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Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Political Animals

My boss's house loomed over the private zoo where I worked like a feudal manor overlooking its serfs... which, I suppose, was not an inaccurate way of looking at it.  Even though it was just yards away from the keeper office, and though I was one of the senior members of the staff, I only stepped foot inside the house once in the four years I worked for him.  I found it to be an awkward, uncomfortable experience - everything seemed a little wrong to me, a little stark, and a little... I don't know... gauche?  More emphasis on expensive than aesthetics or comfort.  I also was bothered by the fact that, though the living room walls were lined with expensive looking shelves, it took me a while before I finally saw a book.

I was not the least bit surprised to see that, instead of an animal tome, it was the recently-released memoir of Sarah Palin.

No community (especially one as unruly and - often - poorly socialized as ours) is ever truly monolithic.  Still, taken as a whole I've noticed that the zoo community tends to lean left of center.  It's not surprising.  Most of us start of in it as young, well-educated, and with a deep interest in conservation and environmental issues.  Animal care requires a degree of empathy, which often extends to humans as well as creatures, and most zoos are located in cities, which tend to foster more progressive viewpoints.  Oh, and most of us are also perpetually broke.  Even those of us who climb the ranks tend to remember where we came from and continue to empathize.  Not that I haven't met politically and culturally conservative keepers, it's just not as common, and they tend to be part of the exception to the rule.

The anti-rule, if you will, the complete contrast, tend to be the owners of private facilities, such as my former boss.  They all tend to be die-in-the-wool blood red.  Part of it may be a greater concern about financial matters; owning their own zoos, they tend to be a fair bit less idealistic and more focused on the bottom line, which I can hardly fault them for.  Part of it's probably cultural too, as such facilities are much more likely to spring up in rural areas.  At the same time, I've also noticed an angry, anti-regulatory streak (and if you're in the zoo world, you realize just how many forms of regulations the field is subject to), a constant simmering anger about government agencies and inspectors who dare to tell them what to do with *their* animals.  

Because these facilities are generally unaccredited and don't participate in the formal breeding programs, they have to buy their animals, or trade for them.  I feel like sometimes the constant buying and selling of animals fosters a viewpoint of them as commodities in their eyes.  I remember walking up on the owner and his wife as they were stroking a young camel I had been raising.  I was so eager to hurry up to them and tell them about how he'd been doing, his training and his growth - until I got close enough to hear that they were wondering what price he'd fetch.

The disdain also extends to the keepers, who tend to be even less-well paid than their counterparts in public zoos, and have fewer opportunities.  I remember my boss plopping down next to me on a bench one day and saying "Keepers are like tissues," he told me with no preamble  "You use them.  Then you get new ones."  With that he smiled at me and wandered off.

I've been following the giraffe drama out of Natural Bridge - the stay on the removal of the remaining three animals has been lifted.  A lot of the commentary from the zoo and its allies has been focused on the heaping abuse on the state, the courts, and government in general; a few folks have even claimed that they think Trump will swoop in and save them, though I doubt that it's made it across his portfolio at this time.  Some of the posters just went on all Q-Anon crazy, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with them, either in real life or online.

It marvels me that people who are drawn to the same basic life decision - wanting to spend their careers working with animals and share them with the world - can produce people with such different outlooks on just about everything - including the animals themselves and how they should be managed and cared for.

Monday, November 4, 2024

Species Fact Profile: Oriental Fire-Bellied Toad (Bombina orientalis)

                                                   Oriental Fire-Bellied Toad

                                           Bombina orientalis (Boulenger, 1890)

Range:  Eastern Asia (northeastern China, Korea, southeastern Russia, possibly Japan)
Habitat: Coniferous and Deciduous Forest Wetlands
Diet: Insects, Mollusks, Worms, Algae, Fungi
Social Grouping: Occur at high population densities in favorable habitat, but asocial
Reproduction: Breed in late spring, through summer.  Males court females by calling in shallow water to attract females, fertilizes eggs as the female lays eggs as she swims, with the male clinging to her back.  Up to 250 eggs, split among several clutches, laid on submerged plants in shallow water.  Hatch as tadpoles after 3-10 days, complete metamorphosis and leave the water at about 5 months
Lifespan: 30 Years
      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern

  • Body length 3.5-8 centimeters long, weight 25-55 grams.  Females are larger than males, but males have thicker forearms; during the mating season, males also develop nuptial pads on their first and second fingers.
  • Dorsal color varies from brownish-gray to bright green, often with some dark spotting; dorsal skin has many pronounced tubercles,.  Ventral surface is bright red or yellow (the "fire belly"), also with black spotting
  • Unlike many frogs and toads, cannot extent their tongue to catch prey, so instead jump on it
  • Skin contains a toxin, bombesin.  While primarily relying on the camouflage of their dorsal surface to hide from predators, if they are seen they will flip over and arch their backs (position called unkenreflex) to show off their red bellies, warning predators' of their poison.  Some species of snake can eat the toad with no ill effect.  Toxin is generally not very harmful to humans, but can be introduced through mucus members after handling.
  • Hibernate from late September through late April or early May, sometimes alone, sometimes in small groups.  Hibernate inside fallen trees, stone piles, or in the leaf litter, but sometimes in water
  • Commonly kept as a pet, as well as a research specimen, among the best-studied of amphibians
  • Very resilient to habitat disturbance, and can even be found breeding in heavily polluted water.  Despite this, and their popularity as pets, they have not become invasive

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Cheyenne Mountain Speaks Out

For as long as we have zoos and aquariums, there are guaranteed to be folks who are determined to oppose these institutions on philosophical grounds.  When that happens, the question always becomes, how best to respond?  Ignore it, try not to give any oxygen to the complainers, hope they just fade away?  That can just give cede the entire philosophical floor to them to make their claims unchallenged.  Fight back?  There's the risk of looking too defensive, or like you have something to hide or be ashamed of.

It's a tough call.  I've seen different zoos try each strategy, with the result sometimes varying.  SeaWorld was slow to respond to criticism about its orca program, which only allowed that backlash to snowball.

Recently, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, CO, went with option #2.  In response to repeated attempts by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) to have the zoo's African elephants declared persons and "freed" for the zoo, CMZ had had enough.  Their statement to their followers, below.  It's a bit of a read, but I'm glad to see a zoo put out a detailed, well-thought out and well-reasoned response to set the record straight and stand by their animal care practices.








  

Friday, November 1, 2024

Not So Itsy Bitsy

Chester Zoo, better than any zoo I can think of, understood the assignment of how to celebrate Halloween... with a little tongue in cheek as well

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Whistling Past the Graveyard

Happy Halloween!  Across the country, our zoos and aquariums have been decked out for the season for the past month or so, all the better to take advantage of special events.  A lot of the décor would be pretty familiar to anyone who has decorated for Halloween, which much of it more themed around fall than the spooky season itself.  There are pumpkins (not just those that get carved or smashed up for treats) and haybales and scarecrows and dried corn.  

For spookier decorations, there are those fake skeletal animals which drive many a keeper to fury with their anatomical inaccuracies (spider's don't have bones!).  And then there are the graveyards.

Graveyards are a popular lawn ornament for Halloween at many homes, but those at the zoo tend to be a little different.  The names inscribed on their Styrofoam surfaces aren't Barry M. Deep, I. M. Agoner or other silly puns.  Here, the festivities get a little grim.

Passenger Pigeon.  Sept. 1, 1914

Carolina Parakeet.  Feb 21, 1918

Thylacine/"Tasmanian Tiger." Sept 7, 1936

And many others.  All extinct animals - but no dinosaurs or pterodactyls, or even mammoths and sabre-toothed cats.  The markers all commemorate recently extinct animals - ones driven to the grave by our collective, human hand.  Some species we know exactly when they disappeared.  Others just sort of... faded away, and then someone realized it had been a really long time until anyone had seen one.


Read about the Extinct Species Graveyard at the Bronx Zoo here

These tombstones are often treated as a bit of a joke, a cutesy prop, but if you think about it, they contain an existential terror.  In almost every horror movie, their is a survivor - who else would tell the story if there wasn't?  But extinction, by its definition, leaves no survivors.  You take the death of an individual - be it at the wrong end of a sailor's club, at the claws of an introduced predator, or of old age, isolated from potential mates by habitat loss and therefore dying alone - and then you multiply it on a grand scale, until no one is left.  There are some horror movies that focus on the extinction (or near extinction) of the human species, such as I Am Legend.  It's easy to extrapolate that terror to animals.

Anyway, enjoy the candy. 

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

From the News: Syracuse zoo elephants get groundbreaking vaccine

 Syracuse zoo elephants get groundbreaking vaccine

Combining two of the biggest US zoo elephant stories of recent years, the miracle twin Asian elephants from Syracuse's Rosamond Gifford Park Zoo are among the first elephants to receive the new vaccine against EEHV, the deadly elephant herpes virus.  Hopefully they do well with their treatment and are an additional step towards establishing a healthy, thriving population of Asian elephants under human care.