionally seeing a patch of gray fur appear in a window of the bushes.  After a period of time, the animals - a small herd of pig-like collared peccaries, or javelinas - came fully into view.  They looked wild and powerful and a little intimidating.  

The next day, we were driving past a campground, and saw a few of them rooting around besides the trash cans, scavenging scraps.  They looked... a little less wild and powerful and intimidating.  

A zoo animal that is kept in a tile cage with a heavy barred front looks like an inmate in a prison cell.  And, just as if we were seeing a human prisoner, we might walk away feeling fear of the creature - obviously it must be dangerous, and perhaps vicious - if it has to be so securely confined - or pity - being innocent and wrongfully imprisoned is a common trope in our literature and movies.  In any case, the creature is also made to look powerless, which can inspire some of the crueler members of society (of which there are always many) to taunt it, knowing that it can't get them.  It's not an atmosphere that lends itself to admiration or appreciation.

Likewise, I feel that the old trend of exhibiting animals in massive animal buildings - especially those stylized as palaces or temples, like the Berlin Zoo's old elephant house - have a way of dwarfing the animal - it's hard to think of elephants as small, but Berlin's building managed to do it.  The animal is overpowered by the pomp and majesty of human construction, to the point where it seems like it's an interloper, rather than the intended occupant.  Strangely, the popular, perhaps cliched trend of exhibiting jaguars and tigers on temple ruins doesn't bother me as much.  Perhaps in those cases, since the human buildings are ruins, it could be seen as a sign of nature's perseverance over humanity's attempts to shape the environment?

Visitors, as many zoo educators know deep in their bones, are loathe to read signage, sometimes scanning just enough to pick up the name of the animal, sometimes not even that.  In many cases, the animal and exhibit have to speak for themselves to teach visitors about their wild counterparts.  If you put a single monkey in a cage, and that's all the information has to go on to learn about the animal, they'll know nothing about its natural life.  If you have a troop of monkeys in a forested habitat with lots of climbing opportunities, opportunities to forage for food, and chances to interact with each other, a visitor could potentially walk away from that exhibit with a better understanding of what the animal is and how it behaves and lives.

Zoo Review: Woodland Park Zoo, Part II

Continuing through the tour of Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, we come to the exhibit area that many visitors consider the crown jewel.

Northern Trail is an excellent representation of the larger animals of the Pacific Northwest.  The trail opens with its newest exhibit, a pair of meshed-in habitats for Canada lynx, while down the trail gray wolves pad through a wooded yard (these appeared to be generic gray wolves, and I'd be interested to know if at any point Seattle plans of swapping them out for the endangered Mexican subspecies, which is the primary focus in AZA zoos).  A grazing herd of elk appears as a living backdrop to the wolves, but are safely separated by a moat from their predators.  It's one of the best, more convincing examples of a predator-prey exhibit that I've seen, all the more impressive because of its age.

Further along is the standout exhibit of the trail (and perhaps the rival to the gorilla exhibit for best in the zoo), one of the finest grizzly bear habitats I've ever seen.  The bears can be seen from multiple vantage points, but the boundaries of the yard are hard to identify.  The yard has varied terrain (you may see a bear on a hilltop looking down at you, and find yourself wondering about its jumping abilities), grassy slopes, and a deep pool.  Underwater viewing of the bears is followed by underwater viewing of North American river otters, with an excellent, craggy habitat of Rocky mountain goats (a species seldom seen in zoos outside of their native range) as a backdrop.  The regions theming weakens a little at the next exhibit; one would expect the towering flight cage to house bald eagles, but instead its Asian counterpart, the Steller's sea eagle, abides here (though to be fair, Steller's sea eagles do sometimes pop up in North America).  The trail terminates at another view of the elk meadow before looping back.  If this section has one weakness, it's that I feel it would benefit from the inclusion of more small animals - small mammals, birds, herps, fish - to round out the very impressive habitats of local megafauna.

More cold-weather species can be found in the Temperate Forest.  This area double-functions as a children's zoo, with an attractive barnyard and an insect house.  There is also a small, separate building that acts as a breeding center and lab for rare Polynesian tree snails (Partula), the only exhibit of these beautiful, imperiled little invertebrates that I've ever seen.  Maned wolves, red pandas, and southern pudu can be found along the trail, but the real focus her are the birds.  There are several species of cranes, a flamboyance of Chilean flamingos, and several stand alone aviaries, some of which are lined in a row of densely planted bird habitats.  One of the zoo's most famous exhibits is the enormous waterfowl aviary, where a host of species from across the northern hemisphere dive and dabble in a beautiful marsh, while visitors watch for a nearby boardwalk.  The exhibit is especially attractive in the months when the male birds are in their breeding plumage and courting the females, or chasing rivals.

A few other exhibits round out the zoo.  There is a small Australian area, consisting of a yard of wallaroos and emus, with some adjacent exhibits for kookaburras, tawny frogmouths, and other Aussie birds.  There is a good snow leopard habitat and an excellent Humboldt penguin pool with underwater viewing.  Reptiles and amphibians have been scarce at the zoo for many years, ever since their old building burned down years ago.  At the time of my visit, a few herps - most notably Komodo dragons, were on display in a long building alongside with meerkats and fruit bats.  That exhibit has since been renovated into a (small) reptile house of tropical Asian herps, as befits its position in between the two halves of the tropical Asian area.  New exhibits are planned in the future for tree kangaroos and keas, as well as the red pandas, in the near future.

Woodland Park Zoo has had a history typical of many American zoos in its constantly changing fortunes.  At some points in recent years the zoo has been in excellent shape, adding fantastic new exhibits (only the Bronx has won more AZA exhibit awards) and reaching new breeding successes.  In other years, it seems like it's barely getting by in the face of civic indifference.  Such oscillations can be difficult for planning and building momentum, and while the zoo is still a very respected member of the zoo community, it no longer seems to be quite the trend-setter it once was.  Still, its older exhibits have aged remarkably well, and it has earned a place in zoo history for helping to break the mold on what a zoo could and should be.  Combined with its great collection and beautiful campus, it was one of the US zoos that I'd been most excited to see for quite a long time.  'll look forward to seeing the new exhibits as they come online and see if they meet the excellent standard set by their predecessors.

Zoo Review: Woodland Park Zoo, Part I

Though it was founded in 1899, Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo spent most of its first century as a fairly obscure, unremarkable facility.  It had the same story as many urban American zoos, both in terms of its animals and how they were exhibited and its sometimes tenuous toehold in the city.  It's story really changed in 1976 with the hiring of British architect David Hancocks, the zoo's design coordinator, as the new director.

An architect can be a dangerous figure to have heading up a zoo, with to strong a focus on erecting buildings and making artistic statements, forgetting that the first job of the exhibit is to provide the animal with an appropriate place to live.  Hancocks, however, was an architect of a different mold.  Having previously worked at the London Zoo and Bristol Zoo, Hancocks was unique for his time in appreciating that exhibits should be designed around the needs of the animals, rather than those of the visitor or the keepers.  Not that the visitor was ignored, by any means.  The approach that Hancocks pursued was what would eventually be known as "landscape immersion," the attempt to recreate the habitat of the animal to such an extent that the visitor might actually feel that they were part of the exhibit (as opposed to the earlier natural exhibits designed by Carl Hagenbeck, in which visitors were on the outside looking in).

The result, over the next several years, was the transformation of the Woodland Park Zoo to a campus of eco-regions with large, natural habitats that attempted to blend the public and animal spaces seamlessly.  Despite some initial opposition from colleagues, the trend has gradually spread across many zoos, with varying degrees of success.  While there are now bigger, more elaborate, and more realistic versions at other zoos across the world, many of Seattle's exhibits still hold up remarkably well to scrutiny, all the more so when one considers their pioneering nature.

Upon entering the zoo, the first exhibit many visitors will encounter is one of its earliest expressions of landscape immersion, the African Savanna.  Entering a recreated East African village (one of the more realistic depictions of one that is seen in many US zoos), visitor are treated to an overlook of a grassland grazed by zebras, ostriches, and Grant's gazelles, while giraffes tower over their exhibit-mates.  (The presence of the giraffe barn and its adjacent holding yard down the trail detracts a little from the realism of the experience, but a barn capable of housing 15 foot-tall animals is a little hard to camouflage anyway).  Down the trail is a small but attractive walk-through aviary, as well as handsome exhibits for patas monkeys and warthogs (the latter can be seen very close up by a window into a burrow).  The premier attraction is a grassy lion habitat with a rocky kopje, one of the more handsome habitats for the species I'd seen.  At the time of my visit there was also a hippopotamus exhibit of a style fairly typical of the '80s - modest pool, no underwater viewing, capacity for maybe two or three animals - but hippos have since been phased out of the collection.  I'm not sure what's happening with the space at the present time.  

If there was one exhibit which truly exemplified Hancocks' vision for the zoo, it would be the Tropical Rainforest, and especially its magnificent gorilla exhibit.  The habitat is a large, lush, well-planted exhibit, from which the gorillas can be seen at various vantage points, either from across moats or behind glass in a heated shelter, with apes sometimes being viewed high up in the branches of mature trees.  While it's a great example of an ape habitat, it's still so much what we would expect from a gorilla habitat that it's easy to forget how controversial the whole thing was when it opened.  Other zoo directors claimed it would be folly - the apes would be invisible to the public, or they'd destroy all the plants and leave it a dustbowl, or they'd climb the trees, fall down, and be killed.  Instead, it was an absolute triumph, allowing the gorillas to show a much wider range of natural behavior.  It was also noted that it was not just the gorillas that showed a change in behavior - visitors to the exhibit were noted to be much quieter, calmer, and more respectful of the animals than they had been when viewing gorillas in old barred cages.

            

The gorilla habitat is joined by smaller, but equally attractive habitats for lemurs and colobus, before visitors approach the rainforest building itself.  The ground level is perhaps one of the more dated parts of the zoo (and it's pushing 35 years old at this point), with glass-fronted habitats for various small animals, primarily South American.  Upstairs, there is a lush walk-through aviary, home to a variety of rare and beautiful birds, such as Socorro dove and Andean cock-of-the-rock.  Outside is the newest addition to the Tropical Rainforest area, Jaguar Cove, which opened in 2003.  I've often felt that, among the big cats, jaguars and leopards are the species that often get the short-end of the stick in exhibit quality, but Jaguar Cove is a beautiful habitat.  It's well-planted and spacious; as the name would imply, there's a large water component, with underwater viewing available should the big cats opt to enter their pool.  Additional viewing is provided of a nearby cave for the cats.

The Tropical Forest blends neatly into the two-part Asian rainforest section of the zoo.  Banyan Wilds features tigers, sloth bears, and Asian small-clawed otters in exhibits that are all handsome enough, though in my opinion falling short in comparison to the gorilla, lemur, colobus, and jaguar exhibits.  This part of the zoo is also a little too open and sunny, in my opinion, to really capture a forest vibe.  Stronger in my opinion was Trail of Vines, separated from Banyan Wilds by the main visitor path but thematically attached.  This features habitats for more tropical primates - orangutans, Francois' langurs, and siamangs - as well as Malayan tapirs, Visayan warty pigs, and a reticulated python.  The zoo's former elephant exhibit - a spacious compound that was configured to resemble an Asian logging camp - is now the home to Indian rhinos, which doesn't work as well thematically, but does provide a handsome living space for the large herbivores

Tomorrow, we'll continue with the rest of Woodland Park Zoo.  (PS, just a fun little aside, but I suppose Woodland Park was one of the first US zoos to go online.  It's website is literally www.zoo.org, and that's also the domain for its emails.  No one else got there first?) 

Woodland Park Zoo

A More Open Zoo

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day (with some added, unrelated unpleasantness that we'll deal with over the next few years)!

It's work remembering that for much of their early history, many US zoos were segregated, with black visitors either being banned outright, or limited to certain days, as in the photo below from the Memphis Zoo in 1959 (on which white visitors would not be allowed, which may have created a false impression that things were equal).  It's good that those days are behind us, but the legacy continues, and African Americans continue to be underrepresented in the zoo field.  Despite the current political backlash against the concept, many American zoos and aquariums (especially accredited facilities) remain committed to DEAI programs to make their facilities accessible and equitable to all audiences.

Satire: City Zoo Scrambles to Hide Animals Ahead of Landlord Visit

 City Zoo Scrambles To Hide Animals Ahead of Landlord Visit

Sporcle Quiz: Sporcle at the Zoo - Northern Raven

Kicking of 2025 with the next entry in the Sporcle at the Zoo series, this time focused on one of the most cosmopolitan, intelligent, and adaptable species in the world, the northern, or common, raven!

Sporcle at the Zoo - Northern Raven

Necessary Work

I confess that I am utterly, 100% tired of hearing about fire alarms.  Not tired of *hearing* fire alarms - though I suspect that would get pretty old, pretty fast if they were going off all the time.  But hearing *about* them.  It seems like our zoo has been getting fire alarms installed since... well, since the invention of fire.  Every day we have contractors going around working on the project, which has been lasting for years.  I have no idea when it will be over.  I have no idea if it will ever be over

Not particularly wanting to die in a fire myself - and certainly not wanting any of the animals to go up in flames, should one break out after hours, I can certainly appreciate the importance of the project, even if I had no idea that it was so... involved. I suppose on some level I'm impatient for it to get finished so that we can move on to other projects, projects which I freely admit hold a lot more interest to me.  Upgrading behind-the-scenes animal facilities.  Exhibit renovations.  Building new exhibits so we can bring new species in to the zoo!  Pretty much, anything that directly pertains to the animals. 

It's exhausting - but inescapable - how much of the work that goes on at the zoo - how much of the time and money and labor spent - goes towards things that are not directly related to animals, but are instead part of the nebulous infrastructure.  In the end, all of it benefits the animals by improving the safety of the facility and our ability to care for them, but it's hard to get past the basic impatience with it and want to move on to the more fun, interesting projects.  Nor is the feeling exclusive to the staff.  It's not that hard, at the end of the day, to raise money for a new exhibit for a cool, exciting new animal... but what your zoo might really need is to get some work done on your sewer lines, or needed electrical work, or maybe repave your paths so you don't have potholes that swallow wheelchairs, golf carts, and anything else that goes down them.  All important work, but less likely to attract the attention of a deep-pocketed donor.

After all, most donors want something that their name can be slapped on in gilded letters.  An aquarium?  A rainforest building?  A savanna?  Great!  A compost facility?  Less appealing.  Trenchwork?  Even less so.

Much like the staff, a lot of the work that goes on at zoo takes place quietly behind the scenes.  Some of it unglamorous.  Some of it, quite frankly, is boring.  All of it is necessary, because all of it, in one shape or another, contributes to maintaining the zoo and supporting its mission.

Rewilding Cats... Planned and Otherwise

For the past few decades, many zoos have whole-heartedly embraced the symbolism of the modern ark, with the dream of maintaining populations of endangered species under human care and, someday, restoring them to the wild to help repair natural ecosystems.  Such reintroduction projects are the most celebrated of zoo conservation stories (sometimes I think we hype them to such as extent that the public has a hard time seeing the conservation value in literally anything else we do), but they remain challenging and elusive.  Perhaps the most challenge species to reintroduce the wild are the species that most capture the public imagination - apex predators, especially big cats.

This past week, there have been two very different stories about the restoration of cats to the wild, in each situation the largest cat native to a respective habitat.  Both took place in parts of the world that many of us would not necessarily think of as "cat country," and are emblematic of ongoing efforts to rewild those ecosystems.  Apart from that basic similarity, the two stories have been dramatically different, in terms of their conception and their outcome.

Kazakhstan's last tigers disappeared decades ago.  Now, they're back

First of all, there's Kazakhstan, the sprawling former Soviet Republic in Central Asia.  A century ago, the steppes and forests of this land were hunted by the Caspian tiger, the westernmost subspecies of the world's largest big cat, now regrettably extinct.  Recently, a pair of captive Amur tigers (the subspecies that was deemed most similar, and as such the best fit for the Caspian tigers former niche) were transferred to Kazakhstan from Stichting Leeuw, a facility in the Netherlands.  Bodhana and Kuma have been released into a large enclosure; the hope is that they will breed in these semi-wild conditions, and that their cubs will then become truly wild.  This plan is proceeding with careful coordination from government and non-government partners, working with local people (those who are most likely to be impacted by future generations of wild tigers) in an effort to maximize the success and sustainability of this tremendous venture.

Compare that to the situation in the UK...

Fears of "rogue rewilding" grow in Scottish Highlands after four lynx captured by park ranges

Last week, not one, but TWO pairs of Eurasian lynx were found wandering the Scottish Highlands,  There has been interest in reintroducing lynx - extinct in the British Isles for centuries - for many years, but the process has been slow and cautious, working to build support.  It seems that someone took the initiative for themselves and released animals.  It doesn't appear that these lynx - of unknown origin - were that well prepared for release, as the animals, so shy and stealthy in their natural state, basically ambled about until they were captured with relative ease.  They've been taken to the Edinburgh Zoo for care while the whole matter is investigated.  Of the second released pair, one animal died not long after capture.  Besides the tragic loss of the one animal, if these lynx, during their brief time out and about, had, say, killed livestock or engaged in other similar behaviors, it could have been a major blow to future attempts to restore the species to the wild legally.

"While we are passionate to see lynx back in the wild, it's crucial to stress that illegal releases like this are not the way forward... lynx have the potential to play a vital role in restoring habitats and natural processes.  Their rightful return to the wild can make a real difference - but only if it's done the right way" - Wildwood Zoo, UK

The Buzz About Hummers

Birdwatching is one of my main hobbies, but I give hummingbirds relatively little thought.  In my part of the country, there's generally only one species - the ruby-throated hummingbird - so if a hummingbird zips by, I know what it was.  When I'm traveling to a part of the world with a greater diversity of hummingbirds (so, almost anywhere else in the New World), sightings are usually so fast and so short that I don't have much of a chance to see it, let alone tell what it was.  

Normally, I appreciate the opportunity to enjoy studying and observing birds in zoos and aviaries, but here again, hummers pose a challenge.  I don't think there's any group of birds with a great contrast between the number of species in the wild and how few are represented in zoos.  I think I can count on how hand how many facilities I've seen hummingbirds in (and in two of those facilities, I encountered the birds in off-exhibit spaces).

What gives?  Well, hummingbirds pose a number of challenges.  For a bird which can be difficult to observe and breed, that might make some aviculturalists wonder if they're worth the trouble.  They are very small and delicate.  They have super fast metabolism and require constant feeding - that makes the fact of capture and transport difficult, which has historically made them a challenge to send far from their range.  They're very active and require larger habitats than one might expect for a bird of their size.  

They're also surprisingly aggressive - I remember years ago reading a quote from a biologist who said that if hummingbirds were the size of crows, it would be too dangerous for us to walk in a meadow.  That makes it all the more challenging to keep groups together, as the territorial birds were jealously see each other off of their favorite feeders (a pretty large number of my wild sightings of hummingbirds have consisted of one chasing another).  When I most recently visited the San Diego Zoo and saw their new hummingbird house, I was surprised (but maybe only a little) that the vast majority of the birds that I met in the exhibit weren't hummingbirds.

Some zoos have luck with the family.  One of the coolest walk-through aviaries I ever saw was the outdoor hummingbird aviary at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, home to several native species in conditions that were essentially identical to the wild just outside.  For zoos that don't have the resources, skill, or (and this is okay) interest in dealing with some of the most charismatic yet frustrating birds to manage in captivity, there's another solution - just put a feeder or two in a public area.  Let them come to you.

Book Review: The Glitter in the Green - In Search of Hummingbirds

"Yet I could not escape the feeling that these efforts were papering over the cracks that were appearing across the continents in which the hummingbirds were found.  They were indeed, I realized now, the most beautiful canary in the coalmine."

The distribution of birds in zoos and aviaries is an uneven one.  Some groups, especially those that are most closely related to our domestic birds with well-understood, easily satisfied husbandry, are very well represented.  Waterfowl, for example, as well as pheasants.  I've cared for several species of each, and have seen many of the remaining species in one collection or another.  Other birds remain far more elusive, far more difficult to manage.  Perhaps the birds I've thought of the most in this way have been the world's smallest birds, the hummingbirds.

The interest is hardly mine alone, either.  For as long as people have seen hummingbirds, they've been fascinated by them - their speed, their perpetual motion, their tiny size.  At times, they seem less like birds, than they do largish insects, or perhaps even very elaborate pieces of clockwork.  The Glitter in the Green: In Search of Hummingbirds is Joe Dunn's account of traveling the length and breadth of North and South America in search of hummers.  I would've expected the book to open by telling us how Dunn grew up watching hummingbirds in his garden, or found and nursed a wounded hummer as a kid, or some such story.  Instead, I was surprised to learn that he was from the decidedly hummingbird-free UK.  Given the difficulties in maintaining hummingbirds in zoos, his first exposure to the little birds would not have been live animals, but as pinned specimens in the cabinet of a natural history museum, like little feathered jewels.

Dunn makes no claim that he is going to show the readers all - or even a majority - of the world's 366 or so species of Trochilidae.  Instead, he focuses his book on the superlatives, birds that stand out as exceptionally unique even in the midst of such a strange family.  An obvious candidate, for example, is Cuba's bee hummingbird, the smallest of birds (though Dunn tells us that this diminutive title is contested).  He also bookends his work with the northernmost and southernmost of hummingbirds; I'll have to admit, I'd never even considered that Alaska would be a place where one could conceivably find these little guys!  He even takes us on a quest in "search" (through history, as well as geography) of a hummingbird which never even existed, a fabrication of an era when new species were being described left and right, not always with the most accuracy.

As always when I read books like Dunn's, I'm equally entertained by the peppering of historical and geographical information in with the zoology.  One of the most interesting chapters takes the reader to desolate islands off the coast of Chile, home not only to hummingbirds, but, centuries ago, to a castaway whose story was the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe.   A few diversions aside, however, Dunn keeps his focus on his pint-sized avian protagonists.  And, as with every modern natural history book out there, in the background is the looming specter of endangerment brought about by human actions.  There's loss of habitat, there are invasive species, and there is an unsustainable demand for the bodies of these little birds, as Dunn shows us as he tours a Latin American marketplace and sees hummingbirds for sale.  Fortunately for the reader, there are also plenty of people that we meet who are determined to do their part to save the little birds, and their stories inspire hope for the future of hummers.

Hummingbirds are birds that have always frustrated me on some level.  They are so tiny and so fast that whenever I see them, in the wild or (less frequently) in a zoo, I feel like I can barely register them as they zip by, sometimes hovering for a few seconds to offer me the quickest of views.  Perhaps because of this, I was all the more appreciative of a chance to sit down with a good book about the family so I could appreciate them at a more leisurely, less hummingbird-like pace.

The Glitter in the Green: In Search of Hummingbirds at Amazon.com

Fire in the Hole

The major national news these days continues to be the devastating fires raging across southern California.  So far the region's zoos seem to have escaped damage, though I'm aware of at least one nature center in Pasadena which has been destroyed; I'm not certain as this time as to whether the center's small collection of native herps was evacuated before the fire came.  Even if the facilities and animals themselves remain untouched, the fires are having a horrific impact on the communities that they are part of, including where their staff and their families live.  We'll continue to think of them and look for opportunities to support them as the situation plays out.

Ironically, the one zoo that was damaged by fire yesterday was nowhere near California.  The Rainforest building at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo caught on fire yesterday.  The iconic building was closed to the public last year as the zoo prepares to renovate and expand it, but several animals - including bats, orangutans, and the majority of the zoo's reptiles and amphibians - are still housed inside of it.  Thankfully, the fire happened during normal business hours and the response was quick.  No animals or humans were harmed, and hey, if something has got to catch on fire, might as well as something that was in the early stages of demolition/renovation anyway.

Fire might be the disaster the frightens me the most at work.  Unlike extreme weather events, there's often no warning as to when it breaks out, and it moves very swiftly.  Often the only recourse is to evacuate - easier said than done with a zoo-full of animals.  You can have a contingency plan, and train for a response to an occurrence like what happened in Cleveland, but if you have a situation like the one that threatens the California zoos?  That's a lot harder to manage - and unfortunately, disasters such as the California fires only appear to be getting more numerous, and more damaging.

Zootierliste

For many years, European zoo enthusiasts have enjoyed a unique website which has greatly facilitated their hobby - Zootierliste ("Zoo Animal List").  Recently, the website has been expanded to the United States, so I thought it might be time to explore it and see what the fuss was about.

The site, true to the name's list, provides lists of animals held in zoos, both current holdings and former.  You can search by animal, to see what zoos have a certain species, or you can search by facility, in order to see what animals that zoo has.  The information comes from what visitors report, so there are some issues, probably inevitable, with accuracy.  I search for my zoo, for instance, and saw three species listed under current holdings that we no longer have, and two species listed under former holdings that we do, in fact, still have.  So, if I were going to plan a trip with the express purpose of seeing a specific animal, I'd probably want to reach out first and confirm that they actually have it (and that it is, in fact, on display, before I committed myself.

A second neat feature is a "zoo radius search," in which you can put your town, set your distance, and get a list of all facilities within that range.  (The Association of Zoos and Aquariums has something similar on their website, but it only lists AZA-accredited facilities).  Now, the caveat here is that they are pretty generous with what they consider a zoo.  I was surprised to see a dozen facilities with a 50 kilometer radius of my home - but the vast majority of them were tiny local nature centers with a box turtle and some frogs and fish, as well as an alpaca farm.  

Still, kind of cool to know that they're all out there.

Zootierliste

Species Fact Profile: Red-Fronted Macaw (Ara rubrogenys)

                                                             Red-Fronted Macaw

                                           Ara rubrogenys (Lafresnaye, 1847)

Range:  South-Central Bolivia (Santa Cruz Department)

Habitat: Semi-Desert, Dry Forest

Diet: Fruits, Cacti, Grasses

Social Grouping: Small Flocks (3-5), sometimes congregating in larger flocks

Reproduction: Form monogamous bonds which are maintained year round, with pairs copulating and preening year round to maintain the pair bound.  Often seen engaging in affectionate behaviors, such as grasping beaks and nibbling each other’s faces.  Breed once yearly, October through March.  Lay 1-3 eggs, incubated for around 26 days.  Both parents care for the chicks.  Sexually mature at 3-6 years old, but usually don’t breed until 10-12 years old

Lifespan: 25-50 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Critically Endangered.  CITES Appendix I

• Body length 55-60 centimeters.  Average wingspan of about 80 centimeters.  Weigh 425-550 grams, making them the lightest of Ara macaws
• Sexes look alike.  Predominately green, with a red forehead and a red patch over the ears.  The wings are edged in bright orange or red, and there is red at the bend of the wing.  The primary feathers are blue.  There is an area of pinkish skin around the eyes, extending to the beak.  Juveniles have entirely green heads, getting some red in at 6-12 months of age
• Whereas most macaws nest in tree cavities, there are no large trees in its range (the only semi-desert macaw), so it instead nests in the vertical fissures of cliff faces.  
• Generally not territorial, though during the breeding season pairs may defend the area immediately surrounding their nest site.
• Very vocal.  In addition to loud squawk, can also squeak and whistle, make a twitter sound to solidify pair bonds or an alert sound to warn other macaws to danger.  When one bird in a flock vocalizes, the others often quickly repeat the call
• Important seed disperser for cacti; may also serve as pollinators
• Sometimes also known as Lafresnaye’s macaw after Frederic de Ladresnaye, the French ornithologist who described the species
• Primary threat is illegal capture for the pet trade (primarily for local demand, but also for international trade), along with habitat loss, in part caused by overgrazing by domestic livestock.  Persecuted by farmers as an agricultural pest in retaliation for raiding crops (especially attracted to corn).  Poorly enforced local protection.  Naturally rare with small range
• Species first documented in North American zoo collections in 1914, with one female obtained by the Milwaukee County Zoo from a private owner.   Not regularly kept in zoos until 1976, with the first recorded captive hatch at the Oklahoma City Zoo in 1986. 

A Seasonal Snack

Compared to the fuss that we make about pumpkins at Halloween time, the enrichment and culinary value of Christmas trees at the zoo never seems to gain as much media traction.  Perhaps it's because late December and early January is a time of year when we have far fewer visitors than in October.  Perhaps it's because far fewer animals like to eat Christmas trees as opposed to pumpkins.  

I mean, I know which of the two I'd rather eat...

Enjoy the footage of elephants snacking on Christmas trees in Berlin (which, I realize, I've also shared this time last year and the year before, but why mess with a tradition?  But why always Berlin?  Isn't anyone else doing it?)!

And here's a tiger enjoying (but not eating) a Christmas tree at Tacoma, Washington's Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

Sharpening Winter's Axe

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

- Abraham Lincoln

What I like the most about New Year is that it happens at the single deadest time of the year.  Everyone is still full and worn out from the holidays.  It's bitterly cold outside, and there are no visitors pounding at the gates.  Many of the animals are tucked into winter holding; the native species are mostly hibernating or in torpor or whatever it is they get up to at this time of year.  It's the perfect time for coming up with projects to do indoors, ones that you know you will never have time for come March.  It's a time for planning, because it seldom seems like there's time for it in the busy season.

Animal transfers tend to happen most often in the spring and fall, when the weather is the most temperate and conducive to safe shipping, so now is the time to start researching the animals that are coming into your collection - be they new species, or new individuals of species that you already have - so you're as prepared as possible.  For animals that are going out, it's a good time to get their paperwork ready so as to set the caretakers at their new home up for success.

Outdoor construction also is often on hold until the ground isn't frozen.  This is the time of year to take the adage, "Measure twice, cut once" to heart.  Thoroughly plan your projects for the spring so you can get right to work enhancing your exhibits.  What materials do you have?  Do an inventory.  What do you need?  Start pricing and sourcing.  How will everything come together?  Work on blueprints and doodle and experiment with ideas, so you can hit the ground running when the temps go up.

If you have a studbook, now might be the chance you've been looking for to actually do your updates, ponder your population, make breeding recommendations, and catch up on your backlog of correspondence.

I've never met a keeper for whom winter has been the favorite season.  Aquarists don't count, because by and large every season is the same for them.  Still, every season has its advantages, and it's important to know how to use them.  For winter, it's best to use that season to prepare.  Then, you're ready for the good months ahead

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2025!  Happy New Year to all, especially the dedicated folks who are the lifeblood of zoos, aquariums, and other animal care facilities, as well as the visitors whose support makes those facilities and their missions possible!