Caring and Community

Even counting for the changes in standards and animal care philosophies over the past few decades, there's no shaking the fact some of the zoos that are now considering some of the best in the country were once pretty awful, even compared to their contemporaries.  Audubon Zoo, Zoo Atlanta, Central Park Zoo, and Oakland Zoo were once nationally famous - or infamous - for how bad their conditions were and how poor their animal care and facilities were.  

Sometimes there was a specific incident which triggered attention and outrage (a comment on the Oakland Zoo review I wrote reminded me of a fatal incident involving an elephant and a keeper at that facility).  Sometimes the general decline and decay finally just became too bad to be overlooked any longer.  In the case of Zoo Atlanta, a specific animal, Willie B the gorilla, became the rallying focus for the need to fix the zoo.

In these cases, there were always calls to shutter the zoo in question.  However, in each case, the community rallied around the zoo and helped rebuild.  I sometimes wonder, if such a list of bad zoos in major US cities were to come out today, how our communities would respond?

There's a tremendous loss of sense of community in many aspects of American life these days, resulting in weaker civic connections.  People don't seem to experience the same pride and attachment in their cities that they used to.  I see some people who share a tremendous amount of pride in their city zoos.  I see plenty of people who seem determined to find fault in every part of their community, the zoo being no exception, with a constant barrage of complaints that their local community can't do anything right.

Zoo Atlanta, Audubon Zoo, and the others are now excellent facilities with admirable standards of animal care and demonstrated commitment to conservation and animal welfare - but this didn't happen in a vacuum.  Turning around a zoo doesn't need complaints.  It needs resources and community support.  One could say that in many cases, a community has the zoo it deserves.

Zoo Review: Oakland Zoo, Part II

Continuing through the main body of the Oakland Zoo, the majority of the exhibit space is given over to the African Savanna exhibits.  

Like California Trail, this area tends to be skewed to the megafauna (but what zoo African area isn't?), though with the inclusion of a few smaller species as well.  Fauna doesn't come much more mega than African elephants, which inhabit one large (six acre) yard.  Since my visit I believe I'd heard that there was going to be something of a shuffling of elephants, with some older animals being sent out to a sanctuary, with the possibility of a breeding herd being established.  I'll have to see what transpires.  Next to the elephants is a very attractive hillside yard for lions, and well as an open paddock for giraffe, and side exhibits for warthog, spotted hyena, and plains zebra.  Part of the region has an African village motif, with one hut housing a small collection of African reptiles, with meerkats scurrying outside another.  A meshed-in enclosure holds a troop of delightful red-tailed monkeys, one of the most handsome of African primates, while two aviaries hold a variety of African birds (including Madagascar sacred ibis, a first for me).

One African exhibit is worthy of a little extra attention because of its curious story.  Separated a little bit from the other displays is a habitat of hamadryas, a desert-dwelling baboon from North Africa and the Middle East, with a spacious grassy yard sprawling out in front of a rocky cliff face.  At the dawn of this millennium, Oakland was on track to try and obtain that most beloved of zoo animals, the giant panda, and this exhibit was built to be the panda exhibit.  Pandas never came, alas, and so the baboons moved in.  Few if any animals match the star power of giant pandas, it is true, but I will say, I think a social group of active, engaged primates makes a better display than a perpetually sleeping (unless its snacking) black and white bear.  So in my mind it all worked out for the best.

As one might expect, the Wayne and Gladys Valley Children's Zoo is largely made up of domestic species, with petting opportunity for kids to interact with goats and sheep.  If domestics aren't your area of interest, however, I'd still recommend swinging through - there are enough "zoo" animals to make it worth your while as well.  A cliffside habitat houses a troop of lemurs, while North American river otters twirl about in front of underwater viewing windows.  There is a surprisingly diverse invertebrate collection in the House of Bugs.  A small collection of reptiles and amphibians can be seen in excellent terrariums in one building, with larger species - American alligators (with a giant mock-fossil croc skeleton nearby) and Aldabra tortoises - seen in outdoor enclosures.  Perhaps the most surprising - and exciting - feature of the children's zoo, however, is the bat exhibit.  A large colony of flying fox bats occupies a towering outdoor flight cage.  Visitors aren't able to walk in with the bats as they are in some indoor rainforest exhibits, but it's still extraordinary to see the large bats out and active in the sun.  (Not part of the children's zoo, but kids will probably want to take a trip to the rides area, located near the gondola station that leads to the California Trail).

The final area is Tropical Rainforest, which I found to be the most uneven of the exhibit areas.  It features fairly standard island habitats for white-handed gibbons and siamangs, a few small aviaries for rainforest birds and small primates, and a fairly ugly, over-engineered chimpanzee exhibit.  There is also a tiger exhibit which, while nice enough, pales compared to the lion and jaguar exhibits elsewhere in the zoo.  The last exhibit I saw in this region, however, was the real showstopper. 

Once a common species in US zoos, sun bears are now increasingly rare, being phased out to make room for the other tropical bear species, which seem to be more sustainable in numbers.  Most of the sun bear exhibits I've seen have been fairly meh.  Oakland's was gorgeous - huge and lushly planted, viewed from  an elevated pavilion that provided a treetop view of the enclosure.  I almost didn't see the bear, the exhibit was so big and dense - it was, in true sun bear fashion, clinging to a tree, mostly obscured by the trunk, and resting completely at ease.  Sun bears are fading out of the US fairly quickly now, with most of the remaining animals being quite old.  I wonder what will happen to this beautiful exhibit when it is emptied - a different tropical bear species, a primate, who knows?

Oakland Zoo is yet another example of a zoo that, in a surprisingly short amount of time, has managed to turn itself around from atrocious to quite good.  Many of its exhibits are of a stellar quality - particularly those of California Trail  - and it doesn't have any that I would really call poor (though certainly some that I would tinker with, given the chance).   I'd also love to see smaller animals get as much attention as the larger ones - the bird and herp collections are fairly small.  Still, it was a beautiful zoo with an interesting collection that was well-cared for in appropriate exhibits.  The commitments to conservation and animal welfare were highlighted throughout the facility.  I was glad to have visited - though I still need to go back to continue my sweep of the Bay Area facilities.

Zoo Review: Oakland Zoo, Part I

A tricky decision - only time to hit one zoo on a visit to the Bay Area, so which one to do?  After a bit of hemming and hawing between the three options (none of which I'd been to before), I decided to visit the Oakland Zoo.  It was a close call, I admit, but I'd heard some pretty exciting news about this once easily-overlooked zoo, especially their signature new exhibit, and decided to check it out.  While I'm always prone to major FOMO, and will definitely be back to check out San Francisco and Sacramento, I'm glad that I did take the chance to see this excellent mid-sized zoo.

Like many zoos, Oakland originated as a children's zoo - it actually was once called the "Baby Zoo" - being the pet project of two big game hunters who liked to catch their own animals for the exhibits.  As with many zoos, it squandered and sank into mediocrity until, like so many other city zoos, it found itself on an "America's Worst Zoo" list put out by the Humane Society of the United States.  And, as was the case with so many of the zoos that were similarly named and shamed, Oakland pulled itself together and rebuilt itself as an excellent zoo.  Now sprawling over 100 acres in Knowland Park, the zoo occupies a towering location over the city, providing sweeping views of the Bay Area.

The quality of the exhibits is set immediately upon entry with the flamingo exhibit.  Many zoos have a flamingo exhibit as their opening act - a display of activity, color, and noise with a recognizable species to get visitors excited about their journey.  Oakland's exhibit differs from many in being a completely enclosed aviary, which, while perhaps not as aesthetically pleasing as an open pond, allows their birds to be fully-flighted.  The lesser flamingos share their lagoon with African spoonbills in an attractive, bustling, if slightly malodorous (as flamingos tend to be) scene that will delight visitors as they get their bearings and decided where to set off to next.

Much of the recent growth has come from the opening of the 2018 California Trail.  This massive expansion is accessible via a sky gondola, with visitors riding cable areas across a vast, grassy valley to the entrance of the trail.  (The gondola ride is free for visitors - there is actually a separate skyride within the zoo that does charge admission, but is not required in order to see animals).  The animal experience begins before visitors even touch the ground - from the gondolas, they are given an excellent view of a large herd of American bison which grazes the valley below them.  Upon landing, they can embark on a looping trail that passes a series of enormous habitats, most of them the largest I've seen for animals of their species.  

Two giant aviaries hold two iconic raptor species of California, the bald eagle and the California condor.  This is the fourth zoo that I've seen California condors at, and this aviary was easily the most spectacular.  Adjacent to the aviary was a viewing pavilion that featured excellent exhibits on the conservation of America's largest (and perhaps most endangered) bird, including how zoos have been involved in its conservation.   There are open habitats for gray wolves (surprisingly to me, not of the Mexican subspecies), American black bears, and grizzly bears, the later being especially impressive when seen eye to eye through the viewing windows of their pool, towering over visitors.  Covered habitats feature puma and jaguar.  The jaguar habitat was especially beautiful, a recreation of the chaparral habitat that these big cats once inhabited in the land that Oakland now sits on.  The puma exhibit also caught my interest, even though I didn't actually see one out.  Oakland serves as sort of a clearing hour for orphaned mountain lion cubs, which are brought to the zoo for emergency medical care and rearing, then dispersed to other zoos for permanent housing.  The trail ends with a gorgeous overlook of the bison and the Bay Area, before gondolas sweep visitors back to the main zoo.

I was a bit surprised to see that this is all that California Trail offered, and as incredible as they exhibits were, I think that they could have stood to be complemented by some of the Golden State's smaller inhabitants.  It would have been great to have had a walk-through aviary of California's smaller birds, such as quail, passerines, and waterfowl, or a reptile house/aquarium/invertebrate house, or maybe a small nocturnal building.  Something that would make the exhibit a little more along the lines of Oklahoma City Zoo's Oklahoma Trails. I love native exhibits, but I think they work best when they also include the smaller species that call a region home.  California Trail features a grand total of eight species - three of which are extinct in California (except for the odd vagrant) and one of which was extinct, was reintroduced, and is now found only in very limited patches of the state.  Still, the quality of the exhibits was incredible and the scenery was gorgeous.

The main zoo may lack the panache of California Trail, but still features some excellent exhibits (as well as a few less excellent ones).  It's divided roughly into four regions - Africa, Tropical Rainforest, Australia, and the Children's Zoo.  The Australia area I was forced to miss out on - it was actually closed at the time of my visit, because it was only accessible via a train ride.  I'm been told that it houses emus and wallaroos.  Tomorrow, I'll recap the other three regions of the zoo.

Oakland Zoo  

Trust No One

Excellent advise from an expert source - and which I can relate to.

I once was taking care of a jaguar exhibit on my first week at a new job, when the pool clogged.  A keeper who had been there longer than me responded to my call and come to help me fix it.  We'd been looking at the drain for a few minutes when suddenly he jolted upright.  He realized that, answering my call, he'd walked into the jag exhibit with me - without confirming that the cat was safely locked away.

Immediately, he ran to the holding building to confirm that she was secure before coming back out.  I mean, if she hadn't have been, it would probably have already been too late for at least one of us.

He brushed it off later, joking that he told tell right off the bat that I seemed reliable enough to have locked the cat away before inviting him in.  Still, it did teach me not to take it personally when people want to double check on what I say I've done for their own safety - and that I should never hesitate to double check on them.

Knowing Normal

After many years spent in the company of wild animals - enough to at least finally convince myself that I'm not an expert - I've come to the conclusion that the most important skill for a zookeeper is to be able to define "normal."  There are two parts to the definition - knowing normal for a species, (say, American black bear), which will come from having worked with/around multiple individuals of that species, and getting a baseline for what normal black bear behavior is, so that if you were suddenly given a new bear into your charge, you'd be able to know if it's normal or not.  The other is normal for an individual, say one specific bear.  This comes from knowing that particular animal and what is normal for them.

(It's worth noting that these two definitions of normal could be pretty divergent.  It's funny that we accept that with domestic animals a lot more readily than we do wild ones.  If one person says that their dog is super high energy and likes to go for runs and play active games all day, and another person says their dog is a little couch potato and just wants to curl up for belly-rubs, no one finds that strange.  Try telling a keeper that your bear, or big cat, or primate deviates from species "normal" and the immediate assumption is that there is something wrong with it.)

The better you know normal, in and out, the more easily you will be able to identify when something is not normal.  Now, just because something is abnormal doesn't necessarily mean it's bad - if an animal's normal is in some ways undesirable, such as being aggressive or anxious, a change from that could be good, and might be something you can build on.  An animal that is pregnant may likewise deviate from its normal.  But even if the change is a bad one - a symptom of illness, or injury, or behavioral problems - your best bet to catch it and treat it early is to notice a deviation from your animal's norm.

The only way to really know that norm is to spend a lot of time with your animals.  This is where the interplay of the keepers, curators, and veterinarians becomes integral to animal welfare.  By virtue of their (usual) tenure in the field, curators and vets have often worked with a larger number of individual animals of a given species than keepers.  To pull an example, I've worked with just over a dozen individual spider monkeys (of two species) in the course of my career.  When I was animal manager at a particular zoo with spider monkeys, I was able to use that knowledge to form a baseline of normal spider monkey behavior - what foods and enrichment they typically liked, what their cold tolerance was, how best to furnish their enclosure, and so on.

At this point in my career, I wasn't taking daily care of the individual four monkeys at the zoo as much - some of them I didn't really know as individuals.  For that, I was more dependent on the keepers, who new those animals as individuals.  Maybe many spider monkeys loved a certain food item, but our male hated it.  Maybe spider monkeys I worked with elsewhere were habituated to going outside at a certain temperature, but our older female found it too uncomfortably cold.  If I had seen our male rejecting what I considered a favorite food item, or the female refusing to shift outside on a day that was, in my experience, perfectly acceptable for spider monkeys, I might have seen a problem where there actually wasn't one.  

I'm increasingly of the opinion that, when it comes to animals, almost no one is actually an expert... but most people involved with the animals have some form of expertise that they can offer.  We should be willing to listen to all sources of that expertise to help best inform the decisions about our animals.

Book Review: West with Giraffes

The San Diego Zoo is easily one of the most famous - if not the most famous - zoos in the world, so it's hard to remember that there was a time when it was a younger, newer zoo, without all of the animals it has today.  Those animals all had to come from somewhere, and each of the species in the zoo has a story of how that first individual arrived.  Few species had a more dramatic arrival to the zoo than its first giraffes, which rode a deadly hurricane into New York City harbor in 1938, under the shadow of the looming World War.  From that chaotic entry, they made their perilous way across the country by truck (and this was before the interstate system was developed, mind you) on their way to California.

That much really happened, and would be a fascinating story on its own.

Author Lynda Rutledge tweaks and dramatizes the odyssey in West with Giraffes, a fictionalized story of the giraffes crossing Depression Era America from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  Interspersed with news articles, letters, and other communiques, West with Giraffes follows three unlikely human companions who join the giraffes on their quest.  The crusty-yet-caring zoo manager ends up picking up a homeless Oklahoma drifter, one of many such wandering young men of the era, as well as a young woman who is desperate to make a life for herself as a photographer and sees the giraffes as the story of her lifetime.  Together, they deal with dangerous roads, natural disasters, and scheming rogues who would steal the priceless, delicate animals away.  Adding to the drama is the very significant injury that one of the giraffes has suffered during the stormy arrival in New York, and the race to get them safely to San Diego.

West with Giraffes reminds me very much of Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen's tale of a Depression Era circus and its elephant, which was made into a major movie a few years ago.  (Readers of Gruen's book who may have been turned off by some of the violence against animals in it can rest assured that this book is tamer on that score).  Both stories offer a beautiful tale of the bond that can develop between animals and caretakers, as well as those that can form between people united by their love of animals.  It helps that it also takes place at a time when the vast majority of people in the US had never seen a giraffe.  Today they are one of the most common of all zoo animals.  Back then, they were almost mythical, their presence largely limited to a few elite East Coast zoos.

Rutledge's book jumps occasionally to the modern day, where the narrator's memory is called back to the 30's and its giraffes after he hears a news story mentioning how giraffes are silently going extinct.  I appreciate the recognition of this conservation crisis which, compared to elephants, rhinos, and tigers, has largely been overlooked by the world.  For the most part, however, it follows the trip from coast to coast.   That was the only part of this story that hampered my enjoyment.  

With each state that our protagonists - human and giraffe - crossed into, I knew that we were that much closer to the end of their journey... and ours.

West with Giraffes at Amazon.com

Darkness at Midday

Looking back through the annals of this blog, I see that this is the third time in ten years I've done an eclipse post.  Every single time, there is a lot of fuss and to-do in the media about how the animals will react to the sudden disappearance of the sun (for a few minutes).  This go-around was no exception, with many facilities even encouraging visitors to come and visit so that they could play scientist and observe any unusual animal behaviors (eclipse glasses being included in price of admission, in many cases.

Spoiler alert - there really aren't any.  I heard a few cases of animals that started to head from their outdoor exhibits to their night houses because they thought it was time to come in, but that's about the extent of it.  

For what it's worth, my zoo didn't really do anything for the animals.  They were all fine.  They did, however, feel the need to send all employees an email reminding us not to look directly at the sun.  Apparently, they have a lot more confidence in the intelligence of the animals than us.