Growing Strong Together

Whenever I’m off visiting a new zoo in a new city, I try to take the opportunity to visit as many other local points of interest while I’m there.  This may include historic sites, museums, and, quite often botanical gardens.  Even after my early crash-course in horticulture, I still wouldn’t call myself too informed about plants, but I do enjoy walking around the grounds, admiring the gardens, and, sometimes, catching a peak of some native wildlife. 

In Omaha, I watched a flock of wild turkeys strut across a meadow.  In Phoenix, I walked carefully around the scurrying spiny lizards, while ground squirrels meandered across the paths.  In Chicago, trumpeter swans drifted among the heavily planted islands.   In Charleston, a mother alligator watched protectively as her hatchlings bobbed in one of the many water features.  Gardens are a great place to watch wildlife… which makes it surprising that the idea didn’t hit me until Denver.

Shortly before leaving Denver on my recent trip (one which included visits to Denver Zoo, Downtown Aquarium, and Cheyenne Mountain Zoo), I decided to squeeze in a visit to the Denver Botanic Gardens before my flight.  I was walking through an enormous greenhouse, filled with tropical plants, when a bit of movement caught my eye.  Paddling across one of the small pools there was a small mixed flock of ducks – Brazilian teals and ringed teals, both handsome little South American species.  It was then that an idea clicked with me – if zoos are incorporating gardens into their campuses, can botanic gardens return the favor and take some animals?

I’m sure that at the mention of the idea, many botanical garden curators would cringe at the thought of their lovely landscapes being ripped up, their acreage filled with paddocks of rhinos and giraffes, the greenery confined to neat little frames around each habitat.  Instead, I would imagine something similar to what I saw in Denver – a few smaller birds tucked into greenhouse exhibits, maybe turtles or small primates as well, or fish in the water features.  A rainforest building, basically,  seen in many zoos and aquariums, but on a small scale with a much lower animal stocking density than you might normally find.  As animals are the main focus of the zoo, plants are the main focus of the botanical gardens, and the addition of animals shouldn’t compromise the well-being the plants unreasonably.

There’s plenty of precedent, of course, for a variety of species.  Naples Zoo started off as a botanical garden where the animals just took over.  Atlanta, Georgia may be best known among the animal community for its zoo and aquarium, but its botanical garden has the unfortunate distinction of being the last home for the now-extinct tree frog Ecnomiohyla rabborum. 

Adding such small birds to the gardens could be a big boost for bird populations.  Fewer and fewer zoos have traditional bird houses anymore, which places a strain on efforts to grow their populations.  It would be an especially big boon to species which don’t do well in mixed-species aviaries, and might thrive more if they had a big aviary where they were the only birds present.  I could imagine facilities like Denver Botanic Garden, or many of the similar greenhouses and conservatories around the country, helping to house birds, which would allow more zoos to breed and expand their numbers.  Botanical garden staff could be supported by local zoo and aquarium staff, who would coordinate basic care of the birds and train the garden staff on how to work with them.  Such cross pollination would help zoo populations, would boost public interest in the gardens, and would help remind the public about the inter-connectedness of plants and animals.

Book Review: The Swamp - The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise

A short drive from the gates of the Naples Zoo, the landscaped wilderness of the Caribbean Gardens gives way to the wild landscapes of Big Cypress National Preserve, an expanse of wetlands and woodlands that shelters the last of Florida's panthers.  To the south, the trees thin out into the River of Grass, popularly known as the Everglades.  Here, the omnipresent American alligator rubs shoulders with the only American crocodiles in the United States while countless beautiful birds (including the occasional flamingo) fly over lazily bobbing manatees.  This is truly some of the last, great wilderness in the Eastern United States, and while it's only a tiny fragment of what once was, it's sobering to realize how close we as a nation came to losing even this.

Michael Grunwald tells the story of the Everglades and its surrounding ecosystems in The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise.  It's a fascinating history of southern Florida, a part of the country that many of us think we know so well.   As firmly stamped as Florida - home of retirees, Mecca of tourists - is stamped in our cultural imagination, it's only relatively recently that the Sunshine State has become what it is.  For much of its history, the southeastern corner of the United States was written off by many as a wasteland, a cesspit fit only for snakes and alligators.  Sure, its subtropical climate frequently inspired visionaries who saw other uses for it - as an agricultural powerhouse, as a playground for the rich, as a reclaimed community of millions, linked by railways and canals - but those dreams frequently dashed against the harsh reality of the landscape.   

Until, that is, technology caught up with ambition, at which point, paradise began to fall.

The story expertly weaves together the lives of Indian leaders (including the Seminoles, a people who's identity was forged by the swamps they took refuge in), settlers, scientists, politicians, and (of course, since it's Florida) shady real estate developers.  It also does a fair job of incorporating the natural history of the Everglades, helping to explain to the layperson what makes this corner of America so special and so fragile.

Most of Grunwald's history is the story of man's failure to tame the Everglades, for which we should be very grateful.  As it is, by the time our society had developed sufficient power to truly alter the landscape, we'd also begun to develop our first pangs of environmental conscience.  The story is a tug-of-war between those who would exploit the Everglades, those who would save it, and those who have convinced themselves that it would be so easy to do both (often with tragic consequences).  The Everglades has been the site of many of the most dramatic conservation battles of our nation, from the fight to save Florida's wading birds by fighting the powerful milliner industry and changing the face of women's fashion to the fight to stop the construction of what would have been our nation's largest airport... in the middle of some of Florida's last great wilderness.

If there is an overall lesson to be cleaned from The Swamp, it's that there is hope out there for our natural world.  South Florida has been the most prized real estate in America for the past few decades, and we've willingly or unwillingly almost destroyed it several times.  Heck, we very well still might.  It's inspiring to learn the truth of how many times a dedicated group of diverse individuals - conservationists and hunters, tourists and locals, Republicans and Democrats - have worked together to try and save this wonderful ecosystem.

Virtually every zoo in Florida has exhibits that highlight the state's natural wonders.  Some are truly great exhibits filled with great landscaping and incredible animals.  I've highlighted many of them on this blog, and recommend a visit if you can swing it.  Still, none of them are able to compare to the magic of standing on the shores of Flamingo Marina and watching manatees bob up for air while crocodiles bask in the background, or walking the Anhinga Trail while alligators bellow in the distance, or driving slowly through Big Cypress at twilight, hoping against hope that the tawny form of a panther will lope across the road.  

Moments like this are magic, and it's a magic that, try as we might, we can only preserve in nature.  Michael Grunwald reminds us of that magic.  He shows us how we've saved a little bit of it thus far, bringing it into the 21st century.  What we do with it next isn't in his book - we'll have to write that chapter ourselves.

The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise at Amazon.com

Zoo Joke: Raising Chickens

Just to keep with this month's theme, I thought I'd go with more of a gardening joke...

John has a garden of which he is very proud, with several kinds of vegetables flourishing in it.  He decides to expand on his agricultural prowess and start raising some chickens also.

He goes to a friend of his who raises chickens and buys a dozen chicks.  The next month, he goes back and buys a dozen more.  The next month, he gets another dozen.

"That's three dozen chickens you've got now," his farmer friend comments.  "You must be having tons of eggs by now!"

John shakes his head sadly.  "No, I'm not having too much luck with the chickens.  I must be doing something wrong.  Maybe I'm planting them too deeply, or too close together, or upside down, or..."

Plants in Peril

There are lots of ways to incorporate plants and plant messaging into zoo exhibits, many of which I detailed in the last blog post.  Here's yet another one - use your gardens to remind visitors that not all endangered species are animals.  There are many that are plants.

We don't often think of plants being endangered in the same way that we do animals - there aren't plant poachers out there, right?  Well, kind of, yeah, there are.  Plants become endangered for the same reasons that animals do.  There is habitat loss, both through direct methods such as deforestation, as well as indirectly, through climate change.  There are invasive species - both other plants, which can out-compete them for resources in their natural habitat, as well as animals which may eat those plants.  Humans can over-exploit and over-collect plants, whether for financial purposes or for collections and hobbies.

An endangered plant nursery at Lauritzen Gardens Botanical Park in Omaha, Nebraska

Among animals, there are a section of species which are now considered (or have been considered at some point) extinct in the wild.  Their numbers include/have included the Arabian oryx, Kihansi spray toad, and Guam rail.   Most people wouldn't think of plants being "in captivity," but there are several species which are extinct in their natural state and only exist under human care.  They include Governor Laffan's fern (formerly of Bermuda), the St. Helena rosewood, and the Franklin tree, from the US state of Georgia.  Like animals, many plants that are endangered are those that naturally had very small ranges and very specialized habitat conditions.  Often these plants supported equally specialized animals who have become imperiled by their absence.

Just as many zoos have evolved from collections of curiosities to conservation centers, so have botanical gardens begun to evolve.  Whereas they used to be places to go look at the pretty flowers, now they often serve as research and conservation hubs for endangered plants.  The video below from Botanic Gardens Conservation International says it better than I can:

Endangered plants are delicate, and probably best left under the care of specialized scientists rather than tossed as a side project to the zoo (just as rare birds or reptiles would probably thrive best under the care of zookeepers rather than under the well-meaning but less-experienced eyes of horticulturalists).  Still, zoos can support botanical gardens by highlighting endangered plants, cross-promoting with botanical gardens, and reminding visitors that saving endangered animals often means having to save endangered plants as well.

Looking Beyond Beauty

A lot of thought goes into zoo landscaping and horticulture, most of which is focused around the aesthetic.  What will look good and improve the visitor experience?  What will work thematically to complement the animal exhibits?  What will practically grow well with our temperature and rainfall patterns?  These are all very important questions that should be asked.

Looking beyond that, however, we face the question of how else can plants enhance the zoo – not just the visitor experience, but the missions of education, conservation, and animal welfare?  With that in mind, here are some ideas of how specially-themed zoo gardens can add to the zoo.

Browse Gardens – Add planted areas of specific species managed to be pruned for animal feed and enrichment.  This might not be practical for every species – giant pandas go through so much bamboo that no zoo is likely to have enough on grounds (zoos with pandas often have off-site growing facilities, or send teams off to harvest bamboo from elsewhere).  Still, if you plant some willow, some mulberry, some princess tree, and a few other species, you can periodically crop a few branches to offer animals as a snack.  Even if it doesn’t leave you 100% self-sufficient, it can serve as an educational tool for visitors as to what goes into ensuring proper nutrition and enrichment for some zoo residents.

Produce Gardens – Like the browse garden, only you know that there’s no way you’ll grow nearly enough.  It could be fun to grow some tomatoes, cucumbers, or other easy-growing crops for treats, possibly in your children’s zoo (which often has farm animals already anyway).  Many Americans suffer from a growing disconnect between what they eat and where it comes from, so it would be a cool educational feature for them.  Add to the experience by throwing up a beehive and explaining how pollinators help feed us, or having a compost display to emphasize that and other green gardening practices.

Carnivorous Plants – Blur the lines between plants and animals with displays of Venus flytraps, pitcher plants, sundews, or other predatory plants.  You can even have periodic “feeding demos.”  If you’ve got the budget, spring for a larger-than-life flytrap photo op, where kids can crawl inside the “jaws” of the plant and pretend to get eaten.  Their parents will get a kick out of it for sure.

Medicinal Plants – All over the world and all throughout history, people have looked to plants to help them cure diseases, heal from injuries, and otherwise improve their lives.  They still do – new discoveries are constantly being made about plants with medicinal properties.  Consider the Madagascar periwinkle, which has properties that can be used to fight leukemia.  This makes it all the more tragic that we are losing our tropical rainforests at such an alarming rate – who knows what undiscovered remedies are being plowed under by bulldozers before we even have a chance to discover them?  This exhibit could be paired with exhibits about some animals help us treat diseases (i.e., Gila monsters and diabetes) and others, despite popular belief, do not (i.e., rhino horn and everything).

Native Plants – These are the plants that, by their nature, are going to do well on your grounds, so highlight them.  It works especially well when done in association with native animal exhibits, creating a nature trail effect.  Don’t limit yourself to trees, either – plant a wildflower garden in a meadow, or liven up a wet patch with some skunk cabbage (people will complain about the smell, but in that exaggerated, this-is-so-fun kind of way).  If you are in the southwest, cacti are your friend.  In the southeast, grow marsh plants.   Teach people how to landscape their own yards, using plants to make better habitat for wildlife.  A subset of this would be gardens specially planned to attract bees, butterflies, or hummingbirds.

It would be cool to have a garden of invasive plant pests, such as phragmites. Ailanthus tree, or multiflora rose, but then you run the risk of them just going wild and growing all over the zoo.  Trust me, it’s not like they need the help.

These are only some of the options.  You can also look at meditation gardens, prehistoric plants (paired with dinosaur statues or fossil exhibits), herb gardens, animal-themed topiary, animal-themed plants, or bonsai – and there’s nothing wrong with a formal garden now and then, especially for entry plazas, guest service areas, and other places which tend to be more neutral than exhibit areas.   Stumped?  Reach out to local gardening clubs for help.  If you are a local gardener, maybe reach out to your local zoo and see if there is a way to collaborate.

The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Species Fact Profile: Blue-Crowned Motmot (Momotus momota)

Blue-Crowned (Amazonian) Motmot

Momotus momota (Linnaeus, 1766)

Range: Northern and Central South America
Habitat: Lowland Rainforest, Forest Edge
Diet: Arthropods, Small Vertebrates, Fruit
Social Grouping: Solitary, Pairs
Reproduction: Breeding has been reported at different times of the year across the range.  Nest in a chamber at the end of a burrow dug by both parents.  3-4 eggs are incubated for 21 days.  Chicks are blind and featherless after hatching, are cared for by both parents until they fledge at one month old
Lifespan: 20 Years
Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern

• Body length 46-48 centimeters.  Weight 120-145 grams.  Males are slightly larger than females
• Both sexes look alike.  Olive-green plumage, fading to a pale tawny on the underside.  Throat s bluish-gray.  Named for the distinctive cap of dark blue feathers extending from the base of the beak to the back of the head.  The red eyes are masked with wedges of black feathers.  The black beak is short and serrated
• Easily recognized by the long central tail feathers, growing in the shape of a racquet.  The feathers are groomed into this shape by the birds rather than growing naturally.  The tail swings back and forth when the bird is excited
• Ambush predators, sitting and waiting on perches for long periods until prey appears, then swooping down and seizing it.  If the prey item is too large to swallow whole, the bird may bash it against a branch to kill it first.
• Nests may be dug months before eggs are laid, possibly so as to not call too much attention to the nest site for when there are eggs and chicks inside
• Predators include small wild cats (ocelot, margay), birds of prey, and snakes
• The name "motmot" is an imtiation of the bird's call
• Formerly considered one widespread species, it has since been broken into a half-dozen very similar species across Central and South America.  The original species is now sometimes referred to as the Amazonian motmot.

The Greatest of Grasses

Shortly after I’d started working in zoo horticulture, my dad picked me up from work.  It was the peak of summer and – not being used to working outside all day at the time – I was an exhausted, sweat-soaked mess of a kid.  As we drove home, my dad hinted that he wouldn’t mind some help that evening with mowing the lawn.  The thing is, I’d already spent all day cutting the grass.  The chief difference was that I hadn’t been able to use a lawnmower.  I’d had to use a saw.

Metaphorically and literally, few plants loom taller in zoo horticulture than the bamboos, a subfamily of towering grasses that grow across much of the world.  Although they will grow readily in temperate ecosystems (part of their appeal to zoo staff), they are readily associated with the tropics, and many zoos plant them heavily to create the impression of jungles.  Many species have the tendency to grow in dense, wall-like formations, which are ideal for providing visual screens both around animal habitats to promote privacy as well as to hide holding buildings and other off-exhibit areas from public view.

When visitors see bamboo (as they will at virtually every zoo, so universal is it), one of the first things they will often ask is, “Are there pandas here?”  In the eyes of most visitors, the two – pandas and bamboo – are instant association (the name “panda,” first applied to the smaller red panda, actually translates as “eater of bamboo”).  The fact is that lots of animals will happily eat bamboo and it is one of the favorite browse plants of zoos (it isn’t for everyone, however – some bamboos have cyanide and other poisons in them, which only some species can successfully digest).  Nor is bamboo only from China.  The Nashville Zoo features a Bamboo Trail, highlighting animals from bamboo forests around the world, including clouded leopards, lemurs, rhinoceros hornbills, and, of course, red pandas.

Personally, I found bamboo to be a giant pain in the butt.  It can be very difficult to get it established in some places – at one zoo where I worked, each stalk of bamboo was treated like a national treasure, and my boss would have executed anyone who dared to cut a stalk for a purpose as wasteful as giving a treat to the kangaroos or giraffes.  Once it takes off, however, it really takes off – and it can be very hard to control, and even harder to remove altogether.   It can destroy paths and pavements, damage utilities, or block views of enclosures quickly.  A stalk can grow to be several times longer than the bed of our trusty zoo pickup truck, meaning that each one has to cut into several sections , so it only takes a few stalks to equal a full load.  The thick, straight bases may stack easily, but the springy, leaf-bearing tops don’t, and have an obnoxious habit of slapping you smartly in the face as you try to pack them down.  Nor is it compostable – which means you need to find a place to dispose of what usually amounts to be a mountain of the stuff.

Granted, those stalks – especially the biggest ones – can come in handy.   I’ve used them for fencing projects, enrichment puzzle feeders, sounding poles for working in water, and, at least once with a very long piece, for knocking down a wasp nest that I really, really didn’t want to get close to.

Bamboo may be a pain to work with, but it can be a beautiful addition to any landscape, especially Asian-themed gardens.  If I have a complaint (besides all of the ones that I just made), it’s that I feel zoos rely too heavily upon it.  I’ve had coworkers who thought bamboo was the answer to every landscaping challenge.  The thing is, if we’re saying that plants help set the scene for our animals, we have to realize that not all scenes are the same.   We should use different plantings to help create the impression of different habitats – how else can we really convey that a rainforest animal, a desert animal, and a grassland animal are from different habitats. 

Bamboo is a remarkable, effective, and often irritating tool that horticulturalists can use to enliven a zoo.  It shouldn’t be the only tool.

Gardens and Animals - Room for Both?

Strolling around the grounds of the Naples Zoo, it was easy to get lost in the beautiful gardens that predated the animal components of the park.  They seemed to go on almost forever.  Looking back at the trip, though - as I wrote my review, as I looked through my photos, and as I looked over the zoo map - I was struck by a realization - there really weren't that many exhibits at the zoo for the size of the park.  The gardens took up a lot of ground.

That, I suspect, is how the planners wanted it - to preserve the beauty of Caribbean Gardens while carefully, selectively adding exhibits to enhance, not diminish, the wonder of the park.  They pulled it off fairly well.  Still, it reminded me of an ongoing concern that I've had over the years - the war over space in zoos.

Apart from money, space is the most valuable asset in zoos - and in some cases it is scarcer than money.  I mean space both in terms for adding animals and enclosures - as most breeding programs for endangered species are hampered in part by how many individuals zoos can physically maintain - as well as space for expanding enclosures and giving animals for space.  Many zoos that have elephants, for example, are trying to expand their enclosures as much as possible to give their pachyderms more room - Milwaukee County Zoo just completed their expansion, with Maryland Zoo in Baltimore working on one at this time.  With most  zoos locked in firmly set boundaries, every square foot has increasing value.  Are gardens a luxury that we can always afford?  Or should they be the first to go under the bulldozer?

Gardens do have many values they bring to the zoo, both tangible and not.  They can serve as just as much of a draw to the visitors as the animals in some cases, helping bring it additional community support.  They can serve as conservation centers for rare plants.  They can serve as buffers around exhibits to provide animals with more privacy and space, both between animals and visitors and between animals and other animals.  They can provide excellent habitat opportunities for native wildlife.  They have the potential to lead to better opportunities for holistic education about the connections between plants and animals.  And they have a more subtle, psychological effect on visitors.  Studies have shown that animals displayed in more natural settings evoke more positive emotions in visitors than animals in traditional barred enclosures, which can in turn lead to more support for conservation programs.

Also worth noting - plants take less care than animals do, in many cases.  The greatest expense of any zoo or aquarium is usually staff.  At every zoo that I've worked at, I've realized that, if we filled the entire facility with animal enclosures, one against the other, there is no way that we'd be able to afford to care for them properly.  We have some open spaces, then - why not plant them up?

Sometimes, it's in the best interests of a zoo to remove a garden, or cut down on botanical displays, in the interests of their animals.  Animals should always come first.  Still, if possible, gardens - especially ones that are logically and meaningfully integrated into the collection to support and highlight the animals - can be a tremendous asset to any zoo.

Zoo Review: Naples Zoo, Part II

Continuing yesterday’s start to a tour of the Naples Zoo…

Disembarking from the Primate Expedition Cruise, visitors continue along a meandering trail.  Animal exhibits are spaced out along it, including two seldom-encountered African carnivores – honey badgers (in an enclosure that it looks like you would need a tank to break through, keeping with the destructive, Houdini-like reputation of the animals) and a striped hyena.  For both species, this was only the second time that I had seen them (and a first for seeing a honey badger on exhibit). 

Right around the corner for the honey badgers is a giraffe exhibit, including a feeding station.  Unlike every other giraffe feeding station I’ve ever seen, this one has visitors standing at ground level while the giraffes reach over the fence to take food.  It doesn’t quite give you that elevated, unobstructed view that I typically enjoy while seeing giraffes, but watching the world’s tallest animal bend over to take food from you does give a realization of just how tall they are.  Compared to all of the other exhibits at the Naples Zoo, I found this one to be kind of bland and uninspired, though to fair giraffes don’t usually go for lots of complexity in their habitats.  Also, I believe this is one of the areas slated for improvement in the new master plan.

Further down the trail there are pythons (Burmese and reticulated – both species of concern in the Everglades due to their invasive presences), coyotes, sitatunga, duiker, and black-crowned cranes.  Malayan tigers inhabit a lush yard with a pool, and can be viewed up close through windows.  Fossa, an arboreal puma-like predator that is closely related to the mongooses, can be found in what I consider to be one of – if not the – best exhibit for the species I’ve ever seen.  It’s big with lots of climbing opportunities to encourage activity, while still providing the sometimes-secretive predators with lots of hiding spaces.  Their natural prey – red-ruffed lemurs – is found in an adjacent exhibit.

The highlights for most visitors are the two exhibits of Florida’s largest land carnivores.  The first houses Florida panthers.   Until recently, the zoo was home to Uno, a beloved blind Florida panther who was rescued from the wild (since deceased).  Like Uno, the current cat is also a non-releasable rescue from the wild.  Just north of the zoo is Big Cypress National Park, the place that gives you probably your best opportunity in the world to glimpse one of these cats in the wild.  Down the path from the panther is Black Bear Hammock.  Naples Zoo rivals Turtle Back Zoo in my mind for the best exhibit of American black bear.  Like Turtle Back, the exhibit here focuses on living with bears – the zoo’s bears inhabit a replicated backyard, including a picnic table in which (I’m so mad I didn’t get my camera out in time) one of the bears periodically sits on the bench with her paws on the tabletop just like a person).  Signage surrounding the exhibit focuses on teaching visitors about human-bear conflict and steps that they can take to protect bears from people and themselves from bears.  The lessons of living with local animals are further highlighted across the path at the Backyard Wildlife Habitat and play area.

Complimenting the animals throughout the zoo are the magnificent gardens.  I can imagine how easy it would have been for the gardens to have been totally lost in the conversion from botanical garden to zoo, all plowed under to make way for new habitats.  Thankfully much of the greenery has been preserved, with the animal exhibits incorporated into the plantings

The zoo is in the midst of an ambitious master plan, dubbed the “Roaring Into Our Future” campaign.  Some projects – like the habitats for Florida panther, clouded leopard, and ruffed lemur – are already completed.  Others are on the horizon, such as a habitat for American flamingos and a South American grasslands area.  As befits a zoo that started out as a garden, there will also be lots of horticultural work, as well as preservation and renovation of some of the historic structures that predate the zoo.  Most importantly, the zoo will be adding a much-needed hospital.  The zoo will continue to grow, but carefully and cautiously, with plenty of consideration of the lush landscape that it inhabits, and not losing sight of its origins – as a garden, a place of tranquility and wonder… with a few animals added in.

Naples Zoo

Zoo Review: Naples Zoo

Before there was a Naples Zoo, there were the Caribbean Gardens.  In 1917, Dr. Henry Nehrling, a Wisconsin-born botanist who had moved to Florida to pursue his passion for horticulture, had come to the sad conclusion that even Central Florida had the potential to get too cold for his favorite plants.  After losing much of his collection to a cold snap, the good doctor relocated two years later about as far south as he could get, to Naples on Florida's southwest coast.  Here his collection thrived... at least until his own death ten years later, after which it sank into disrepair.

A few decades later the gardens were reopened to the public by Julius Fleischmann Jr, who re-branded them as the Caribbean Gardens. Tropical garden attractions are a dime-a-dozen in southern Florida, and Caribbean Gardens might have shuttered its gates again if not for a twist of fate -  a visit from Colonel Lawrence and Nancy "Jane" Tetzlaff.  Known popular as "Jungle Larry" and "Safari Jane," the Tetzlaffs were animal collectors who were looking for a place to winter their collection.  In 1969, Caribbean Gardens reopened as a botanical garden and a zoo.

Like Zoo Miami, a modest drive across Florida's southern tip, Naples Zoo (as it has since been renamed) is a subtropical paradise that allows many tropical and Florida native species to be exhibited in lush, densely planted habitats, all amidst a verdant jungle-like setting.

The first thing most visitors will see upon entering the zoo is the spectacular Safari Canyon, an open-air wildlife theater where educational demonstrations with animals (including venomous reptiles) are presented to the public.  Servals, parrots, and sloths are among the other animals that might make a guest appearance to the delight of zoo visitors.  Overshadowing the theater in a quite literal sense is a massive ficus tree that predates the zoo.

The first animal exhibit that you are likely to encounter is Alligator Bay, a massive lagoon that houses several large American alligators... because it's Florida, and state law requires an alligator exhibit wherever you go.  Cynicism aside, it's easily one the best gator exhibits I've ever seen - what it lacks in intimacy (no underwater viewing, no up-close views), it makes up for with panoramic viewing of a large habitat that looks so natural that if there weren't signs and you weren't in a zoo, you'd probably just assume that they were wild alligators swimming around or hauled out on the beach.  Feeding and training demonstrations give visitors a new insight into the surprisingly complex behavior and learning ability of what most tourists (and locals) assume to be big, dumb eating machines.



Meandering down the trail, visitors will pass habitats for giant anteater, red-rumped agouti, and cotton-top tamarins, all very much at home in the warm climate.  A hillside yard houses two African antelope from very different habitats - strikingly-colored bongos from the rainforests of Central Africa and sandy, highly-endangered slender-horned gazelles from the northern deserts.  Further down the trail is a habitat of beautiful clouded leopards, as well as African lions, which can be viewed up close through windows.  Visitors can watch a small herd of zebras nearby while they wait for their turn for the zoo's main attraction.

Dwarfing even Alligator Bay is the zoo's version of Lake Victoria, a large body of water studded with several small islands.  Each of those islands is home to primates - siamangs, ring-tailed lemurs, and black-and-white colobus monkeys among them.  Of course, monkeys and lemurs and gibbons can be hard to see from shore, but thankfully the zoo has a solution.  Visitors are loaded onto boats and taken for a guided tour of the lake, cruising close to the animals while receiving narration about their lives, behavior, and conservation.  Guided tours are always kind of hit-or-miss with me -  I like the information, but I also enjoy seeing the animals at my own pace, having the chance to loop back for second looks or sit and watch a while longer if something catches my eye.  It's a relatively short ride, but it does offer some cool views of some neat primates.  At the time of my visit there were a few relative rarities among the collection (such as a Hanuman langur, the only one I'd ever seen), but they were older specimens and in the act of being phased out, I suspect, to make room for other species that are part of Species Survival Plans.

Like every other visitor, I suspect, I did ask the guide if there were alligators in the water around the primate islands.  They said that there were not, as that water is actually brackish, which gators tend to avoid.  The boat takes you back to where you started, over by the zebras and lions.  From there, you're free to explore the rest of the zoo, which we'll tackle in the next post.

Naples Zoo

Grow With What You Got

No matter how skilled our craftsmanship has grown over the years at sculpting realistic trees, rockwork, and water features, so far nothing still compares to the beauty of real, natural materials.  That especially includes real, live plants.  It’s not just a matter of appearance – it’s a matter of the smell they give off, the way the move in the wind, the way a branch gives when an animal jumps onto it.

As any perpetually harassed horticulturalist can tell you, live plants are also a lot higher maintenance than artificial exhibit furniture.  They need to be weeded and watered and sheltered from the elements, among their many other needs.  This can be especially challenging when trying to grow plants for exhibits outside of their natural range.

One strategy that zoos can – and do – use to alleviate this is to display tropical animals (and their accompanying plants) in indoor, greenhouse-like enclosures.  That has some advantages, to be sure – constant temperature, misting and watering systems, better protection from outside animals and pests being prominent among them.  There are also challenges, however, not least of all the expense, especially if you want a big habitat.

Another concept, one which I am very fond of, is what I call “Grow With What You Got.”  You could also summarize it as “Nature is the Best Architect.”

It’s an idea that took a long time to catch on with many zoos, but it works well to plan your collection – animals and plants – at least partially around local climate, topography, and other conditions – the factors that are the hardest to control.  Suppose your zoo is located in the American Southwest, for example.  You could fight the elements forever and spend a fortune on irrigation to try and create jungle exhibits, or another fortune on air conditioning for polar exhibits.  Or you could focus on exhibits – plant and animal – that thrive in hot, dry weather.  That would include not only native species, but also the East African plains, or the Australian Outback.

When it comes to using the native landscape to highlight exhibits, no one does it better than the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona

Conversely, if you’re in a forested area with tons of older, taller trees, why would you remove them to make way for a grasslands exhibit when they could compliment forest exhibits so nicely?  Even if they aren’t the same trees that you would find in a jungle on the other side of the world (and even if they will lose all of their leaves in the fall) they will still help create an appealing environment for guests to immerse themselves in as they wander your recreated forest.   

The same applies for matters of terrain as well as vegetation and climate.  Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is literally built onto a mountain.  They have a cool East African plains area, but I think it would be even more spectacular if they focused more on mountain animals.  Sure, they have a Colorado Rockies area and an Asian highlands area with Pallas’s cats and snow leopards already.  Perhaps they could expand on that with exhibits for takin, markhor, and other Himalayan residents… or they could add an Andean area, complete with condors, llamas, and Andean bears.

None of this is to say that zoos should only focus on the plants and animals in their backyard or in similar environments – that southwestern zoos should only be desert exhibits, or Florida zoos should just have swamp exhibits.  One of the major joys of taking a trip to the zoo is to get a glimpse into habitats that are different from anything you might ever see before – imagine stepping from a blustery Nebraska winter into the Lied Jungle at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo.

There are only so many dollars available for so many zoos, however.   Remembering the natural conditions and natural beauty of our campuses and learning how to best incorporate it into our exhibits can make it stretch a little bit further and help provide animals with better care.

Plants vs Animals, Round II

The guanaco (a South American wild relative of the llama) looked sick.  There was no denying that.  When the hoofstock keepers asked me to come by and take a look at their male guanaco, I didn’t think that there would be much I could offer in the way of advice or helpful suggestions, but I figured sure, why not.  The male had been recently been moved into a seldom-used holding pen while his females were giving birth.  It was shortly after this move that the symptom – lethargy, discomfort – began.   It seemed likely that the problem was with the enclosure.

Two steps into the exhibit, I saw something I didn’t like - pale flowers.  Bending down, I used the sleeve of my sweatshirt as a glove to grasp a thorn-studded stem, then pulled.  It was a nightshade, a toxic plant which can cause sickness, even death, if consumed, to say nothing of symptoms similar to what our guanaco was showing.  Of course, like most toxic plants it is pretty bitter, which, combined with the thorns on the stems and the undersides of the leaves, make it a pretty unappealing mouthful for any hungry animal.

Of course, as I stood back up, I saw right away that our wayward guanaco hadn’t had much in the way of choices.  With this yard being unused for so long, nightshade had completely taken over.  It literally carpeted the exhibit floor like grass.

There’s so much concern about how badly animals will damage plants in a zoo, but we should also worry about how much damage plants can do to animals – especially through ingestion.  Nightshade, jimsonweed, and other toxic plants can flourish in the right environment, and not all animals are savvy enough to avoid them.  It’s the responsibility of keepers to learn to identify the poisonous plants that occur where they work so they can be found and removed before their animals eat any.  It’s just as important to know about the trees and bushes that you feed animals as browse – what is safe, what isn’t.

Something may be safe for one species but harmful for others.  Red maple, for instance, is fine to feed to ruminants, but should not be fed to non-ruminant herbivores, such as horses.  Poison ivy may drive us crazy, but white-tailed deer can eat it just fine.  The safest course of action is also one of the simplest – if you don’t know what something is, don’t feed it out.

Also worth pointing out – it’s not enough to keep toxic plants out of your enclosures.  You also need to keep them off grounds entirely as much as possible.  That can reduce the risk of visitors pulling a plant from the ground and offering it to the animals as a snack.

We moved the male guanaco to a different, nightshade-free pen – the one advantage of his condition was that it made him a lot more tractable and manageable than he normally was.  After not too long, the bad stuff worked its way out of his system and he was back to his irascible, keeper-charging old-self.  During his recovery, we gave the holding yard the old Agent Orange treatment until there wasn’t a leaf of nightshade left.

I’m still not sure what convinced him that a salad of thorny, bad-tasting, sickening stuff was a good idea, or why he had continued to eat it.  Perhaps he was just curious.  Curiosity, as they say, killed the cat.  It might have almost done the guanaco in as well.

A Mother's Day Interlude

Taking a break from plant stuff just to say "Happy Mother's Day!"

That goes out to -

* The mothers of zoo staff and volunteers who helped steer their kids into this life and supported them through the rough times (of which there are inevitably many)
* The staff moms who have to juggle being a mom for animals all day... and then get to go home and do it again on their free-time with their human kids
* The visitor moms who bring their kids to the zoo, giving them the chance to experience the animals first hand and build memories which may last a life time
* The animal moms, no matter how much (orangutan mothers carry their children for several years, the longest dependency period of any non-human animal) or how little (female rheas literally drop their eggs on the ground and then wander off, leaving the rest of the job to the male) they put into it.

 Lots of zoos and aquariums offer free admission for moms today.  I think it might be a better idea to offer free admission for DADS today.  That way, he can take the kids out for the day... and mom can sleep in for a change.

Plants vs Animals, Round 1

From a lifetime of working in zoos, you can probably deduce that I love animals.  I love plants as well.  I love plants with animals.  I just wish that the two would go together a little more smoothly.

When zoos first made their much-heralded transition to naturalistic enclosures for their animals, plants were a big part of the picture.  More specifically, they were the pictures’ frames – and the animals were in the middle, nearby but removed.  It was typical to walk through the zoo and see a maze of lush greenery, with brown islands of animal enclosures scattered about.  The conventional wisdom of the time was simple.  Animals eat plants.  Animals trample plants.  Animals otherwise kill plants.  Ergo, plants and animals don’t mix well in a zoo.

There’s an anecdote that I love in which a zoo director, decades ago, was telling his colleagues about the new gorilla exhibit his zoo was going to open.  It was going to be huge and natural and green, with lots of live plants.  His fellow directors were dubious.  To prove the point, one of them placed a potted plant in a cage, then introduced a gorilla to it.  The gorilla immediately uprooted and ate the plant, then threw it up.  Case closed.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the end of it.  That zoo – Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo – went ahead and opened their new gorilla exhibit to the acclaim of visitors, professionals, and – most importantly – the gorillas.  So you see, it can be done.  It just take a little planning.

The most important factor may very well be space.  The more space your animals have, the less concentrated the beating your plants will get, especially grass.   The lushest, most natural-looking indoor rainforest exhibits I’ve seen, such as Amazonia at the National Zoo and Rainforest at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, have all been big exhibits with relatively small animals in them.  Rainforest buildings that have housed lots of large mammals – such as Tropical Rainforest at Franklin Park Zoo, with Baird’s tapirs and pygmy hippos among others – have had a harder time mixing plants and animals.

Secondly (and this is a trick that Seattle used for the gorillas), give your plants a chance to establish themselves.  A newly planted plant is vulnerable, especially in the presence of curious animals.  Put your plants in the ground, then give them a chance to put some roots down.  It’ll make it more likely that they can bounce back in the face of browsing or trampling.

Pick your plants wisely.  Just like you wouldn’t throw any species of animal into an exhibit just because you thought it looked cool (… I hope), neither should you treat plants the same way.  Pick plants that aren’t too delicate, that can survive/thrive in your local conditions, and are safe for the animals.

That being said, lastly, remember that the animals are the number one priority of a zoo, and destroying plants is, in large part, what animals do.  A bear may demolish a bush looking for hidden tidbits.  An elephant might munch on a tree like an ice cream cone.  A puma marking its territory may claw up a tree trunk.

If you’re worried about your horticultural masterpieces being pulled apart, follow the advice that Zoo Atlanta’s Director Terry Maple gave his team when they were in an uproar over gorillas destroying the nice natural plantings in their spacious new exhibit.

Use cheap plants.

Destressing at the Zoo

A new study carried out by Michigan State University and the Detroit Zoo confirms what I've long suspected.  Zoos and aquariums aren't just fun places to go to learn about animals (and plants) and support efforts to conserve them in the wild.  They are also good for your mental health. 


According to the study authors, participants in stress-tests who were given the chance to walk around the Detroit Zoo after their exposure to high stress events felt calmer and happier than those who did not have such opportunities.  It made a point of determining that they were also happier than those who watched screen footage of those animals (just for all those folks who say we don't need zoos because we have YouTube and Discovery Channel).  Now, Detroit is a very nice zoo with lots of natural, high quality exhibits.  I'd be very interested to see how visitor stress levels compared if they visited natural, lushly-planted, well-landscaped zoo habitats versus barren, old-style exhibits.


It's nice to get some confirmation.  For as long as I can remember, no matter how stressful my day has been (usually because of the zoo... or at least the people there), a walk among the animals goes a long way to making everything better.

It's science: Viewing zoo animals reduces your stress levels

Giraffe Encounter (Photo: Joshua Hanford)

Gardening with Elephants

If there is one thing that you can say for gardening at the zoo, it's this - you're guaranteed to never run out of fertilizer.  Zoos produce veritable mountains of compost material, and  not all of it from the back-end of an elephant.  There is also all of the hay and straw that animals use for bedding, the uneaten diets, leaves and pine needles raked from enclosures, and so much more.

When allowed to biodegrade, these materials can form some potent compost, which some zoos use to fertilize their planted areas.  Other zoos bag it up and sell it as novel fertilizer for visitors.  Other zoos truck it off to local farmers, spreading it over their fields.  Any of these options prevents poop and other wastes from going to waste.  They can also generate a decent amount of heat - I was going behind-the-scenes at one zoo on a winter day, and definitely got a little toasty as we walked past the mountainous heaps of steaming compost.

It also provides as great lesson for zoo visitors on composting, a fun, easy conservation activity that they can do at home.  Visitors can learn about different composting methods, from churning it in a mixer to feeding it to a box of worms, and how they can reduce their landfill impact.  They can also learn about what materials are and are not appropriate to compost.  For example, at the zoo we compost our ungulate droppings, but not those of carnivores or primates.  That applies to home life as well - you should bag and dispose of your dog's yard leavings... and flush your own.

Species Fact Profile: Grey Crowned Crane (Balearica regulorum)

Grey-Crowned Crane

Balearica regulorum (Bennett, 1834)

Range: Eastern and Southern Africa

Habitat: Grasslands, Wetlands

Diet: Insects, Earthworms, Lizards, Seeds

Social Grouping: Pairs, Small Flocks

Reproduction: Monogamous (may be for life), breed once yearly, determined by rains.  Courtship consists of nuptial dances (spreading wings, bobbing heads, jumping).  Nest in or near water on mounds of vegetation.  2-4 eggs incubated for 28-30 days.  Chicks are precocial, fledge at 2-3 months, mature at 3 years

Lifespan: 20-25 Years

Conservation Status: IUCN Endangered, CITES Appendix II

• Sexes look alike.  Most of the plumage is pearly-grey; wings are predominately white.  White cheek patches with a reddish tint, lined with black.  Small inflatable red gular sac on the chin.  Beak is short and red.  Tail and legs are black.  Most distinguishing trait is the large crown of stiff yellow, black-tipped feathers, which is brown in juveniles.  Juveniles also have brown iris instead of blue-gray and a paler colored gular sac.  Adult plumage is achieved at 12 months old
• Weigh 3-4 kilograms.  Stand 100-110 centimeters tall.  Wingspan 180-200 centimeters.  Males are slightly larger than females.
• Non-migratory, but will make extensive movements in search of food and water sources, especially during the dry season.  Home range size is 0.85 to 3.85 square kilometers.  They are not territorial except with their nest sites.  Primarily found in pairs, but may form flocks of over 150 birds.   No dominance hierarchy
• One of only two crane species which will roost in trees (the other being the black crowned crane Balearica pavonina ), which they are capable of doing because of their long hind toes.  It has been suggested that this is an ancestral trait of the crane family
• Vocalization described as a low, melancholy “oouuw.”  Cranes call to their chicks and to their mates with a low purring sound
• Observed following ungulates and feeding on flushed insects, or stamping the ground to scare up insects.  Also feed in newly plowed fields
• Two subspecies – the East African grey crowned crane (Balearica regulorum gibbericeps) and the South African grey crowned crane (Balearica regulorum regulorum).  The East African subspecies has redder cheek patches.  Sometimes has been treated as one species with the black crowned crane, forming one species with four subspecies
• National bird of Uganda, appearing on the flag and coat of arms
• Major cause of decline is loss of wetland habitat due to draining and pollution (also overgrazing by cattle), as well as unintentional poisoning from pesticides used on crops.  Sometimes persecuted by farmers angered by the cranes foraging in their fields and uprooting seedlings, feeding on corn.  Also collide with power lines.  Some illegal trade in live birds and their eggs

The Two Gardens of Thought

The visitor - a wealthy suburnite, I deduced fairly early on - sauntered up to me as I was fixing a fence one summer morning.

"Getting a little behind on the mowing, aren't we?" he asked with a smirk, gesturing to the shaggy, unkempt greenery around us.

I thought for a moment, then answered honestly.  "No.  Not really."

He looked at me like I was an idiot (I get that look a lot at work) - "You mean it's supposed to look like... that?"

"Oh yeah," I replied.  "It takes a lot of work to keep it looking like that."  With that, I smiled and sauntered off, leaving him no doubt perplexed over what his Home Owner's Association would say if he tried leaving his lawn - which I imagined to be roughly the size of Central Park - looking like the zoo.

Early on in my horticultural apprenticeship, I discovered that there were two rival schools of thought for zoo horticulture, both of which had active partisans in our facility, which bore evidence of both of their works.

On one hand, there were those (deemed "old fashioned" by their opposition) who favored formal gardens, manicured lawns, neat flower arrangements, shrubberies, and maybe a little topiary here and there.  Statues and fountains dotted the landscape.  They emphasized the "Gardens" part of the name "Zoological Gardens" - the animal exhibits, in their eyes, were like jewels you would see in a store, set against an immaculate piece of velvet for the customer to more easily admire.  Their gardens, in this context, were the velvet.

The other school (deemed "lazy" by their rivals) went au natural.  The zoo was a place for animals, and they wanted it to look natural - they wanted the lines between exhibits and public spaces blurred.  Trees and shrubs were allowed to grow as they would, provided they did not interfere with the operations of the zoo or safety of staff, animals, or visitors.   Nothing was formal, no geometric shapes, no straight lines - things weren't random, but the chaos was carefully controlled to create the effect of wildness  In some ways, I thought this took more effort (at least mentally) than the formal approach.

I myself developed a fondness for the latter approach.  To me, wild landscaping helped set the zoo apart from every other park or garden in our city - it emphasized that we were in the homes of animals.  It helped foster a sense of adventure.  When I saw animals, it made it feel like I was stumbling across them, rather than passing another museum diorama.  It tended to use less resources (especially water) and require less weeding.  It also had the added advantage of doing a better job of attracting native wildlife to our grounds.

Plenty of zoos - especially those combined with botanical gardens, such as Jacksonville and Cincinnati - may have a blend of both approaches, and I suppose there's some value in variety.  Left to my own choices, however, I'd grow my entire zoo wild.

The Green Curtain

My thirteen-year-old self was scandalized, indignant, and outraged.  The local zoo would bend the rules slightly and allow me to volunteer... but I was still too young to take on any role working directly with animals.  What they could offer me, they conceded, was the chance to work with the zoo's Horticulture Department.  Weeding and watering, I thought.  How delightful.


I accepted, at any rate.  First of all, I wasn't going to lose sight of my life-long dream of working (with animals) in a zoo.  I wasn't about to do anything that would make me lose face in front of the people who I hoped would hire the adult version of me someday.  Secondly, I figured that volunteering in the gardens and planting beds might eventually result in something more.  I'd heard that the horticulturalists also maintained the plantings in the animal exhibits themselves.  Maybe, I figured, working with the gardeners could get me closer to the animals than I'd otherwise be.  So I signed up on the green line.


I'm so glad that I did.


When we think of the zoo, we obviously think about the animals, and that's fair enough.  They're the stars.  Literally, the name of the place establishes that a zoo is a place for animals.  But if animals are the stars, my first horticulture mentor taught me early on, than the plants set the stage.  They are the scenery.  They provide browse for the animals to eat and shade and climbing structures.  They can turn an enclosure into a habitat.  And yes, as living things, they come with their own host of challenges, needs, pests, parasites, diseases.  As a know-it-all kid, I thought I already understood the zoo in and out.  By the end of that summer, I realized how little I still knew about one of the biggest aspects of the park - the green collection that forms the backdrop for the animals.


I want to share with you a little of what I learned that summer, of how the plants and horticulturalists - just as much as the animals and zookeepers - are what can make a zoo someplace special.