A Need to Know Basis

The kid who worked in groundskeeping was a good worker, maybe a little hyperactive, but not always the sharpest, or overburdened with common sense.  I thought about that on the morning when a small child, running ahead of her family wildly as small children are prone to doing, tripped and skinned both knees badly.  The groundskeeper was the first to arrive, and it was he who radioed the zoo asking for help.

"I've got a visitor with two skinned knees.  Can someone bring us a first aid kit?"

I was in the office at the time, so I said sure.  "Where are you?"

"Over by the lemurs."

I grabbed the first aid kit, and off to lemurs I went.  When I got there, I saw plenty of visitors, including several children, but none who looked like they were suffering from skinned knees.  I also didn't see the groundskeeper.  I radioed for confirmation, and he confirmed, he was at the lemurs.  I confirmed again that I did not see him.

This went one for a few minutes, both of us getting progressively more irate with the other, while the small child wailed loudly in the background whenever he was on the radio.  He insisted that he was at the lemurs.  Of course that's where he was.  We only had one lemur exhibit, and I could see pretty clearly in every direction.  Finally, I had an idea.

"Humor me.  Go to the nearest exhibit and just read the sign to me.  What animal does it say?"

"It says... oh, huh, 'Serval.'  I always thought that those were the lemurs."

              

I facepalmed... then picked up the first aid kit and jogged to the other end of the zoo.  The groundskeeper spent more time in the public areas than almost any other member of the staff, including the keepers.   He was probably one of the most visible members of our staff to the public, and the one who fielded the most questions about basic zoo operations, such as directions to animals.  I began to wonder how accurate some of those directions were.

One thing I learned from that day - besides how some people can confuse a small, arboreal primate with gray and white fur and a ringed-tail with a medium-sized spotted wild cat - was that it pays to make sure that your non-animal staff are at least reasonably versed in the animals of the zoo.  They don't need to go spouting off all the facts in the signage, but that should at least know what the animals are, where they are in the zoo, and be prepared to answer the most basic of questions.  For example, if you have a geriatric animal that looks a little rough, or walks with a limp, the groundskeeper, concessions staff, etc should all be prepared to explain the situation to visitors, with the ability to accurately convey information that will let the visitors know everything is alright.

Conversely, the frontline staff should also have a basic understanding as to what is NOT right and needs to be conveyed to animal staff immediately - an escape, an injury, a person or object in an enclosure that is not supposed to be there.  The best way to convey this information is to give every new employee, full-time and part-time, regardless of their job, a basic tour of the zoo during orientation.   Periodic emails or newsletters can be sent out to provide updates.  

This goes in reverse, too - keepers should be prepared to answer basic questions about the non-animal aspects of the zoo.  There have been a few times, especially during the transition seasons of spring and fall, when I've been asked about the hours of our gift shop or concessions and was embarrassed to realize that I didn't know the answer.

The kid worked in groundskeeping for a few more months, but was still a bit of a bungler, with lots of enthusiasm by less sense.  One afternoon (right before closing, of course), he decided to weed-eat alongside the marmoset exhibit without asking us first, and got a bit too close.  He opened a slit several feet long in the bottom of the mesh, allowing one of the marmosets to escape.  It took an hour to coax her back down to where we could grab her.  

I don't remember seeing the kid again after that, come to think of it.

Species Fact Profile: California Banana Slug (Ariolimax californicus)

 California Banana Slug

Ariolimax californicus (G. Cooper, 1872)

Range: California and Oregon

Habitat: Redwood Forest

Diet: Detritus - dad plants, mushrooms, animal feces, moss

Social Grouping: Asocial

Reproduction:  Breeding takes place year round.  Courtship may be aggressive, involving striking and biting.  All individuals are hermaphrodites.  One partner provides the sperm, the other lays the eggs (up to 75), which are deposited on a log or in the leaf litter and then left to their own devices.  Some individuals may self-fertilize (provide both eggs and sperm)

Lifespan: 7 Years

Conservation Status: Not Evaluated

• Usually bright yellow in color, but may be greenish or tan, or pale yellow to the point of almost appearing white.  Color can change in response to diet, moisture, light exposure, and health.  In general, a brighter yellow is a healthier individual
• Adult body length 17-20 centimeters - common name refers to size, shape, and color of adults
• Sense the environment using two pairs of tentacles on the face - a larger upper pair, usually called "eyestalks" which sense light and movement, and a smaller lower pair which detect chemical changes.  The tentacles can expand to sense new stimuli or retreat into the body for safety.  If they are injured or removed by a predator, the slug can grow new ones
• Exude thick coat of mucus to protect itself from drying out.  If the weather is too dry, they may become inactive inside an additional mucus coat.  Most active at night or on cool, moist days to protect themselves from drying out
• Predators include raccoons, moles, shrews, snakes, birds, salamanders and other animals.  Some predators roll the slugs in dirt prior to eating them in order to remove the slimy coat, which can have a numbing effect on the mouths of predators
• Historically were a food source for some Native Americans, later eaten by European immigrants.  Today is still a popular part of local culture, which includes slug races at some festivals.
• Mascot of the University of California, Santa Cruz

Happy Thanksgiving from the Point Defiance Zoo!

 

Whether you're at work or at home, gathering with family or staying apart this year to halt the spread of Coronavirus, I hope it's a good day and that the upcoming year brings much to be thankful for.  In the meantime, enjoy this video of the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium's African giant rats partaking of a special Thanksgiving treat!

Context is Everything

 "Where's her mother?"

That's the question that I saw over and over again as news station after news station shared the pictures and video of Maisie, the new baby chimpanzee at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.  I didn't say "from" the Maryland Zoo because that is not, in fact, where Maisie comes from.  The adorable baby chimp was born at the Oklahoma City Zoo, but her mother failed to care for her.  Hand-raising is always an option, but then what?  When you're dealing with a super social, behaviorally complicated animal like a chimpanzee, the only real solution is other chimps.

The decision was made to transfer the little ape to Baltimore, where the goal is to integrate her into the troop of chimpanzees there.  Of course, you don't just dump an infant in with a group of big, powerful adults (especially of a species that is known to eat small primates, including other chimps).  You carefully, slowly introduce them - which means that, in the meantime, someone (or someones) on the keeper staff is playing mama.  

That leads to lots of cute footage - after all, chimp babies really aren't that different from human babies at a quick glance.  Raising a baby chimpanzee seems like social media gold.  The problem is that if news stations take cute video clips and run them without much context - or even if they do have pertinent information in the linked article, but not in the post itself on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, things can get taken out of context.

One post I saw didn't even mention that there was a zoo involved.  It just looked like there was a baby chimp in someone's house being tickled.  Some people seemed ticked off.  All of them settled back down when other viewers explained the context of the story to them... but what if no one had?  It could lead to a lot of people being angry... or a lot of people wanting to know how they, too, could cuddle a baby chimp, maybe supporting some sketchy places and sketchy people.

It's for that reason that I'm always wary about posting my animal stuff on social media.  I dread the near certainty of someone sharing it, and then it getting shared again from there, and so on, until soon there's just a picture of some weirdo hanging out with an exotic animal, doing something that might be dangerous (or look dangerous) and encourage either a) bad behavior or b) outrage.

Not saying that hand-raising a baby chimpanzee and introducing it into another social group isn't newsworthy. It certainly is, and is a major achievement for Baltimore - one they've done before (which is why they were chosen for this difficult undertaking).  They should share it and be proud of it.  The responsibility lies with the media, however, to make sure that they are conveying an accurate story as to what is going on.

Maisie is doing well and growing quickly, as baby chimps are wont to do.  She won't be tiny and cute forever.  Soon, she'll hopefully be living with a foster troop and living the good chimp life (at which point her keepers will presumably be able to get a respectable amount of sleep again).  Baby pictures on the internet, for good or for ill, can last forever.

Shopping with Someone Else's Money

When I was in high school, I remember going to an awards ceremony, where we all sat down, bored in the bleachers, while the principal rattled off the names of all of the graduating seniors who had won scholarships.  Among the endless droning in that hot, stuffy gymnasium, one moment stuck in my memory.  A girl had been awarded a small scholarship from a local Huguenot Society.  For some reason, that made me sit up a bit.

A Huguenot Society?  What exactly did they do?  What does one have to do to get a scholarship from them?  How would anyone even find out about it?  And then, as I watched the beaming young lady traipse up to the stage to get her check, I wondered - How many people even applied for that?

I was a fairly indifferent student in high school - bright enough, but disinclined to show much effort in subjects which did interest me which, to the intense irritation of my parents and teachers, was most of them.  Something about that Huguenot Society scholarship stuck with me though, and I began to root around for obscure scholarships.  Some - most, actually - I stood no chance for, or seemed like too much work for too small a probability of success, and I let those slide.  I did, however, end up grabbing up a few long-hanging fruits, which did make a small but still-appreciable difference later on.

After college, I thought my scholarship-grubbing days were done.  How wrong I was.

It didn't take me too long to get introduced to the wonderful world of grants.  Grants - money with strings-attached, scholarships for organizations and individuals - are a wonderful opportunity to go shopping with someone else's money.  

There are all sorts of grants out there, some local some state or federal, some very specific and some very broad in their intended targets.  I've seen some that are geared specifically towards zoos and zoo professionals, maybe focused on a certain taxa of animals, or towards a certain aspect of care.  Others are offered for community nonprofits at large, everything from childhood literacy projects to soup kitchens to community art.  Some are very limited in what you can do with them - for example, you might find one which is a scholarship to a specific course or workshop - whereas others will let you do almost anything within reason.

Much like the Huguenot Society scholarship, I find that amazingly few people apply for them.

Getting a grant means knowing where to look and knowing how to fill out applications appropriately.  A subset of the first criteria involves looking at all possible grant opportunities and seeing if you can find a way to make them work for you and your organization.  Zoos have a somewhat broad mission, an intersection of conservation, research, education, and community outreach and recreation, and you can make a lot of grant applications dovetail with your mission if you try.  Sometimes, there might be something which you've wanted to do for a while but hasn't been an institutional priority - usually something non-animal related - such as fixing up a play area, or painting a mural... but perhaps there is a grant for that?  Maybe a keeper really wants to take a professional development opportunity, or get into the field to do some conservation work, but there's nothing in the budget for that... but if you find the money in someone else's budget...

COVID has slashed a lot of budgets and disposable incomes, but grants are still out there to be found, and they are a great, underused resource.  Many nonprofits, including several zoos and aquariums, employee people specifically to track down and apply for grants.  And small facilities don't need to be scared off - there are usually grants available on a local scale.

No one is guaranteed a grant that they apply for, of course - but the only way to be sure you don't get one is to not apply.

From the News: Panda irony as cub to get name on the day the zoo closes again

Panda irony as cub to get name on the day the zoo closes again

The National Zoo has announced that they, along with the other members of the Smithsonian Institute, will be temporarily closing again in an attempt to reduce the worrying spread of COVID-19.  At the same time, life at the zoo continues to go on with births, deaths, and the endless care that goes into sustaining thousands of creatures.  National isn't alone - a handful of other zoos are also shutting back down, or at least scaling down.  Many seasonal zoos are closing soon for the year anyway, pandemic or not.  With a vaccine on the horizon, hopeful spring will look a little brighter and happier for all of us.  Now it's just a question of making it through the winter.

Update: The cub has been named Xiao Qi Ji, or "Little Miracle"

Versailles Leopard

No real higher thought or interesting story today - just a cool illustration that I saw floating around on line, depicting a leopard for the Versailles Menagerie, dated 1739.  By this time the menagerie was under the indifferent rule of Louis XV and was already in decline, but it's cool that we have a few representations of it.  Can't imagine that cat was terribly happy about being disturbed by the dogs.

Been There. Tried That.

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try - and then quit.  No use being a fool about it."

- W. C. Fields

One of my greatest pet peeves in working in zoos - or any field - has been the reliance that so many people have on the concept, "That's the way we've always done it."  There's no need to continually reinvent the wheel, or change things for the sake of changing them.  There's a lot to be said for expertise and experience, honed over time.  Still, if we're taking "That's the way we've always done it" to its logical conclusion, we'd still be naked bipeds wandering the savanna, picking lice off each other and living in perpetual fear of leopard attacks. 

Equally exasperating to me, I've found, is the mentality that I've seen in a lot of my colleagues over the years of "Been there, tried that."  Something will have been attempted, maybe by themselves, maybe in the hoary past of the institution ages ago, and have been found to not have worked.  With that initial failure, the book is now closed, the subject shut forever, with no possibility of re-opening it.  It can be related to an animal, or a care practice, or a piece of technology, or whatever.  Tried once, then done.

Two examples I've dealt with, one of which ended with me having some satisfaction over naysayers, the other never got anywhere.

The alligators at our zoo were being fed fish and chicken parts, and I wanted to switch them over - at least partially - to the commercially-made crocodilian diet produced by Mazuri.  My co-workers, many who had been there far longer than me, were adamantly opposed.  They'd been talked into trying it once before, they said, the alligators hadn't touched it, and that was that.  

I argued the case for a while - there were lots of advantages that I could see, such as health benefits, costs, and facilitating the animals' training.  Eventually, I prevailed and bought as bag.  I decided, last minute, to do the first feeding attempt when I was by myself, so that way I wouldn't have to hear lots of "Told you so's" if they rejected it.

There was no need to worry.  They loved it.  They started eating it right away with more enthusiasm than I had ever seen for fish or chicken.  These were the same alligators that my co-workers had previously tried the chow on with no luck.  Maybe the gators were just hungrier, or the weather was warmer, or, if I had to guess, they'd tossed one nugget of chow in, hadn't seen much of a reaction, and shrugged it off.  That would have been in character.

The second example concerned an empty bird exhibit we had in our Tropical American area.  We needed to fill it, and I suggested toucans of some sort.  The reaction from my older colleagues was immediate and negative.  They had tried keeping toucans at the zoo years ago and the birds had fared poorly.  They were resolved never to try them again.

The thing is, I'm sure that they were right, that the birds had done poorly.  That had been twenty years ago.  Toucans have specialized diets and are very prone to iron storage disease, which can make them ill or kill them.  But... that was also twenty years ago.  In the meantime, other facilities have made huge advances in toucan nutrition, with special diets that have greatly improved our ability to care for these big-beaked birds.

Not interested.  Tried once, failed, didn't want to try again.  I've since left that zoo.  As far as I know, that exhibit is still empty...

The past is the greatest learning tool that we have at our disposal, and we should always be willing to study it and learn from it in order to help us better care for our animals.  That doesn't mean we need to be stuck in it, however.  Times change - so do techniques, technologies, and our understanding of the animals.  We should be prepared to change with them.

Sporcle at the Zoo - Great White Shark

We offer the next in our series "Sporcle at the Zoo," this time featuring a species that I've never seen at a zoo or aquarium, and don't expect to any time soon - the Great White Shark!

Sporcle at the Zoo - Great White Shark

Species Fact Profile: Boeseman's Rainbowfish (Melanotaenia boesemani)

Boeseman's Rainbowfish

Melanotaenia boesemani (GR Allen & NJ Cross, 1980)

Range: Ayamaru  - West Papua, Indonesia

Habitat: Mountain Freshwater Lakes and Tributaries

Diet: Small Aquatic Invertebrates, Algae

Social Grouping: Small Schools.  Males become aggressive during breeding season

Reproduction: Breeding season peaks in August.  Breed in pairs or small groups, males attracting females by flashing their colors.  Females lay 10-20 eggs, which hatch after about two weeks.  

Lifespan: 5-10 Years

Conservation Status: IUCN Endangered

• Adult coloration is bright blue-gray on the front half of the body, fading into a bright orange or red on the back half.  The two halves are separated by a series of light-and-dark bars.  Males are more brightly colored than females and juveniles
• Up to 12 centimeters in length, males considerably larger than females (average of 8 centimeters).  Males also differ from females in having more elongated fins and deeper bodies
• Adults may be cannibalistic.  Juvenile rainbowfish often spend their youth hiding in aquatic vegetation until they reach nearly adult size, at which they are large to safely emerge.  Also eaten by other fish, as well as waterfowl
• Sometimes fished for and eaten by local people, but not a popular food item due to their taste - their consumption of ants gives their meat a taste of formic acid
• Species is named in honor of Dr. Marinus Boeseman, who collected the first specimens for science
• Naturally rare due to extremely limited range (three lakes, the largest of which is 14 square kilometers).  Habitat has seen major fluctuations in water levels in recent years
• Sought after in aquarium trade for beautiful coloration - males especially have been collected heavily.  Breed relatively easily in aquariums and are commercially farmed for sale in pet trade

Rapidly Fading Fall

At least it was a nice summer... and the first two-thirds of the fall.

It's not that the weather is changing.  It's that the coronavirus statistics are.  Virtually every part of the country - and many parts of the world, really - are showing the virus resurgent.  It's only a matter of time, I fear, before zoos and aquariums are forced to go into lock-down mode again.

We already lost the spring, and a big chunk of the summer saw us operating at reduced capacity.  We're all still down a lot of income.  Many people have come and enjoyed the zoos and aquariums as a welcome break from the stressors of Covid and the election, but while the later is now over, the former seems to be gearing up for Round 2.   Thankfully, most of us don't rely too heavily on the winter months for business, though many are trying to see what visitation we can extract from the next few months with ZooLights, Chinese Lantern festivals, and other cold-weather activities.  Hopefully it'll be enough.

Wash your hands.  Wear a mask.  Stay socially distant.  And be careful.  We're all in for a long, dark winter.

Monkey House Miasma

Among all of the animals that I've worked with over the years, the only group that I can say I've generally been... less fond of have been the primates.   I've worked with a variety of lemurs (which, to be fair, I thought were halfway decent), as well as Old World and New World monkeys and gibbons, as well as (for one hellish day) great apes.  Compared to carnivores, hoofstock, small mammals, birds, and reptiles, I've found it to be a generally unpleasant experience.

Part of it is because I became a zookeeper in order to not deal with people, and monkeys and apes are just too close to my liking.  They exude personality, it's true - but the personality tends to be awful.  

Mostly because I just hate having to go to the bathroom all the time.  Especially in the winter.

When I first started working with non-human primates, the older keepers joked to me about what they called "the Monkey House Curse."  They noticed that, working with the monkeys indoors in the winter (as opposed to the summer, when the animals were outdoors), they had to go to the bathroom.  All.  The.  Time.  This building did not have a functioning toilet, so they'd have to make a hike to go, do their business, come back... and then feel the need to go again, soon.

Part of it, they suspected, was the smell of the monkeys in close-quarters, and I will agree, the ripest smell I've ever encountered from a (live) mammal was a pair of black howler monkeys that I unloaded from a shipping crate once, which sent me gagging into the next room.  Skunks had nothing on it.  Secondly, they theorized that the monkeys were always pooping everywhere, and the power of suggestion weighed on their subconscious until they had to go, too.

I laughed... until after my third trip that morning.  By lunch, I was very familiar with all of the graffiti on the bathroom walls, and was mentally composing a few tentative additions of my own.  Most of which were derogatory towards monkeys.

Winter was especially unpleasant because the monkeys were all inside and the air was heated, making the smell that much more pungent.  Plus, we were already wearing plenty of layers of clothes, making each departure and return a production of putting on and taking off our gear.  It took forever to get the basic cleaning done on those mornings what with all the necessary field trips away from the building.

The worst part?  I can still sometimes smell it, all these years later.

Animals Anonymous

So, I don't normally (well, ever, really) make plugs for commercial enterprises (unless that's what book and movie reviews are, in which case, never mind).  Still, the holiday season is approaching, and with corona still running wild, most of us are going to be doing our shopping online.  Not crazy about the idea of transferring even more of your money to Jeff Bezos?  Consider shopping small and shopping with a cause.

Consider Animals Anonymous - a clothing store run by (and for) animal people!

At Animals Anonymous, you can buy cool animal gear, clothes, decals, and accessories, featuring many species not normally seen in clothing stores.  Featured species include giant anteaters and great blue turacos, tufted puffins, and Amazon river dolphins.  What's more, you can go to their fundraising page and buy clothes to support a specific zoo, aquarium, sanctuary, or conservation project.  If you're with a zoo or other facility, you can also create your own fundraiser to raise awareness and cash for your project.

Check out their awesome shop, filled with cool designs that you can put on shirts, hats, bags, and more!

In Their Unnatural Environment

The first time that I saw a Wyoming toad, it made something of an impression on me.  Well, not the toad itself - if I walked outside and saw one on the ground next to my shoe, I'd probably just assume at a quick glance that it was a plain ol' American toad and carefully side-step it, or shoo it someplace safer.   What really made the impression was the exhibit.

There wasn't much of it.

The Toledo Zoo has an excellent reptile house, which I really enjoyed going through earlier that day, full of very impressive animals in handsomely replicated habitats.  Amphibians, normally housed with reptiles at other zoos, were in the Museum of Science, where many of them likewise occupied naturalistic displays.

In contrast, the Wyoming toads, along with the Kihansi spray toads (a Tanzanian species that is/was likewise extinct in the wild) were kept in an room that was primarily a window into the breeding facility.  Rows of tanks held toads in fairly simple, almost laboratory-like facilities.  Toads peered out at me from beneath flower pots and plastic huts.  My leopard gecko at home had a more furnished habitat.

This facility may have had a window, but it wasn't for show.  It was made for the serious work of breeding, raising, and monitoring endangered species..  Besides, you couldn't be said to "really" reproduce a Wyoming toad's natural environment.  There isn't one anymore.  There's the zoos, and that's it.

It's funny, but if I had seen those toads in pretty, natural displays, they probably wouldn't have stood out for me.  They would have been plain, brown toads in a building that already had a lot more interesting animals for me to look at, forgive my snobbery.  Seeing them in those relatively stark tanks made them stand out and got my intention, and when I left the zoo that night, that was one of the things I remembered the most.

What a world it would be if more animals didn't have a nature to be in - just some tanks on some shelves as a final safeguard against extinction.  It made quite the cautionary tale.

Species Fact Profile: Wyoming Toad (Anaxyrus baxteri)

 Wyoming Toad

Anaxyrus baxteri (Porter, 1968)

Range: Laramie Plains - Wyoming (Historic)

Habitat: Shortgrass Flood Plains, Ponds, Small Lakes

Diet: Ants, Beetles, Worms, and other invertebrates

Social Grouping: Asocial, Breeding Congregations

Reproduction: Males attract females to breeding ponds with their calls.  Eggs are laid from mid-May through early June in gelatinous strings.  Tadpoles hatch shortly after and complete metamorphosis by mid-July

Lifespan: 8 Years

Conservation Status: IUCN Extinct in the Wild

• Body length averages 5-6 centimeters, weigh 55-85 grams, with females growing slightly larger than the males.  The body is covered with small, rounded warts.
• Background color is dark brown, gray, or green, with small dark blotches.  Some individuals have lighter-colored stripes.  The ventral surface is a pale color with spotting.  Males have a darker throat than females
• Spend the cooler parts of the year hibernating, emerging shortly before breeding season (in May or June), when the daytime temperatures reach 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  Rely on rodent burrows as hibernation sites
• Primarily active at night.  Has poor vision - detects its prey by keying in one movement
• Previously listed as a subspecies of Canadian toad (A. hemiophrys)
• Once common, populations crashed in the 1970's, first listed as endangered in 1984.  Cause is unknown, but possible causes include pesticide spraying, habitat loss (very specific habitat requirements, intolerant of disturbance), and climate change.  They are extremely susceptible to the chytrid fungus, which has proven a challenge for captive breeding programs
• A reintroduction program is underway, with some evidence of sustainable reproduction in the wild taking place

A Win For Wolves

 

Photo Credit Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center

The Akron Zoo wasn't the only wildlife win on this past Tuesday.  The state of Colorado passed its Proposition 114.  What is that, you may ask?  You can read the full text here, but that SparkNotes version is:

Requires that the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission creates a plan to reintroduce and manage gray wolves on designated lands west of the continental divide by the end of 2023.

Put simply, wolves are coming back to the southern Rockies. 

The proposition passed by 1% (or about 30,000 votes) - significantly tighter than Colorado's Presidential or Senate elections.  There are still a lot of questions that need to answered before this is put into practice.  What subspecies of wolf should be introduced?  The critically endangered Mexican grey wolf, or the larger, more robust wolves of the northern Rockies?  What is the target population size and how will it be managed?  What impact will this have on hunters and ranchers (the plan currently is to reimburse ranchers for verified losses)?  Also, there is already a tiny remnant population of wolves in the northern part of the state, spillover from Wyoming.  How do they fit into this?

Wolf reintroductions have happened throughout the country before, but this is the first time that it's been driven by the ballot box.  I'm overall pleased that it's happening, though a little nervous about the precedent it can set.  What if in another few years voters here, or in another wolf state, decide that they don't want wolves and vote them out?  Especially now that (non-Mexican) gray wolves are losing their protection under the Endangered Species Act...

Congratulations to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for their role in helping to spread awareness of this item and drum up support.  Within a few years, the southern Rockies will again be wolf country.

From the News: Akron Zoo's big win

 Akron Zoo levy, city charter amendments win big

We may still not know who the President of the United States is going to be in a few months, but other election results have poured in from around the country.  In some cases, the future of local zoos was on the ballot.  Akron Zoo in Ohio had a big win last night, as a new levy was approved that provide new funding for the zoo, allowing for the expansion of the facility and some excellent new exhibits.  The zoo has already seen tremendous growth in the last few years, and this will continue to fuel its development.

Summit County voters strongly supported the Akron Zoo's request for additional taxpayer money to sustain and expand its programs, including a second phase for its Pride of Africa exhibit.  Karen Schiely/Beacon Journal File Photo

Presidents and Senators may grab the headlines but remember, all politics is local.  This levy was no sure thing, as there had been some push-back from some voices in the community about additional funding for the zoo.  Thankfully, the zoo was able to get its message out and remind folks of what a wonderful community resource it is.  

If this damned Coronavirus ever goes away, I look forward to heading out there and seeing what fantastic new direction the zoo goes in.

Mayor of the Zoo

The news these last few weeks has, obviously, been dominated by the Presidential Election, which comes to its sort-of-a-conclusion tonight.  Many zoos have tried to capture their share of the election attention by staging mock mayoral elections for their animals, asking visitors to vote for which animal should be the mayor of their zoo (though really, shouldn't the animals and keepers be the ones voting?  We ask residents to vote in elections, not tourists).

Possibly it's just reinforcing the viewpoint to kids that elections are popularity contests, but whatever.  This is a stressful year.  Anything that zoos can do to snag a little attention for the animals and brighten peoples' days can't be a bad thing.

Below, from Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo:

Michigan's Saginaw Children's Zoo:

Maryland's Salisbury Zoo:

Nights at the Aquarium

Growing up, going to the zoo was a pretty regular event for me - my parents had a membership and probably took me about once every other month.  That was before I started volunteering, of course, at which point I spent so much time at the zoo that I could fairly have been said to be primarily living there, with my trips home being mostly an excuse to get fresh socks.

Compared to the zoo, our nearest aquarium was something I only visited very infrequently - I can only think of going maybe half a dozen times before I left for college, and that includes school fieldtrips.  I have no idea why.  Maybe because it was just a little further, or because it was more expensive, or that parking was a nightmare (and an expensive one, too).  Maybe I didn't like the crowds.  Maybe it's just because I wasn't as into fish as I was birds, mammals, and reptiles - at any rate, I don't remember bugging my parents to take me anywhere nearly as often as I did the zoo.

The memories of the aquarium that I do have are special because, almost without exception, they took place at night.  Usually in late fall or winter.

The aquarium was a bustling attraction for tourists and locals alike, but they did have a special price for Friday nights that not many people took advantage of.  That was when we would visit.  I have a very clear memory of coming home from school one November Friday night and bursting with excitement, waiting for my parents to get home from work.  When they did, my brother and I were trooped into the car and we headed downtown.  I remember how excited I felt walking down the city street that night and seeing the illuminated outline of the aquarium's glass and steel edifice, gleaming above the darkened waterfront.

The aquarium, like almost all aquariums, was indoors, so once we were inside you would think that the difference would have been negligible.  It wasn't.  I remember how empty and echoing it was - I could look down the hallways in one direction, then the other, and see no one outside of my family.  I could look at things for as long as I wanted to, or double back to check things out a second or third time.  Without the worry of being lost in a crowd, my parents let me run ahead, and explore on my own.  

Sometimes, when I saw a particularly large and interesting animal, like a shark or a moray eel or a turtle, I felt like the animal was looking back and seeing me, an individual, and not just another shape in the crowd.  I wondered what they were thinking as they looked back.

By the time I went away to college, I had visited a decent number of other zoos.  That aquarium was the only major one I had been to.  In a sense, it became my archetype.  I've been to others since, some bigger, some smaller, some older, some brand new.  Some, if I have to admit objectively, I liked better, based on the collection and the exhibits.  Based on travel schedules, I don't always get to pick when I go, and there have been times I've practically body-surfed through busy aquariums on crowded summer days.

No matter where I go, though, I always hold those first nocturnal visits to my local aquarium as my favorites, where the dark, quiet hallways held only my family, the fish, and me.