The Dangers of Finger Food

Last week, the President and CEO of the Indianapolis Zoo, Dr. Rob Shumaker, was treated after having his finger bitten by a chimpanzee at the facility.  According to an anonymous post on Reddit (the veracity of which cannot be confirmed), the bite occurred after he was feeding the ape "inappropriate foods" after hours.  Also according to the poster, this bite which was not the first after-hours ape-inflicted injury that Shumaker has experienced.  He's apparently had his hand hurt by an orangutan in the past.

Zookeepers getting bitten or grabbed through fencing is, whether we like to admit it or not, something that happens, though we try to be careful.  Shortly after this made the news, there was a report of an orangutan biting a keeper at Woodland Park Zoo and a jaguar scratching a keeper at Brevard Zoo.  I myself have had my hand grabbed and (thankfully, lightly) clawed and mouthed by a clouded leopard.  I was trying to palm some meat against the mesh, keeping my hand flat and outside the fencing.  Which would have been a great plan - if the leopard hadn't been able to reach her paws out and grab me.  Looking back, it was not an ideal plan.  It was made worse because it was happening in front of our director, to whom I was trying to demonstrate how our new clouded leopard was really coming out of her shell.

A more successful hand-feeding attempt with said clouded leopard

Accidents are something to be avoided, but not always successfully, and you learn from mistakes.

What separates the Indianapolis incident from the others, however, is that Dr. Shumaker isn't the caretaker of the chimps and, if the Redditor is to be believed, shouldn't have been doing what he's doing.  Now, at a smaller facility the director may be more involved in day to day animal care.  But at a larger zoo (and if your title is "CEO," it's probably a larger one), that's probably not the case, and even if the President/CEO is a former animal person, they probably don't know those individual animals as well as the keepers do, and the animals probably don't know them.  

In these cases, the boss at the top is the decision maker and steward of the animals.  That shouldn't let them fool themselves into thinking that the animals are their pets, and that they should pop in whenever they want to feed some nibblies.

I hope Dr. Shumaker learned a lesson from this embarrassing (and, I assume, painful) experience.  Though if it is not, in fact, the first time that this has happened, maybe not...

Satire: De-Wokifying the National Zoo

What's so woke about the zoo?

"What's woke about the zoo?

Zoos have important lessons to teach, as they do to millions of children who pass through them each year.

Zoos teach us that, where there is no diversity in a species, a single virus or invasive predator can wipe it from existence.

Zoos show us that, where there is no equity or balance in a habitat, the whole ecosystem can be at risk of collapse.

Zoos put us on notice that, when we humans make no room for inclusion, we erase the natural world from the earth.

Zoos demonstrate that diversity, equity and inclusion are not just things that happen on college campuses or in your company's HR department, but are vital things from the natural world.

At the zoo, you can't look the other way, even when an animal is off-exhibit."