Joel Sartore and the Chimp Incident

If you ever get a chance to hear PhotoArk photographer Joel Sartore speak, you should jump on it.  He's a great storyteller, and years of traveling the world to photograph animals has given him lots of material.  There are two primate stories that he especially likes to tell (I mean, three if you count the Peruvian photo shoot that left him with his hair full of monkey poop).  One is of the "Chimp Incident" at the Sunset Zoo, when the super-smart primates felt the need to remind him of how uncooperative they can be.

    

The second was of Kanzi, the bonobo... the only animal to take a photo of the world famous animal photographer!  Kanzi seems to have done a pretty good job, too

Pithecophobia

 Years ago, on my first trip to Africa, I was spending my first night out in the bush, when I awoke with a start.  I became aware that there was an animal outside my tent, shuffling around.  Fascination turned to fear, seconds later, when whatever it was let out an ear-piercing shriek and started smacking into the side of my tent.  I was pretty sure for a few seconds there that my first night on safari would also be my last.

The late night visitor, surprisingly, ended up being a pint-sized bat-eared fox.  Talking around the breakfast table the next morning, my companions - all who were safe and snug in their tents during this - had expressed their fears that there was a lion or a hyena in the camp, which could have done much more damage.  I guess I agreed.  I hadn't quite realized it at the time, but what had really scared me more than anything that night, what I really, really was afraid I'd see when the side of the tent tore open, was a baboon.  And that I was glad that I wasn't in a part of that country that had chimpanzees.

A lot of people are famously afraid of clowns.  The same can be said about skeletons, and zombie horror is a popular genre.  I think I heard it explained to me somewhere that we're afraid of these things because they are sort-of, but not quite, human in our eyes.  They are close enough to be like us, but our brain perceives something different and, therefore wrong and worrying about them.  With that in mind, I'm surprised that the fear of apes and monkeys, pithecophobia, isn't more of a thing.

There's something that I find very unnerving about a lot of non-human primates, and the more closely related they are to humans, they more off-putting I can find them.  They're the animals that I've probably enjoyed working with the least; the one day that I spent filling in for the chimp keepers, in the cavernous depths of their holding building, echoing with shrieks and the rattling of doors, was one of the creepiest experiences of my life.  Years later, when I watched Silence of the Lambs for the first time, that scene in which Clarice Starling first walks down the hallway of the insane asylum, past the various psychopaths as she made her way to Hannibal Lecter, reminded me of that day.

I find zookeepers very divided on the subject of chimps, which, being the most human-like of the primates, are also the most violent and mercurial.  Some of them absolutely adore them, finding their closeness to us fascinating and incredibly, and delighting in their intelligence and behavioral complexity, their dynamic social lives.  Others are horrified and disgusted by them - their grossness, their loudness, their brutality, to each other and to other animals.  One registrar I spoke with likened reading the daily report of the chimp keepers to a catalog of injuries that they inflicted upon each other, seemingly on a whim.  A former keeper who visited me at one zoo where I worked literally put her hands over her eyes as she walked past our chimps, asking me to guide her by and let her know when she had passed them.  I know of no other zoo animal that is so polarizing among keepers as to how they feel about it.

When most animals defecate on you, or threaten you, or display a sexual fixation on you, it can feel unpleasant enough, but you brush it off, usually.  When it's an ape, or a large monkey, however... well, it feels creepier, and a lot more personal.  It becomes harder to think of it as animal expressing that hostility and/or lust (they two have a weird habit of going together with primates), and more like a strange, wild person.

I'll throw myself on the back of an alligator, or wrangle an anaconda.  I'll go in with wolves and cheetahs.  I'll walk a thin catwalk above a shark tank.  But ask me to work chimps again?  Sorry, I think I have to wash my hair that day... and not just because the damn monkeys pooped in it again.

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."

Species Fact Profile: Eastern Lubber Grasshopper (Romalea microptera)

Eastern Lubber Grasshopper

                                           Romalea microptera (Palisot de Beauvois, 1817)

Range: Southeastern and Central United States

Habitat: Open Woodlands, Fields

Diet: Herbs, Shrubs , and Grasses

Social Grouping: Large cohorts upon hatching, less social as they age

Reproduction: Breeds in the summer.  Females lays about up to three clutches of 50 eggs in a burrow in the soil, which overwinter and hatch in the spring.  Undergo five molt periods (instars), each about 20 days long before becoming adults

Lifespan: 1 Year

      Conservation Status: IUCN Not Evaluated

• Largest grasshoppers in the United States (alongside western lubber, Taeniopoda eques).  Adults generally 4-7 centimeters long, but can reach up to 9 centimeters.  Females are larger than males.  Wings are fairly small, about half the length of the abdomen, and cannot be used in flight
• Coloration and patterning varies across range, with some individuals yellow or orange, others primarily black; some are intermediate, yellow with black banding.  Bright red color on the back beneath the wings, which can be flared to become more prominent
• Bright coloration warns predators of unpleasant taste.  Can also emit a foul, foamy secretion to deter predators (which can be sprayed up to 15 centimeters), as well as make a loud hiss to frighten enemies.  One predator is the loggerhead shrike, which impales lubbers on thorns or fences and leaves them there for a day or two, allowing the toxin to degrade
• While adults are less social than nymphs, they will still often aggregate into groups in the evening, possibly as a form of protection from predators
• "Lubber" means a slow, clumsy, or lazy person, likely bestowed upon this species because of its slow movements (not especially good at hopping, usually seen walking - but can be decent climbers).  Species name from the Greek for "Small Wing"
• Pose some threat as an agricultural nuisance when present in sufficient numbers, will feed on a variety of crops.  Control often consists of manual removal, as these grasshoppers are resistant to many pesticides, both due to their large size and their ability to detoxify natural toxins

The Balance Beam

I never wanted to think of zoos and aquariums are political entities, but on some level it's inevitable.  Political issues closely impact not only zoos and aquariums themselves (USDA inspections, regulations on the acquisition/transport of animals, government-owned species, etc), but on topics central to our core mission, such as conservation and education.  Still, I never suspected that the country would become so politicized that everything would start to be seen through the lens of right and left, red and blue, authoritarian or "woke."

I see a long, difficult walk ahead of us on a narrow balance beam, high off the ground.

On one side, we lean heavily into messaging that pushes for advocacy and change.  We continue to loudly and vocally express support for conservation initiatives, including calling out government and industry practices that harm species and their environments - as Monterey Bay Aquarium was willing to do over lobster-trapping, and now faces a lawsuit.  We advocate for continued reintroduction programs and habitat restorations, working with such government agencies as will still participate in these projects (I suspect more at a state level for the next four years).  We are open and honest about our history.  We continue to try to make our own campuses sustainable, and encourage visitors to do the same.  We continue to recruit, employ, and celebrate a diverse workforce, and strive to make our facilities open and accessible to all.

This is the position I favor - though I acknowledge that it carries the risk of angering powerful people if pushed too far.  Suppose, say, a zoo were to build an exhibit complex themed on the US-Mexican borderlands, with a giant, ugly wall running through some of the habitats that illustrated how such a construction would negatively impact ocelots, desert bighorn sheep, pronghorns, and other species.  It would be a bold, powerful statement.  It might also result in boycotts, funding pulled, and, the way things are going with this admin, legal harassment.

On the other side, we keep our heads down, just focus on exhibiting and breeding animals (for exhibit purposes) for the next few years.  We offer ourselves up as a fun, relaxing, and, above all, apolitical oasis for the next few years, a place where visitors can think about tigers instead of tariffs, rhinos instead of racism.  Scrub our signage of anything "political."  End our DEAI programs.  Some of our shadier colleagues would doubtlessly benefit from the reduced focus on regulation; I wouldn't be shocked if we saw less of USDA inspectors over the next few years.  Maybe more animals get kicked off the Endangered Species list, making it easier to do what they will with them without permits.  Maybe importing animals from the wild becomes a lot easier.  Heck, some people may be tempted to cozy up to the new admin with flattery and signs of fealty ("Presenting the President Donald J. Trump Lion House!") to curry favor.

Leaning this way takes us from our core mission, and turns us back to what our critics always said we were - animals in boxes, assembled for the amusement of the public.  We become the "circus" part of "bread and circuses."  When this political scenario is finally played out, we may be relatively unscathed - but we'll be remembered as cowards.  As magnificent as the facility was (well, before the bombs fell), people tend to remember the Berlin Zoo of the Third Reich in a certain, less-flattering way.

I know which direction I want to lean into... but I guess we'll all have to make our own choices.

Of Museums and Messages

 Trump executive order seeks to 'restore' American history through Smithsonian overhaul

I very much look forward to a day when I don't have to report so much on the White House on this blog, and yet, here we are...

Most folks reading this article are - quite naturally - focusing on the impact that this is going to have on the museums that teach American history - specifically, the National Museum of American History, National Museum of the American Indian, and National Museum of African American History and Culture.  But don't sleep on how this could impact the National Museum of Natural History... as well as the National Zoo.

Sure, the National Zoo doesn't seem like it has much to do with American history - but it still conveys educational messages that some in the administration would doubtlessly call "woke," perhaps even "anti-American" (in the very peculiar way that they define that).  What about signage about the restoration of American endangered species, such as red wolves and American bison (in some cases, including the stories of how those species were driven almost to extinction in the first place)?  Or messaging about coal mining and its impact on endangered species, such as in the Appalachian salamander display in the Reptile Discovery Center?  Heaven forbid climate change gets brought up.

How will this also impact messaging impact the sharing of stories about different cultures and how they relate to animals?  I can't help but think of the story of the Ganesha statue at the Tulsa Zoo, and how some local conservatives were infuriated that it "promoted" Hinduism to visitors.

Years ago, I remember seeing a video about a crazy conservative firebrand who took it upon herself to "audit" the Field Museum and the Brookfield Zoo, looking for liberal ("woke" wasn't in their vocabulary back then) messaging.  It's like that lady was just made Secretary of the Smithsonian.

I don't see zoos and museums bowing under too easily.  Instead, there may be opportunities to rewrap the messages in ways that slide past the censors, perhaps avoiding the buzzwords that seem to trigger them so (many of them seem to be intellectually lazy, if not stupid, and are probably just skimming more than reading and understanding).  I feel like the next few years are going to be a constant attempt to resist where we can, endure when we must.