Species Fact Profile: Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii)

                                                         Blanding's Turtle

                                           Emydoidea blandingii (Holbrook, 1838)

Range: Northeastern/Nort Central United States, Southern Canada

Habitat: Wetlands (preference for clear, shallow water with plentiful vegetation)

Diet: Crustaceans, Fish, Frogs, Carrion, Berries, and Vegetation

Social Grouping: Asocial

Reproduction: 1-2 clutches of 8-15 eggs (range 3-22, varying across range) in a year, females usually reproducing every other year.  Usually nest in sunny areas with well-drained soil.  Incubation period 82-96 (range 65-128, again varying across range) days.  Hatchlings about 3.3 centimeters at hatching.  Sexually mature at 12-20 years based on size, with males maturing earlier than females.

Lifespan: 80 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Endangered, CITES Appendix II

• Males have a carapace length of 28 centimeters, females up to 22 centimeters.  Carapace is domed but slightly flattened along the midline, appears oblong from above.  Plastron is hinged, but does not close up tightly, sometimes called “semi-box” turtle
• Carapace is dark with numerous yellow or white streaks, while the plastron is yellow with symmetrical dark blotches.  The exposed skin is dark green-brown with some light speckling and a characteristic bright yellow chin and throat.
• Overwinter under or near the water, either buried in the mud or in vegetation and debris.  During the nesting system, females may travel up to 1 kilometer from the water to lay
• Predators include raccoons and foxes.  The turtles leave strong scent trails, which makes them more vulnerable to tracking by predators
• ·Only member of the genus Emydoidea, but sometimes placed in Emys with the European pond turtle and Sicilian pond turtle, rather than North American species.  Species name honors American naturalist Dr. William Blanding (1773-1857).
• Declining due to a variety of factors, including loss of habitat and fragmentation, mortality from roads (especially a problem for females on their way to lay), and increased predation of eggs and hatchlings by artificially-elevated populations of raccoons and other meso-predators.
•  Not widely sought after in trade, but even occasional collection for consumption or export can further reduce populations.  Often caught as bycatch during snapping turtle fishing.  Sometimes captured for sale on pet trade, with gravid females, being away from the water and exposed, being the most vulnerable to capture
• Raymond Ditmars described the species as very common in parts of the US when he wrote his Reptiles of the World and found it “erratic in habits” – noted that some species seemed to be primarily aquatic, others were primarily terrestrial (perhaps males vs females, seasonally?)
• Several US facilities – including Brookfield, Cosley, Shedd Aquarium, and Toronto – work with government agencies on a head-start program to collect gravid females, collect their eggs and raise them in safe conditions, and release them back to the wild years later (this supplementing the SSP breeding program).  Released turtles have been found years later, indicating their survival and the success of the program

Eating Crow

Just a reminder of the kinds of important work that Federal employees - supported by zoos - can accomplish in helping to repair and restore our natural world.  Who will step up and do the work without partners in the government?  Will the current regime even allow such efforts to take place, regardless of who is paying for them, or deem them an obstacle to resource extraction, development, and just plain "woke?"

This rare, intelligent species of crow is taking flight in Hawaii again

A Serpentine Spectrum

I used to be able to say, with complete sincerity, that in a lifetime of working with reptiles, I've never been bitten by a venomous snake.

I suppose that I can no longer say that.  Not because of any recent bite that's changed by stats - but because of the continuing evolution and redefinition of "venom."

A lot of people think of venom as binary - a snake is or it isn't, and if it is, and it bites you, you're going to die (instantly, if the movies are to be trusted... which they aren't).  In reality, venom is a spectrum.  If we're describing it by its pure definition, a substance which is injected (via fangs, stingers, etc) that has an injurious impact on the victim... well, a lot of species become venomous.  The thing is, we just never really noticed or considered a lot of them venomous before, because the impact on humans - the species that we are, naturally, the most concerned about - is negligible.  

Gartersnakes, for example, are a group of fairly small, very common snakes found across North America.  I played with them all the time as a kid, and was nipped more than once.  They are one of the species that I first learned snake handling on - and apparently, they actually are venomous.  None of those bites ever had any impact on me, but the venom was still there - it was just meant to act on their actual prey, not on humans.  The same can be said for many exotic snakes.  Tentacled snakes, an aquatic Asian species very popular in zoos and aquariums, are also mildly venomous.  In the unlikely event that you can get one to bite you (they are very docile), you may experience some slight itchiness.  Maybe.

This keeper probably wouldn't be holding a "real" venomous snake this way

This mostly becomes a headache for herp curators who are formulating protocols for their facilities.  When I was starting off in the field, the dichotomy between venomous and nonvenomous snakes was clear.  If you had training and experience that had been signed off by the curator, you were clear to work with the venomous snakes.  If you didn't, then you did not.  There were no ifs, ands, or buts, and an untrained keeper were to be found working with a venomous snake without approval, there would be hell to pay.  Some of those "mildly venomous" species - the tentacled snakes came to mind - were still counted as venomous, because no one wanted to decide where to draw the line, and it seemed like a slippery slope.

Still, new keepers were, on their first day, working with gartersnakes, and hognosed snakes, and other snakes that we know now are venomous.  I wonder how the protocols have changed to embrace this new reality.  Which species are safe to work with?  Does it matter for training purposes?  For safety drills?  For insurance?  Can venomous snakes neatly be divided into dangerous and non-dangerous categories?

Nature is messy, and animals don't seem to read the rule books that we write.  That's part of what makes working with them so chaotic - and so much fun.

Force Feeding a Giant

Samantha, the Bronx Zoo's reticulated python, may "only" have been 21 feet when they got her, but she was able to tack on another 5 feet in the decade that she lived at the zoo.  She fared far better than many of the giant snakes collected from the wild over the years for zoos and collectors, which is why she was able to live (and grow) so much longer.  The early days of the keeping giant snakes in our reptile collections, around the turn of the last century when Roosevelt first issued his reward, were sagas of failure.

Big snakes were collected from the wild, but typically failed to survive for very long in many cases.  There are a few reasons why.  Difficulty in keeping snakes and other reptiles sufficiently warm with the technology of the era was part of the challenge.  I'd read of several zoos that gave their snakes blankets trying to keep them warm.  In some cases, the snakes ate the blankets.

A more recurring challenge was getting the snakes to eat.

A big snake can go for a long time - over a year, in some cases - without a meal.  This is true in the zoo as in the wild.  They do need to eat at some point, however, and early zoos had a very difficult time getting their snakes eating.  I suspect that this was in part due to the fact that the snakes weren't sufficiently warm and didn't have good lighting, which depressed their appetites.  Part was that the exhibits of the day were pretty barren, so a snake, feeling exposed and unable to hide, would be reluctant to eat (a feeding snake is a vulnerable snake, as its only defensive mechanism is plugged with food for a period of time while it slowly swallows).  Part was also that the snakes were adults taken from the wild, set in their ways and having a harder time adjusting to a zoo based diet.  In many zoos, the keeper superstition arose that the snakes would only eat live prey - but the problem is that if you put a live prey animal in with a snake, and the snake isn't hungry, sometimes the prey animal will actually harm the snake (especially if it's a bitey rodent).  

So, many zoos resorted to the nuclear option - force feeding.  This had the disadvantage of being dangerous not only to the snakes, but, in the case of larger or venomous species, the keepers.

Consider this account from Peter Brazaitis in his memoir of the Bronx Zoo, You Belong In A Zoo!

" We once had a seventeen-foot-long anaconda that refused to feed on anything we offered it... it held to its fast for nearly a year.  While it was a giant in length, its emaciated body was little more than skin and bones.  Finally we decided that the poor beast had to be force-fed, something we were were reluctant to do for fear of damaging the snake's mouth in the process and, because of its already debilitated state, having it develop an infection.  The snake was sure not to cooperate."

With reinforcements from other departments, keepers managed to grab the thin but still-mighty snake and stretch it out.  Brazaitis was given the job of inserting the food into the snake's mouth with a pair of forceps.

"As I pressed the dead rat to the snake's lips, the snake suddenly opened its jaws wide and lunged forward, carrying with it the army of surprised keepers who held on to its body.  In and down went the rat, followed by the forceps and y hand.  The jaws closed, imbedding dozens of its three-quarter-inch-long teeth into the top and bottom of my hand."

Indian rock python "Diablo" being fed with a sausage stuffer at the San Diego Zoo (San Diego Union-Tribune)

By the time Brazaitis retrieved his hand from the snake's mouth, he described it as looking like a cancelled check, full of little punched holes.   None of my force-feed experiences have been this dramatic, but most have equally been fiascos.

Zoos tried all sorts of tricks to improve force-feeding, from tying several prey items in a row to induce one "mega feed" to even using sausage stuffers to feed the snakes held by keepers.  While force-feeding is still used on occasion with particularly difficult feeders, it's generally only an emergency occurrence (and the increasing availability of captive-bred snakes means that more snakes are accustomed to life in a zoo and feed better as a result).

What's really made the difference for most animals, I suspect, is habitats that better resemble the wild, both in terms of furnishings and climatic variables, as well as keeper patience and empathy - trying to figure out what will make a snake want to eat on its own, rather than seeing a recalcitrant snake as a challenge to be beaten.

Zoo History: Speak Softly and Carry a Big Snake

Few, if any, US Presidents could boast a more action-filled life than Theodore Roosevelt, both during office and in his years as a private citizen.  Among Roosevelt's many accomplishments, both in statesmanship, sport, and warfare, his contributions as a naturalist and conservationist are often overlooked.  And yet it was Roosevelt who established the first National Wildlife Refuge, who co-led a scientific expedition down a previously-uncharted tributary of the Amazon, and who was a recognized expert on wildlife.  It was also Roosevelt who played a key role in the formation of the New York Zoological Society, which we today call the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the opening of its flagship institution, the Bronx Zoo.

Roosevelt was a competitive man, both in and out of office, and always strove to have things be the most superlative - the biggest, the best, etc - and to this end, he posed a challenge for the young zoo.  Roosevelt would put up $1000 - more than a car cost, back in the day - for anyone who could provide the Bronx Zoo with a snake that measured over 30 feet long.  In 1912, reports came of a 33-foot python that was killed in Indonesia, but it was never confirmed.  Dead snakes make poor evidence, in many cases - snakeskin is quite stretchy, and so a skin can't be used to accurately estimate the size of the animal in life.  Over the years, the reward crept upwards - inflation, am I right? - until it peaked at $50,000 in 1980.  Yet despite all of that temptation, a snake that met Roosevelt's criteria was never found.  

But some came close.

It seemed like a champion might have been found in 1992, when an Indonesian leather company reached out to the Bronx after having captured a reticulated python that they said fit the bill.  The snake had been a long-time resident of a village in Borneo, but after a series raids into local chicken coops, the townspeople decided that it was time to part ways with their hungry neighbor.  The reticulated python of Southeast Asia is generally considered to be the longest snake on earth; green anacondas, from South America, tend to be much bulkier and heavier, but do not grow as long.  In those pre-internet days, communication between the zoo and company was slow and uncertain, but the snake was eventually boxed up and shipped to New York.  At the zoo, the python, named Samantha, was uncrated and measured (measuring a large snake is a tricky business, as snakes are not inclined to stretch out in a straight line).  And the result was... 21 feet, 175 pounds (an anaconda of that length would have weighed several times as much).  A big snake - about tied for the biggest I've ever seen in my life - but not 30 feet, by a long shot.

Still, Samantha was now in the Bronx, and it wasn't like they were going to send her back to Borneo.  For the next 10 years, the python continued her residence in the Big Apple... and she continued to grow during that time.  At the time of her death in November 2002, she had put on 100 pounds, as well as 5 feet, topping off at 26 feet long.  A very impressive snake, by any definition - but one that was still less than 90% of what Theodore Roosevelt's gold standard was.  Her obituary ran in the New York Times.

That same year, the Bronx Zoo officially rescinded its reward for a giant snake.  Reticulated pythons and other large constrictors have been heavily hunted for years for their hides, with the biggest snakes being the most sought after.  With their deaths, their genes for bigness likely went with them.  That makes it all the more unlikely that a truly giant python or boa is out there - but it's nice to think that, in a corner of the world somewhere far off the beaten path, a real giant still lives, unnoticed and unmolested.

Sporcle Quiz: Sporcle at the Zoo - Reticulated Python

Let's celebrate the Year of the Snake with our newest Sporcle Quiz, Sporcle at the Zoo: Reticulated Python!  See how much you know about the world's longest snake, a perennial favorite of zoo visitors!

Nice to Meet You, Tula-Tu

Perhaps given the nature of current events, it's not entirely surprising that this blog has gotten a bit dour lately.  So, while not ceding the ground on the good work still to be done, let's take a step back and admire this adorable newborn Asian elephant from the Oregon Zoo

 

Lead, Follow, or Out of the Way

Talk about a St. Valentine's Day Massacre...

Last week saw the mass-layoffs of thousands of federal employees.  While the cuts took place across departments, it seems like the agency that I kept seeing highlighted most often in my newsfeed was the National Parks Service.  Perhaps this is partly because I like/follow a lot of National Parks, as do my friends, who share the content, so the algorithm worked that way.  Perhaps it was also because the Parks, being some of our most beloved American institutions, are of great interest to the public, and the sacking of dedicated public servants that care for them is the most upsetting to the average social media user.

One post, shared by a friend of mine, was written by a young woman who was one of many of her colleagues suddenly fired from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, where she had worked at one of the Hawaiian refuges.  Specifically, she and her colleagues had worked with habitat restoration, trying to protect the vanishing endemic birds of Hawaii.  For her, this wasn't just a profession, but also a cause, a labor of love, and I was very sorry to hear about her loss.  I was equally sorry to hear about the impact that it might have on those endangered birds... which got me thinking.

Right now, the US Government, through the USFWS, maintains ownership of a large number of endangered native species held by zoos and aquariums.  Bald and golden eagles are the most prominent examples, but a host of other species, especially those associated with reintroduction programs, are owned by the government.  My suggestion?  Ok, Secretary Burgum - your department has decided it doesn't really care anymore?  Fine.  Relinquish ownership of all captive wildlife held by zoos and aquariums to those zoos.  

No more having to get the Fed's permission to move animals.  No more tedious annual reports that there will be no one left to read, because everyone's being fired.  No more restrictions of partnerships between AZA and non-AZA facilities.  We can keep up the idea of sending eagle feathers and body parts to Native American nations for use in cultural regalia, but no reason we need to have you involved in that.

If DOI isn't interested in saving species, at least have the courtesy to get out of the way.

Zoo Review: Buffalo Zoo, Part II

 Continuing our tour of the Buffalo Zoo, we come to exhibits of two of the largest resident species.  Just down the path from the Main Animal Building, at the end of the row of hoofstock yards described yesterday, is a large, grassy field for Indian one-horned rhinos.  Past that is a paddock for giraffes, with an attached barn that allows visitors to view the animals indoors - giraffes are notoriously ill-suited to walking on snowy or muddy ground which, I imagine, is a lot of the year in Buffalo.  I've frequently felt that it would behoove many northern zoos to invest more space in their indoor giraffe quarters, considering how much of the year that the animals often spend in them, and Buffalo is certainly a good example of that.  I'd have liked to have seen the animals outdoors to get a better appreciation of their habitat as well, but it was a gray, drizzly day when I visited.

The oldest remaining structure of the Zoo is the former elephant house, built in 1912.  It's a lovely piece of architecture, but one which is wholly unsuited for house elephants these days, and Buffalo phased out its Asian elephants about 7 years ago.  At the time of my visit, the exhibit was home to a black rhinoceros, which, being much smaller and solitary, is a better fit for the space, but I don't know if this is the long-term plan for the space.  I would have liked to have had the chance to go inside to glean what historical impressions I could have gotten from the building, but it doesn't appear to be public accessible.

Other features of the "older" zoo are a mountain for bighorn sheep (a fairly unattractive structure, to be honest, especially if compared to the beautiful mountain habitats in many western zoos.  Concrete moated islands for wild sheep and goats such as this used to be very common features in American zoos, but are seldom encountered these days), a paddock of deer, a small outdoor walk-through aviary, a goat corral, and an exhibit of cinereous vultures.  Which then leads us to the newer additions to the zoo.

At the turn of the millennium, Buffalo Zoo unveiled an ambitious new masterplan.  As is often the case with zoo masterplans, the entire program was not completed, but several were, to the great improvement of the campus.  Immediately inside the entrance are a pair of new habitats for two popular aquatic mammals, Sea Lion Cove, for California sea lions, and Otter Creek, for North American river otters.  I was especially impressed by the later - too often, otter exhibits focus so much on the aquatic component that they neglect land area, but this was one of the better river otter exhibits I've seen.

Nearby is the new (2015) and rather good Arctic Edge.  There are side habitats for Canada lynx, bald eagle, and arctic fox. but the stars, of course, are the polar bears.  The bears have habitats with grass and dirt, no just the concrete-disguised-as-ice that is too typical of polar bear exhibits, as well as pools with underwater viewing.  An especially unique feature of the exhibit is the impressive interpretive center, where visitors can learn about climate change and its impact on polar habitats, as well as what they can do to help lessen their carbon footprint.  Most attention, however, will probably be drawn to the giant mounted specimen of polar bear in the middle of the room, which allows visitors to truly appreciate just how giant the bears can be.

Indoor rainforest buildings are a popular feature of many zoos located in cold, gray places, and Buffalo is no exception.  M&T Bank Rainforest Falls is perhaps the flagship exhibit of the masterplan, focusing on the wildlife of Latin America.  Most of the exhibit consists of a large free-flight aviary, featuring birds such as scarlet ibis and roseate spoonbill, which fly over a water feature filled with stingrays and other Amazonian fish, while capybaras loaf on the shoreline.  Ocelot, giant anteater, and various South American monkeys are found in mesh-enclosed habitats that line with walls, while a small cave-like area towards the rear of the building features vampire bats, turtles, and an exhibit of green anaconda with underwater viewing.  There is also an elevated viewing deck which provides opportunities to view the birds and primates at canopy level.  I'll admit that I often find these indoor rainforest buildings somewhat underwhelming, with the exception of a few truly breathtaking examples I've seen, but it's a solid addition to the Zoo and indoor exhibits are always a good investment in Buffalo.

My recent visit was the first time I'd been to Buffalo is 15 years - the otter, sea lion, and polar bear exhibits, to say nothing of the rainforest - were all completely new to me.  Buffalo Zoo is a facility where the divide between the old and new is still very much apparent, with the newer exhibits perhaps making the older ones appear that much starker and more antiquated.  I'd love to see the Zoo resume the exciting trend of construction and renovation that it showed during the earlier years of the 2000s, with the gorillas being a priority, the giraffes perhaps a runner-up.  In may be that the size of the campus and climate of the region force the re-evaluation of some species, but if some species have to go, there are other, perhaps better-fitted candidates that could be brought in.  Many of their newer exhibits show innovation and good planning, and I certainly admire Arctic Edge's willingness to tackle the thorny subject of climate change head-on.  With the right resources and support, I'm sure Buffalo could achieve some wonderful things with its zoo.

Zoo Review: Buffalo Zoo, Part I

The Buffalo Zoo is one of three northeastern zoos - the others being Roger Williams Park, in Providence, RI, and the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore - that frequently makes the claim of being America's Third Oldest Zoo.  Located in Delaware Park, it is a compact facility of hardly more than 20 acres, which still manages to fit a surprisingly large number of large animals onto the campus.  Like many American zoos, it had a history of a small collection of mostly unwanted pets and local wildlife until becoming the beneficiary of funds and construction from the WPA in the 1930s and 1940s.  At about that time, the Zoo also promoted reptile keeper, then curator, Marlin Perkins to the directorship.  Perkins, who would later go on to host Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, lead the zoo to increased growth and success.  

Today, the zoo boasts of a large, diverse collection spread across exhibits of varying quality, from the modern to the archaic.  Perhaps the most valuable asset the Zoo can boast of is its location.  It is only a few miles away from the world famous Niagara Falls, and is able to benefit from tourism drawn to that spectacular natural feature.

At the far end of the zoo from the main entrance is one massive building, which curves along the perimeter of the Zoo.  Dating back to the WPA, the structure, once simply called "The Main Animal Building" houses not only the administrative offices, as well as a cafe, but many of the most iconic animals in the collection.  At one extreme of the building is one of Buffalo's weak points, the gorilla exhibit.  This is one of the last all-indoor gorilla exhibits in North America, and having seen many excellent gorilla exhibits elsewhere, one can understand why the trend has been to move away from this.  The world's largest primates are in a grim, cave-like exhibit, all fake rockwork and glass panels.  It comes nowhere close to being the worst primate exhibit I've ever seen, but I'd be very surprised if the Zoo leadership itself was happy with it anymore, and if there weren't plans for a different future for it.  The gorilla exhibit is joined by habitats for meerkats, naked mole rats, and a few fish and herps, which the Zoo has attempted to tie together thematically as "Diversity of Life."

At the other extreme of the U-shaped Main Animal Building is one of the stronger part of the collection, the reptile house.  When the first reptile house opened in 1942, Perkins declared it the finest in America.  It may since have been overshadowed by a few other facilities (or many facilities, as it may be), but it's still quite a good one, with large, attractive, well-planted, well-designed habitats for a variety of reptiles and amphibians.  The lack of a crocodilian exhibit makes it hard for me to rank this among my favorites, but Komodo dragons are quite suitable as an anchor species (I always enjoy seeing Komodos with outdoor exhibit access, but for a zoo with a local climate like Buffalo's, I can appreciate that it wouldn't be worth the investment of space).  Other notable animals in the gallery include reticulated python, king cobra, bushmaster, matamata (perhaps the first time I ever saw a member of this notably sedentary turtle species actually swimming), and that ever-popular staple of northeastern herp collections, the hellbender.

At the center of the curving Main Animal Building are grottos for the world's largest cat species, lions and tigers.  The cats are visible both across moats or through glass windows.  The yards are respectable, grassy and rocky with some varied terrain, if not being the most exciting I've seen.  Back inside the Main Animal Building, linking the gorilla side and the reptile side, is the EcoStation, which is essentially a modest all-purpose small animal house featuring a few mixed species habitats depicting ecosystems around the world.  Featured here are animals such as sand cat, Brazilian agouti, and laughing kookaburra.

On the outside of the "U" are more outdoor habitats for mid-sized species.  A row of mesh-enclosed habitats feature ring-tailed lemur, red panda, snow leopard, and Japanese macaque.  Like the EcoStation and the Diversity of Life, there's an attempt to group these habitats by lumping them together as Vanishing Animals, but there's not much there to tie them.  This area also contains a row of open yards, mostly featuring hoofstock, such as zebra and roan antelope, but terminating in a fairly nice habitat for spotted hyenas.  As one would expect from the BUFFALO Zoo, there is also a habitat for that species that most visitors would call buffalo, the American bison.

Tomorrow, we'll work our way back towards the entrance of the Buffalo Zoo, including a visit of some of the newer exhibits that the facility has added since the millennium. 

Buffalo Zoo

The Quantifiable Keeper

 When I was back in college, and young enough to think that I knew everything (or, perhaps just as foolishly, to think that everything was knowable), I decided that my life's work was going to be write a book that would be the definitive work on zoo animal husbandry.  I actually had a tiny scrap of modesty and realized how big the project would be, so I decided to limit it to the Carnivores (cats, dogs, bears, hyenas, civets, mongooses, etc).  I started pouring through every book and journal I could find in our college libraries for research materials, as well as writing an endless stream of emails to zoo professionals who were unfortunate enough to have publicly accessible email addresses.

I did not date a lot back in those days, you may suspect.

What I really wanted to find were numbers.  I seemed to have this idea stuck in my head that everything about animal care was quantifiable, that there was some sort of idiot-proof equation for how to take care of every animal perfectly.  Exact enclosure sizes.  Breeding parameters.  Diets, weighed out to the gram.

It would be like playing Zoo Tycoon - a lion needs an enclosure of 100 tiles, 80 of which are savannah grass, 10 are dirt, and 5 each for freshwater and sand.  It needs X many rocks and Y many acacia trees, a cave for shelter, a climbing rock, and a social group of one male, two females.  Do that, and you'll score a perfect happiness level and they'll breed like clockwork.

Like many young people, I've since come to know how much I don't know, and how much is unknowable in some cases.  Animal care is a prime example.  So many individual factors make every animal and every enclosure different - age, sex, health, past history, local climate, keepers, facility design - that there's never going to be a perfect formally for anything.  What surprises me is how many zoo professionals I work with that still refuse to accept this.

Keepers and curators looking to get a new species for their zoo will ask the studbook keeper or program leader a bunch of questions, and in my experience get frustrated by the necessary vagueness.  What temperature can these birds tolerate?  I dunno - some zoos have their birds out all winter in the snow, no problems, some have to bring them in as soon as it gets below 40 or they see problems.  What about mixed species exhibits?  Dunno that either - these five zoos kept species A and B together, but these three reported some aggression, and at this zoo, A killed B on their first day together.

Vets, in my experience, are the most susceptible to this mind trap, and many that I've worked with can't seem it.  Maybe it's because they spend so much time with surgeries and x-rays that they see the animal more as a piece of complicated clockwork than an animal.  I've had vets get spitting mad with indignation when we've tried explaining that an animal refuses to take a certain medicine that they prescribe, or won't eat the commercial pellet diet versus the "fun" parts, such as produce or invertebrates.  "But it's the complete nutritional diet!" they'll explain - ok, got it, but try explaining that to the animal.

Maybe I'm just in that sweet spot on the Duning Kroger curve where I realize I don't know that much.  Any less time in the field, or any more, and I'd be an expert.

Venom Culture

 I've never worked with massasaguas, but I have worked with their even more diminutive cousin, the pygmy rattlesnake.  Despite all the time I've spent in zoo reptile houses, it's actually one of the few venomous reptile species I've worked with, so the little guys made quite an impression on me.

The pygmy rattlesnake is probably as good of a starter venomous snake as any other for a trainee keeper – well, probably a lot better than most. Its venom isn’t terribly potent – not saying that you should line up to get bitten, but if you do, the impact should be relatively mild. They’re sluggish, as crotalids tend to be, so less likely to pull a fast move on you. They’re small, which makes it easy to stay out of reach when servicing the exhibit – though their smallness has its disadvantages to, as they don’t sit on a hook terribly well, and tend to flop off. And, like all rattlesnakes, they’re considerate enough to (usually) give you a warning when they’re irked with you – though in this case, it’s of dubious benefit. The buzz of their tiny tails is so faint that I feel like your ear almost has to be within striking range to hear it.

At the two non-AZA zoos where I worked with this species, I was surprised (well, not really) to find that very few keepers were willing to actually work with them. This was brought to my attention when I realized that, when servicing the rattlesnakes for the first time in several days (I’d been rotated to another section), the water bowls were dry and there was a decent amount of poop and urate. I had similar experiences with tarantulas and scorpions at one of those zoos, with many keepers opting out of servicing those exhibits. To me, this screamed “management failure.” If a zoo director or curator wants a species, they need to make sure that they have sufficient staff trained and willing to take care of those species. If not, then perhaps that animal isn’t a good fit for the zoo.

To be fair, none of us were ever actually trained on venomous snakes – I had some experience and familiarity from previous AZA facilities, but it was hardly my forte, and my colleagues had none at all. That was a potential disaster in its own right. Proper training should describe not only how to safely handle or restrain/transport a snake, but how to respond in the case of a bite, from securing the animal to alerting staff and medical personnel to first aid precautions. It should also work to shape a culture of safety working around venomous animals – not handling them unnecessarily, what is acceptable versus unacceptable risk.

I’ll talk for a quick second about venom culture in American zoos. It’s really not one culture, per se, and can be highly variable based on several factors, the main one, in my experience, being geographic. Especially in the American South, my experience has been you see a keeper culture which is a bit more reckless and wild with venomous reptiles than you see in, say, the more staid northeast. Among these keepers (including some that I worked alongside for some time), there’s almost an addiction to the danger of working with venomous snakes, with safety precautions being deemed for sissies. “It’s like heroin,” one assistant curator told me, not explaining to me where his understanding of heroin came from. “You work with hot snakes, and soon you need more and more dangerous situations to get the thrill.” 

And this was a guy who certainly was adept at working venomous snakes. On a day when he was planning to clean the black mamba exhibit, I asked him if he’d mind if I took some pictures, and he agreed. I stood there, camera at the ready (this was pre-cellphone cameras) as he opened the back of the cage – and almost before I could even snap one photo, he’d opened the cage with one snakestick, hooked the mamba in one fluid motion, and transferred into a waiting trashcan, then plopped the lid on, seemingly in the blink of an eye.

eyelash viper

inside, which he had been trying to feed. The lid of the tank was off. He’d grown drowsy sitting their trying to coax the little snake to strike, and the heat of the building and the droning of life support systems had lulled him to sleep. I crept up and plopped the lid on the tank.
You always had to be careful, even if you weren’t the keeper. For example, one day someone rearranged the rack of Neodeshsas on my day off, and when I came back, what had once been a row of various Asian rat snakes was now home to Philippine and Samar cobras. The keys were all the same (probably not the best idea, in retrospect) so if I’d been working on autopilot, I might have opened a cage front and gotten a nasty surprise. Likewise, you could never be 100% sure if a trash can was empty, or held a snake, put your hands on a screen lid to steady yourself, and have a snake strike you through it, or who knows what. I was once cleaning a floor drain when I felt something sharp. When I jerked my hand out, there was an old bushmaster fang sticking into my finger.

Having been used to working in a building full of so many dangerous species, the pygmy rattlesnakes years later seemed like slightly nippy kielbasas.

My goal as their keeper was to maintain them to the same standard of care as the non-venomous snakes – with some safety modifications, as needed. Water got changed just as often. Poop was collected just as often; when one of our keepers was too scared to shift the snake, I duct-taped a large serving spoon to a broomstick so she could scoop out the poop. Weighed just as often. Enclosures done just as lavishly with furniture (I’ve seen some zoos in which venomous snakes have much starker enclosures than non-venomous species as a safety protocol – fewer hiding places, less clutter than a keeper could get entangled with, etc). A snake didn’t “decide” to be venomous, I told new keepers. Being venomous doesn’t mean they deserve a lesser standard of care. Fortunately, I see this viewpoint being shared more and more often in zoos around the US, and feel we’re starting to see better standards of snake care.

Regional Wonders

Growing up in the eastern seaboard, I had zero familiarity with the diminutive rattlesnake known as the massasagua when I was growing up.  Then, I began to spend some time in the Great Lakes region, and it seemed like the little snake had skyrocketed to being one of the most common snakes I saw in zoos.  Every zoo reptile house, no matter how small, seemed to have massasagua, and they all had signage telling you about their rarity and uniqueness.  Stray a bit further west, and they were nowhere to be seen.

The shoe was on the other foot when I was hosting a colleague from the west coast to my facility in the northeast, and they were so excited to see hellbenders.  Hellbenders may have been something of a novelty in zoos when I was younger, but now they are a staple of every major zoo and aquarium.  They've become so common that, if I'm in a hurry when going through a new zoo's reptile house, I might not even bother to take more than a second looking for them in their exhibit before moving on.

I think one of the most enjoyable things about visiting zoos outside of your own area, such as when you're on vacation, is seeing species that you might not see otherwise.  It's not just that most zoos have native species areas, and in a country as large and biologically diverse as ours, two ends of the country can have wildly different species.  It's that you also can learn about efforts to conserve those rare native species, the ones that have declined so much that you won't see them if you're out taking a nature hike or going birdwatching, for example.

Shining a light on such species - and zoos' efforts to conserve them - can help educate local visitors (which are generally the majority of visitors) about the impact that they can make on endangered species on the local level.  It also has the added advantage of showing visitors from outside the immediate area another example of what makes the zoo's home region unique and special.

Amora and Slinky

Recently, Layla, a female maned wolf at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas, gave birth toa  beautiful female pup - only to pass away very shortly after.  Confronted with the challenge of raising the pup in an appropriate social group, the Zoo turned to the local humane society and adopted a puppy.  During the delicate early days of life, Amora, the wolf pup, and Slinky, the dog have been introduced and found companionship with each other.

The solution is a temporary one - Amora will be moved to a facility where she can be with other maned wolves.  Slinky, in turn, will be rewarded for her service to an endangered species (and for just being a very good girl overall) by being adopted by a zoo staffer and finding a forever home.

Species Fact Profile: Massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus)

                                                               Massasauga

                                           Sistrurus catenatus (Rafinesque, 1818)

Range: Central North America, from southern Canada south into northern Mexico

Habitat: Lowland Forest, Wetlands, Prairies

Diet: Rodents, Lizards, Amphibians, Invertebrates

Social Grouping: Solitary

Reproduction: Mate in late summer, giving birth about 1 year later.  Females may have 5-20 young, born live.  Depending on food availability, they may reproduce anywhere from every year to every three years.  Sexual maturity is reached at 3-4 years old

Lifespan: 15-20 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern

• Short, thick-bodied snake, average adult length approximately 60 (range 46-76) centimeters.  Weigh 310-425 grams, with females being larger than males. 
• The head is flattened and heart-shaped, with the eyes having vertical pupils.  The tail terminates is a series of keratin rings, forming the rattle.  An additional button is added to the rattle every time the snake sheds its skin, though older segments can become brittle and break off.  Newborn snakes start life with a single button at the end of their tail
• Adults are gray or light brown with large chocolate-brown blotches, edged with lighter-colored scales, down the center of their backs, smaller blotches on the side.  The underside is solid black, or solid black with some light mottling.  The tail has alternating bands of light and dark scales.  Young snakes are similarly marked, but with more vivid colors.  Solid black melanistic individuals have been documented
• Most active by day, shifting towards more crepuscular during the peak of the summer
• During the spring and summer, the snakes migrate towards drier upland habitats.  Will only migrate short distances, occur most commonly in areas of habitat with variable elevations
• Unlike many other rattlesnakes, massasaguas hibernate alone, taking shelter in crayfish burrows, small mammal burrows, or under logs and tree roots, just below the frost line.  Most active between April and late October in the northern parts of their range.  Use the same hibernation den year after year
• Young snakes may lure prey close to flicking their tail to attract frogs and other animals.  Adults feed primarily on rodents, juveniles on reptiles.  Prey may be detected by sight, by smell, or in response to the heat or vibrations that animal gives off
• Natural predators include larger snakes, herons, hawks, skunks, raccoons, and foxes, with eggs and the young being especially vulnerable.  If approached, they will vibrate their tail as a warning, though with their small size the display is less audible than in other rattlesnakes, sometimes likened to the buzzing of an insect
• The venom is a cytotoxin, which destroys tissue and disrupts blood flow, preventing clotting and causing internal bleeding in the prey.  The snake bites its prey, then withdraws to safety while the venom kills the prey animal
• Only two reports exist of persons dying of massasauga bites, both individuals who were not given proper medical treatment.  Many hospitals do not carry their specific antivenin, which is considered difficult to acquire.  Bites on humans are very infrequent, with about 1-2 reported a year in Ontario and Michigan (the strongholds on this species), with other states reporting fewer than 1 bite a year.  Anywhere from ¼-1/2 of these bites are dry bites
• “Massasauga” comes from the Chippewa for “Great River Mouth,” probably referencing their preferred habitat in wetlands
• Three subspecies – the nominate, or eastern massasauga, which is the largest; the desert massasauga S. c. edwardsii (extreme southern US into northern Mexico, also occurring on several barrier islands);  and the western massasauga S. c. tergeminus (of Nebraska south to northern Texas).  The eastern subspecies is sometimes considered a separate species, with the other two subspecies recognized as S. tergeminus.  The eastern massasagua is the subspecies/species that is cooperatively managed in AZA member institutions
• The only other species in the genus Sistrurus is the pygmy rattlesnake (S. miliarius) of the southeastern United States
• Listed as endangered in several states and is a candidate for federal listing under the Endangered Species Act.  Primary threat is loss of habitat due to deforestation and wetland draining; the species does not make large-scale movements, so populations are easily isolated from one another.  Invasive plants disrupt their habitats, and efforts to control these plants through proscribed burning may kill snakes.  Also persecuted out of fear of being a venomous snake, though they are legally protected throughout their range

Fury of the Flu

Back in 2020, when coronavirus was first exploding onto the scene, there was a lot of speculation that this might just be the first of many pandemics we'd be dealing with - in effect, the start of a new normal.  That was obviously a thought that troubled a lot of people, myself included.  Towards the end of the pandemic, I thought that it was our trial run.  We'd learned some valuable lessons about what worked and what didn't work, and we'd be better prepared for the inevitable next day.

Man, was that naive.

I've thought about that a lot lately in the context of HPAI - bird flu.  Avian influenza has been a headache for our profession - and anyone else dealing with birds - for the past several years as more frequent and more virulent strains arise, and spread into a wider array of species.  It seems like the disease has just touched the public consciousness for the first time, however - probably because the price of eggs was a frequent talking point during the recent presidential election, and egg production has been severely impacted by bird flu.   Part of me thought, well, at least we're all talking about this disease and maybe more folks will take it seriously - better reporting, better monitoring, better adherence to biosecurity protocols.  

Again, naive.

As far as I can tell, what originally started off as resistance to first masks and social distancing, and later COVID vaccines, has since mutated (not unlike a virus) itself into a wide ranging distrust of any medical science.  When I read an article about bird flu, the comments are filled with people who refuse to believe in it.  Maybe it's a Deep State plot of undermine the poultry industry to make Trump look bad (not that he generally needs much help there.)  Maybe it's the result of chem trails or 5G or whatever we're all supposed to be afraid of this week.  When Lincoln Park Zoo reported that a seal and a flamingo died of the disease, some people suggested that the Zoo was covering up bad animal care practices by blaming the deaths on the disease (which must have been heartbreaking and infuriating for LPZ staff).  When they read about deaths of chickens - "Why is this only happening in chickens?"  When it happens in other species - "They heard us complain that it only happens in chickens, so now *they* (whoever the hell "they" are) are making this up too!"

The general consensus among many uninformed folks is that the disease was recently made up by that shadowy "them" to make their lives more miserable and more expensive - after all, they'd never heard of it before.  Which is frustrating because so many of us have been working on tracking the disease and protecting our birds for many years now.  But, I guess it's true, everything looks like a conspiracy if you don't bother to learn how anything works.

Year of the Snake

Last week saw the celebration of the Lunar (Chinese) New Year, meaning that we are now in the Year of the Snake!  I'd make a political joke, but it would ring hollow because, like many members of my field, I actually like snakes.

Snakes in zoos are a paradox that fascinate me.  There are few animals that terrify visitors more - yet few that visitors are also more excited to see.  They're among the most common of exhibit animals (virtually every zoo or aquarium has a snake exhibit, as do many museums and nature centers), but few individual species really stand out to folks (i.e., after I visit a zoo with a large reptile collection, I have a hard time remembering which species I actually saw on that visit).  They're commonly encountered in our local habitats, but most visitors are unable to identify even a single species.  Many zoos have snakes, but a large number of them aren't bred at our facilities, except for a handful of species in managed breeding programs - there's still a lot of reliance on private breeders, as well as dealers

We often think of snakes as danger - every AZA facility with venomous snakes is required to have special protocols for snakebites - but we seldom think of them as being in danger - and yet many species are.  Threats include habitat loss, over collection for the pet trade, invasive enemies for island species, and just plain ol' persecution from people who hate snakes.  Click on a news article about snakes, and it doesn't take too much scrolling to get to the "only good snakes are dead snakes" comments - even on the pages of rehab centers and other places you'd think would be a bit greener in their world views.

So, no time like the present to start celebrating snakes, raising awareness about them, and overall trying to make the world a safer, better place for them, as well as for us!

Chopping Block

Apart from the devastating airplane-helicopter crash outside of Washington, DC, it seems that the main story in the news has been the sudden efforts to seemingly dismantle the federal government (and those two news stories may very well end up being one and the same).  South African billionaire Elon Musk and his self-styled "Department of Government Efficiency" have been riding roughshod over federal workers, slashing regulations, deleting information, and trying to force long-term civil servants out of office.

Much of the initial ire has been directed at anything seemingly tangential to diversity programs - but the new administration has made it clear that there are other targets in mind.  For example, about 1,100 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have received notice that they are potentially on the chopping block.

There's a lot that's been written about the potential impacts of these slashes elsewhere, but being a zoo blog, I'm obviously looking at how our field is impacted.  As far as I can tell, the Smithsonian National Zoo doesn't seem to be in what we would call imminent danger - though changes may come that negatively impact the facility.  Among these would be hiring freezes, leaving the zoo short-staffed and impacting animal care, freezing of funds needed for renovations and improvements, forcing the deletion of environmental/conservation messaging (i.e., anything pertaining to climate change or pollution, such as the Appalachian salamander exhibit in the Reptile Discovery Center), and more.  I'm more worried about the impact on the Zoo's off-exhibit sister facility, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, VA.  During the G.W. Bush presidency, Bush's Secretary of the Smithsonian announced plans to shutter the facility, which would have crippled breeding programs for many endangered species 

Outside of the Smithsonian?  A lot of federal money goes out to zoos that are providing care for confiscated animals that were being smuggled into or out of the US.  That could dry up.  Many zoos collaborate with US Fish and Wildlife Service on breeding and reintroduction programs.  Support for those programs could be pulled (during the first Trump Administration, the whooping crane program out of Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge was dismantled).  Perhaps most frustratingly of all, federal agencies have been told to stop communicating with outside stakeholders in many cases, including zoos.  I've heard of several meetings and webinars with different agencies that have been halted - I was supposed to sit in on a meeting with NOAA last week to learn about new permit requirements for captive marine mammals, before that was cancelled at the last minute.

Less directly, with all federal law enforcement across agencies seemingly being focused on immigration at the moment, there's less attention and enforcement of other crimes - such as wildlife trafficking.

It's a chaotic time to be sure, and I don't see if getting less chaotic in the near future.  The order to freeze funding from the federal government was quickly reversed, but overall the entire political situation seems unstable, messy, contradictory, and overall poorly planned out.  Until such time as resolution comes, it's going to take every stake holder who cares about wildlife and wild places working their hardest to try and keep the ship of conservation afloat.