Goodbye 2021, Hello 2022

Okay, that asteroid has about 12 hours left to hit us... otherwise, I think we can safely say that we made it to 2022.  The last year was, in many ways, an improvement over 2021.  Our facilities have survived, and in many cases have thrived, which was certainly not a given at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic.  I actually got to travel a little this year, which was exciting - I hadn't realized how much I missed it until I was forced to take a year off from it.  I was able to see at least a few friends in person.

Still, I think many of us were a little disappointed with 2021.  We'd hoped that we'd be further along on the return to normalcy, or, ideally, a better version of where we were at the start of 2020.  But, given the alternative of staying in 2020 forever, I'm happy that we're at least moving in the right direction - and hopeful that, at the close of 2022 and the start of 2023, the world will be looking even better.

Happy New/Gnu Year!

Tragedy in Naples

There were a few things that I thought I might write about today, as yet another long, confusing year winds down.  Then I saw the news last night, right before I went to bed, and I figured that if I'm writing about zoos, there's really only one story that most people will be thinking about today.

Poor, poor Eko.

Man bitten by tiger at Naples Zoo taken to Lee Memorial Hospital; tiger shot, killed

The 8-year old Malayan tiger was fatally shot yesterday at the Naples Zoo after grabbing the arm of a contractor who foolishly put an arm through the enclosure barrier.  The man was employed by a third-party company that performs janitorial services at the zoo, and had no business either being in the immediate vicinity of the tiger or interacting with it at all.  Because of his poor decisions, he is hospitalized and a beautiful animal has been destroyed.  In many ways, it's much more frustrating that what happened with Harambe - that was a child, whereas this was a grown adult who, while not a zoo employee per se, ha doubtlessly been told not to do something like this.

I'm so sorry for the staff at Naples Zoo and the community that loved visiting Eko.  All of us in the zoo and aquarium community are thinking of you during this tragic time.

Remembering E.O. Wilson

Years ago, I was on a college field trip to Boston.  We spent the morning at the Franklin Park Zoo before slipping across the river to Cambridge, where we toured the excellent Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.  We saw a lot of very cool things there, both in the darkened exhibit galleries and in the winding back rooms filled with off-exhibit specimens.  The biggest treat for many of us, however, came from a direction that none of us expected.

Our guide ushered us into a room at one point to go over the history of the museum, and even as he did so, I wondered why on earth we were standing where we were.  The room was just an office, so similar to those of our professors back at the university.  Why not meet in one of the exhibit halls, or an auditorium, where we'd have more room?  It wasn't until the end of his talk that, almost casually, he dropped the bombshell.  The office that we were standing in wasn't just any old office.  It was the office of Professor Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson.  Some of us squealed like fangirls.  I may have been one.  The only thing that would have made it more exciting is if the great man (who by then was already in his last 70's and a retired professor emeritus) had sauntered in the door and asked what we were all doing there.

E.O. Wilson, a Pioneer of Evolutionary Biology, Dies at 92

For those to whom the name is not familiar, E.O. Wilson was probably the most famous biologist of his age; what Stephen Hawking was to physics, he was to life sciences.  He has been referred to as the "Darwin of the 21st century," or various plays on that title, as well as the father of the fields of biodiversity and sociobiology.  After a childhood accident severely limited his vision, Wilson (already outdoorsy by nature) became very interested in the tiny insects which he could observe up close, becoming a world expert of ants.  But who would have thought that connections could be drawn between the social lives of ants and humans?  Wilson did, for one.  Like Darwin with his finches, Wilson's studies with ants led him to extrapolate and develop theories about how species exist in their environment and how they interplay with other species to create dynamic ecosystems of interdependent organisms.

Perhaps the concept that Wilson is best known for is his espousal of "biophilia."  Wilson suggested that, despite our cities and suburbs and technology, we humans have an innate desire, built into our genes, to seek connections with the natural world and other living things.  Accordingly, Wilson was a strong advocate for conservation of natural resources and saving biodiversity.  In one of his many books on the subject, The Creation, Wilson (himself religiously agnostic) writes an open letter to a hypothetical evangelical preacher, hoping to bridge the divide of religion and science to create a census for saving wildlife and wild places around the world.

Professor Wilson passed away yesterday at the age of 92.  He led a very long, full life - I hope that looking back on it, he drew satisfaction from all that he's done over the past several decades to advance our understanding of the natural world and give us increasingly better tools and ideas for how to protect it, both for ourselves and from ourselves.

Species Fact Profile: Markhor (Capra falconeri)

                                                                      Markhor

Capra falconeri (Wagner, 1839)

Range: Western Himalayas (Central Asia through India)

Habitat: Mountain Woodlands and Grasslands, up to 3600 meters

Diet: Grasses, Leaves, Bushes

Social Grouping: Females and kids live in small herds of up to 10.  Adult males are solitary outside of the breeding season

Reproduction:  Breeding takes place during winter.   1-2 (very rarely 3) kids are born after a gestation of 135-170 days, from late April through early June.  Kids are weaned at 5-6 months and sexually mature at 18-30 months (females mature earlier than males).  Young usually remain with their mother until the next breeding season.

Lifespan: 10-15 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Near Threatened, CITES Appendix I

•       Tallest of the wild goats, but the Siberian ibex is heavier and longer.  Body length 1.3-1.85 meters, shoulder height 65-115 centimeters, tail length 8-20 centimeters.  Weigh 32-110 kilograms.  Males are over twice as large as females
•       Coat is grizzled light brown, short in the summer and growing out in the winter.  Males have long fringes of hair on the chin, throat, and chest (females may also have beards, but much shorter in length).  Lower legs are black and white.
•       Horns are tightly spiraled, growing up to 25 centimeters long in females and up to 160 centimeters long in males.  They spread outward in a V-shape from the center of the head
•       Males have a pungent smell, similar to that of domestic goats by stronger
•       During the rut, males will fight for access to females, locking their horns and twisting, trying to throw one another off balance.  \
•       Predators include snow leopard, Eurasian lynx, and grey wolf.  Golden eagles may prey on kids.  Markhor have excellent eyesight, and use their difficult to access habitat as their primary means of defense from predators
•       Common name comes from the Persian for “snake-eater” or “snake-killer” (or sometimes as “snake-horned”), possibly a reference to their corkscrew-shaped horns.  The genus name means “she-goat” in Greek, while the species name honors Hugh Falconer, a Scottish paleontologist and botanist who was active in India)
•       Five (counts vary) subspecies recognized: Astor (C. f. falconeri), Bukharan or Tajik (C. f. heptneri), Kabul (C. f. megaceros), Kashmir (C. f. cashmiriensis), and Suleiman (C. f. jerdoni).  Configuration of horns is the most common trait for distinguishing subspecies, but there can be considerable variation even within a single population.  
•       Vulnerable to human hunters in the winter months, when they descend to the lowlands.  Popular among trophy hunters because of their unique horns, also used in Traditional Asian medicines and hunted for meat.  Some countries have banned hunting, others allow trophy hunting to raise funds for conservation programs.  Poaching may have increased during the war in Afghanistan due to the political turmoil
•       Also threatened by habitat loss and degradation, competition with domestic livestock
•       Some authorities have suggested that the markhor might be the ancestor of certain breeds of domestic goat.  Markhor can freely interbreed with domestic goats
•        Have been introduced to Texas on hunting ranches, but unlike many other exotic ungulates they have not escaped in sufficient numbers to establish sustainable wild populations
•       National animal of Pakistan, was featured on ISI (Pakistani intelligence) logo

The Night Before Christmas

Merry Christmas Eve!  You've made it (almost) to the end of what's been another brutal year.  By now, you're probably worn out, but there's still a week left in this marathon.  Take a minute for yourself to smile and enjoy these cute animals, courtesy of the Oregon Zoo!

Satire: I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas....

I know that many of us are still struggling with last minute Christmas shopping, but for the love of all things holy, people, there's no need to be impulsive!  Think before you buy your child or loved one a hippo, whether pygmy or full-sized!  And if you get one and het tired of it, please take it to a reputable rescue, don't flush it down the sewer!

From the Facebook Page FLOAT (For the Love of all Things)

PS: It is terrifying that there are people commenting on this on Facebook who don't get the joke and think that this is actually a thing that people do... stuff like this is why our species is doomed

Zookeeper Time Machine

As it gets colder, COVIDier (that's a new word, I've decided), and all around more miserable out there, I've been enjoying the simple pleasure of coming home after work and settling in with a good book before bed.  While I always enjoy animal books and natural histories, I prefer historical fiction and science fiction as my relaxation reading, and lately I've been picking my way through a series by British author Jodi Taylor which combines the two.  It's called The Chronicles of St. Mary's, and details the adventures of academic historians who, unbeknownst to most the world, possess technology that allows them to travel back in time.  They nip up and down the timeline studying major historical events directly, and usually almost getting themselves killed in the process.

About two books into the series, I decided that what they really needed was a zoologist to accompany them as well.

While normally focused on the battles and politics of the ancient world, from Egypt, Greece, and Rome to the middle ages (after that is just too modern for them to be bothered, usually), the protagonists do make occasional forays further back... way further back.  They've been to the Cretaceous to film dinosaurs and to the Ice Age to witness a mammoth hunt.  They even make a brief foray to 1660's Mauritius to encounter dodos and maybe salvage a few birds before they go extinct.

It was probably that idea that put in into my head how fun it would be to be a zookeeper with a time machine.  

Obviously, to start off with you could see all of the extinct animals and learn so much more about them - like did Tyrannosaurus have feathers or not? - or just enjoy the spectacle of, say, millions of passenger pigeons blotting out the sun for hours at a time.  Or, you could go back and see historical figures in action.  Imagine crouching behind a boulder and watching a young Charles Darwin pluck up marine iguanas, lob them into the ocean, and watch them swim back to his feet for another go-around.  There would be clear conservation potential as well.  The Sumatran rhino and the kakapo are almost extinct with tiny population sizes?  Imagine if it was possible to race back in time, collect a few animals that might have otherwise died without breeding (or at least take sperm samples) and bring them back to the present to boost genetic diversity.  Maybe, like Taylor's heroes, we could even re-wild some areas with once-extinct species.

One out of the box idea I had (well, not out of the box for me) would be to go to the zoo.  Not just any zoo, though.

When I read about Hernan Cortez and his men visiting the Aztec zoo at Tenochtitlan, with all of the amazing animals never seen before by European eyes, a thought occurred to me.  Zoos, by their nature, tend to be biased towards the rarest and most unusual of animals.  Suppose in that Aztec zoo there was a species that is no longer with us - maybe it was already very rare at the time of the conquest, making its inclusion in Montezuma's collection all the more prestigious for the Emperor.  It might have even been the last of its kind, and lost when the Spanish destroyed the city.  Or something similar in many of the far-flung zoos and menageries of the ancient world.  The Spanish chroniclers might not have noted it - everything was new and different to them, so how were they to know which species might never be seen again?

Forget about whether or not there really was a Trojan Horse, or whether Alfred the Great did or did not burn some cakes one winter's night... these are the questions we should really be investigating.  Now, if Ms. Taylor would just let me know when they're hiring at St. Mary's...

Zoo Review Updates 2021, Part II

Continuing the 2021 updates for zoos and aquariums...

Kansas City Zoo has a new major aquarium under construction.  Sea otters are the planned stars for the new facility.

Lincoln Park Zoo welcomed lions back to an expanded new habitat at their old Lion House, renamed the Pepper Family Wildlife Center.  The tigers were phased out to make more room for the lions, but snow leopards, Canada lynx, and red pandas are also featured in this building.

Maryland Zoo in Baltimore is offering visitors a walk down memory lane with the reopening of its historic Main Valley, taking visitors through a section of the zoo that's been closed for over 15 years.  The Zoo lost another piece of history this year, however, when the decision was made to phase out polar bears, a flagship species of the zoo four nearly a century.  Polar Bear Watch is now renamed Northern Passage, home to grizzly bears and bald eagles with more potential species joining in the future.

Mill Mountain Zoo in Roanoke, Virginia, opened a new habitat for American black bears.

Potawatomi Zoo has, after years of planning, welcomed a herd of four Masai giraffe to a new exhibit.

Construction continues on the new bird house, Experience Migration, at the National Zoo.  Birds have started to trickle in, and the facility is slated to open next year.

North Carolina Zoo is finally moving forward with its long-awaited Asian expansion, with $75 Million approved for the next two years to add tigers, gibbons, Komodo dragons, and other species.

The Aquarium and Reptile Complex at the Riverbanks Zoo is temporarily closed so that it may undergo a massive renovation.  Some species have been transferred to other zoos and will not return.

Reid Park Zoo in Tucson, Arizona has had its masterplan on pause, as disagreements unfolded with the local community about the expansion of the zoo into the rest of the park.  Thankfully, it looks like a compromise has been reached that, while delaying the project and adding to the expense, will have the advantage of community support.

The San Diego Zoo has opened a newly refurbished Children's Zoo, along with new habitats for Komodo dragons and hummingbirds.

The South Carolina Aquarium has announced a plan expansion with new education facilities.

Zoo New England has opened a new outdoor gorilla exhibit attached to its Tropical Rainforest  building to give its apes more space and opportunities to explore.

ZooTampa has some renovations going on its primate area for an as-yet unspecified species at the old chimpanzee exhibit.  New habitats are also under construction for panther and American black bear in the Florida section.

Zoo Review Updates 2021, Part I

What a year for the zoo and aquarium world!  There is so much news to report this year, both in terms of actual updates and announced plans, that a single post was just getting absurdly long.  We'll have to split this year up.

ABQ BioPark Zoo broke ground on its long-awaited Asian expansion.  The first step - enhanced viewing of its existing Asian elephant exhibit - is already complete.  It's going to be followed up with new exhibits for tigers, snow leopards, orangutans, siamangs, and Steller's sea eagles.  Most of these species are already housed elsewhere in the zoo, so the moves are expected to radically redefine the zoo's landscape.  A re-do of the Australian area will follow.  Asia is slated to be completed next year.

Audubon Zoo has a new Tropical Bird House under construction.  Despite some hurricane damage the zoo is in good shape and continues to thrive.  I was particularly shocked by the addition of Bornean earless lizards to the collection this year, a species that I've always been crazy to see.

Beardsley Zoo in Connecticut broke ground on a new habitat for Andean bears.

Bergen County Zoo in New Jersey added a new exhibit for red wolves.  This comes at a time when the USFWS and the AZA are working together to increase the capacity of zoos to support the restarted red wolf reintro program in North Carolina (which is fantastic news in and of itself!)

Brandywine Zoo continues to move forward with its ambitious masterplan, with habitats for sloths, Chilean flamingos, southern pudu, and Toco toucans opening up this year as part of a South American wetlands exhibit.

The Brevard Zoo's lion exhibit is under construction - which is small potatoes compared to the big news out of Brevard.  They'll be moving ahead with their long-dreamed of $100M aquarium!

Cape May County Zoo is adding a new habitat for American black bears.

Cincinnati Zoo takes on the last phase of its More Home of Roam campaign by beginning the expansion of its elephant exhibit.

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has a new dome on the Rainforest.  It's also unveiled its new masterplan, which calls for a new habitat for gorillas adjacent to the Rainforest, as well as a new outdoor exhibit for its orangutans.

Denver Zoo's African penguins, which lost their home with the (very sad) closure of their bird house, have a beautiful new exhibit on Predator Ridge.

Detroit Zoo has replaced the seals in Arctic Ring of Life with sea otters.  In exciting conservation news, the zoo also repatriated several endangered vultures back to Africa.

Greensboro Natural Science Center had one of the biggest years of any zoo (especially for one its size) with the opening of Revolution Ridge.  The trail offers habitats for an assortment of very different rare animals from around the world - okapi, red panda, cassowary, and pygmy hippopotamus.  The trail also features many exhibits for small cats, which are in need of continued support in zoos.  New habitats house sand cats and black-footed cats, while the fishing cats, previously housed in the Aquarium, now have an outdoor habitat as well.

Photos courtesy of Greensboro Science Center Facebook Page

The Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha undertook a massive renovation of their gorilla exhibit.

Jacksonville Zoo announced its new masterplan, which will highlight new habitats for the lions and elephants, as well as bringing orangutans to the zoo.  The project which has most caught the imagination of the public and the press, however, is the enormous new manatee exhibit, which will allow Jacksonville to better support rehabilitation efforts of these endangered marine mammals.

A Very Komodo Christmas

Congratulations to the Bronx Zoo, where Christmas came a little early in the form of six hatchling Komodo dragons.  This represents the first breeding of the species in the zoo's history!  Enjoy the video, where you can watch these special little presents unwrapping themselves:

From the News: Venomous snake found lurking in family's Christmas tree

Venomous snake found lurking in family's Christmas tree

It's not zoo-related, but this was too fun not to share.  See?  I don't know why anyone would complain about a few geese or swans for Christmas.  There's much worse animal surprises that you could get for Christmas.  I'm glad that everyone - including the snake - had a happy ending.  The family for sure got a holiday memory that they'll never forget.  PS: The cat deserves extra treats this year.

Quack Attack

 

From "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" to "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer," there's no shortage of animal allusions in Christmas songs, which is a source of delight for many zookeepers.  Few animal-themed carols are quite as well-known, however, as "The Twelve Days of Christmas."  For the three or four people who are not familiar with the song, it involves one's true love making a gift of not only assorted ladies, lords, and maids, but a heck of a lot of birds - seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves, and, of course, a partridge in a pear tree.  Whether these gifts are cumulative, and therefore by the twelfth day the recipient has received a total of 42 swans or just seven, is a matter of some uncertainty.

"That sounds like a lot of excitable people and angry birds that I'm expected to bring into my house," one coworker of mine complained at the very thought of it.  To be fair, if it had been seven bison snorting and six alpacas spitting, she probably would have been delighted.  The basis for her objection was that most of the avian gifts were waterfowl.

Working with waterfowl, one thing that has consistently amazed me is how terrified so many people are of them.  And I don't just mean lay-folks, I mean keepers who will go up against a variety of dangerous animals, but let them stumble across a nesting pair of Canada geese and they run for their lives.  I'm currently reading "The Chronicles of St. Mary's," a science fiction series about time-traveling historians.  The protagonists go up against velociraptors, the Trojan War, Vesuvius, and Jack the Ripper with courage and fortitude - but are frequently sent screaming for their lives by the swans that inhabit the pond outside their offices.

I suspect that it's because ducks, geese, and swans are, when you think of it, pretty ridiculous-looking birds.  It's hard to take them seriously - until they make you take them seriously.  I once caught up a tiny little ruddy duck, not much bigger than a potato, it's head a little bigger than my big toe.  It launched itself at me fiercely, biting and slapping with its wings.  Once I was finished with what I needed to do, I put it down.  Then, I waited two minutes for it to let go of my finger.  I could only aspire to have the sort of confidence.

Plucky, pugnacious, and undeniably fearless.  Forget the turkey.  Why didn't our Founding Fathers pick a goose as our national bird?

All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Back Teeth

The Holidays are no fun if your sick... especially if it's a sinus infection caused by a toothache.  Winsol, an aardvark at the Nashville Zoo, had just this problem earlier this month (yes, aardvarks do have teeth - but you probably never have to worry about getting bitten by one).  The handsome boy underwent surgery and is now on the mend.  I'm mostly telling this story because a) the thought of an aardvark with a toothache is something I'd never had before, and b) the photographs below, taken from Nashville Zoo's Facebook page, are pretty stinking cute.  Happy recoveries, Winsol!

Book Review: I, Mammal - The Story of What Makes Us Mammals

"  For although maturity may teach us that there's not always a definitive answer to such queries - and that we might also do well to ask the more prosaic questions of 'How?,' 'What?' and 'When?' -- 'Why?" remains our favorite question."

Science writer Liam Drew was inspired to write I, Mammal: The Story of What Makes Us Mammals by two noteworthy events.   The second was the birth of his first child and witnessing his wife's care of hers.  The first was getting hit in the testicles by a ball during a soccer game.  I'm not kidding.  He brings it up at least once in every chapter.

With such a seemingly silly starting point, you might be excused for thinking that I, Mammal is going to be a light, easy read.  It's really not.  Instead, it offers one of the most comprehensive explorations of what traits unite animals as different as bats, bears, blue whales, and brush-tailed bettongs, and what distinguishes us mammals from the rest of the animal kingdom.  Topics covered range from the obvious (milk, hair, placentas) to the less readily apparent, such as chromosomes, tooth structure, and, of course, the scrotum that features so prominently in the author's writings (the first chapter is called "The Descent of Man('s Gonads)").  The book takes a tour through the breadth of mammaldom, with special attention paid to those least mammallike-of-mammals, the platypus and echidna.

Besides his sports injury, Drew focuses also on the birth of his two daughters and the care that he and his wife put into them.  Granted, a lot of the care comes from his wife, not because Drew is lazy or indifferent, but because so much of the female mammal's biology is uniquely developed for the care of the young.  Male mammals can't carry pregnancies, nor can they lactate.  The vast majority of mammals, he explains, have no role in parental care apart from serving as sperm donors - especially those outside of our own order, the Primates.  Much of what makes us different as a taxonomic class, however, is focused on how we care for our young - though he does point out the irony that, as a group of animals, we are named after a physical feature, the mammary glands, that is really only used by less than 50% of us.

One of Drew's last chapters focuses on our mammal brain power.  He doesn't, however, fall into the lazy scientific trap of assuming that mammals are inherently better or more advanced than other animals (we've traditionally been called "the higher animals").  Even the tendency to call this "the Age of Mammals" he disputes - after all, we're a very small minority on the planet, especially compared to the insects.  We're not better, he argues.  Just unique.

Especially humans.  We are, after all, the only mammals that deliberately play gams that can injure our reproductive organs.

I, Mammal: The Story of What Makes Us Mammals at Amazon.com

Away in a Manger

"The ox knows his owner, the ass his master's crib; but Israel knows not, my people do not consider."

- Isaiah 1:3

December is upon us, and with it the associated festivities at the zoo.   Not for the keepers, of course - there may be a holiday party or two, but for the most part, the work carries on as usual, only colder.  Instead, there are a lot of activities for visitor.  Zoolights, visits from Santa, Christmas-themed enrichment, or perhaps an appearance from a traveling herd of reindeer.  If there's a way to drive the gate without deviating too much from the mission, you can bet someone in marketing has thought of it.

Of course, this time of year other animal attractions pop up around town.  Nativity scenes, recreating the birth of Jesus, are popular displays at many holiday venues.  Some of these include live animals.

The ox and the ass are featured prominently in such displays. The ox because it represented patience and sacrifice in the Old Testament, the ass because it represented humility and service (such as when one carried Jesus into Jerusalem some thirty years later, according to the Bible).  Sometimes goats and sheep are added to fill things up a bit, especially because they, too, have a lot of Biblical imagery associated with them.  For the facilities that can afford them, camels are also popular.  They aren't specifically mentioned anywhere, but most depictions of the Three Kings have them riding on camels, and they're a lot more exotic and exciting than most farm animals, so some folks like to add them.

Photo Credit: Miracle of Christmas - Live at the Zoo (Metro Richmond Zoo) Facebook

Perhaps because these animals are already usual features of zoo collections - and because Nativity scenes are inherently more religious than reindeer and Santa, which are more secular - you don't see live Nativity scenes in zoos as much as you do churches and other religious organizations.  (An exception is Metro Richmond Zoo, which is well known for its live Nativity acted out by staff).  Animals for these scenes are often rented out from petting zoos for the season.  

Whenever such a scene is enacted, there's usually some sort of pushback from PETA or other animal rights groups who oppose the use of animals in... well... anything.  They feel that animals in these cases are being used as toy and are shuffled around to unfamiliar settings.  Partially true.  Petting zoo animals are generally comfortable in dealing with kids, and as long as they are provided adequate housing and care and are given breaks from the public, I don't see how it's that different from a petting zoo anywhere else.  That being said, any such display that is not meeting the needs of the animals should be shut down - and have animals yanked and fines dished out - so fast that the owners' heads spin.

That kind of sums up my view of most animal interactions.  If the needs and wants of the animal are met, no one is getting hurt, no one is doing anything unsafe or illegal, why not do it?  Animals are a part of our history, our culture, and, yes, our religion.  Why not celebrate them as part of the season?

Species Fact Profile: Patagonian Cavy (Dolichotis patagonum)

                                                         Patagonian Cavy (Mara)

Dolichotis patagonum (Zimmermann, 1780)

Range: Western and Southern Argentina

Habitat: Grassland, Scrubland 

Diet: Grasses, Leaves, Bushes

Social Grouping: Mated pairs living within communal warrens

Reproduction:  Monogamous, mate for life.  Breed August through January, give birth after 100 day gestation period in a communal den.  Usually 1-2 young per litter (up to 4), capable of walking almost immediately.  Weaned at 3 months old.  Sexually mature by 8 months.  Usually produce 1 litter per year, but in zoos can produce up to 4 per year

Lifespan: 10-15 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Near Threatened

•       Head and body length 70-75 centimeters, with a very short tail of 4-5 centimeters.  Weigh 8-16 kilograms.  Body plan resembles a jackrabbit (but with much shorter ears), with long, slim, muscular legs, the hindlegs longer than the fore ones.  The feet are small and compressed, resembling hooves.  Males slightly larger than females
•       Fur is gray on the back with a blacker rump offset by a white patch.  The sides and face are a reddish-tan.  The stomach and underside are white.
•       Time not spent feeding is often spent watching for predators, which include wild cats, foxes, mustelids, and birds of prey.  Watching for predators is the main contribution that the male makes towards the rearing of the young
•       Breeding females share a burrow, and may occasionally nurse each other's young, but overall do not cooperatively raise their litters
•       Semi-nomadic - they feed on the very tips of the grasses, which means that they exhaust their food sources readily and must constantly be on the move, the exception being when they are denned up for breeding.  Home ranges of up to 200 hectares 
•       Historically common, but have been subject to heavy hunting pressure, both for meat and for their pelts, as well as due to perceived competition for grazing lands with domestic animals.  They have been extirpated in some parts of their range
•       Face competition, as well as introduced diseases, from European hares, which have become established in Patagonia

Burden of Decisions

Photo Credit: Mike Sergieff

I saw this photo the other day and had to dig up the backstory on it.  It details a protest outside the Los Angeles Zoo from 1986 (35 years ago).  The protestors, including the gentleman in the wings, were opposed to the decision made to transfer the last wild condors in existence to the Los Angeles Zoo for an emergency captive breeding program.  As we know now (detailed in the excellent book Condor: To the Brink and Back, by John Nielsen), the program was a success and the species was saved (to the extent that any species can be considered saved these days).  If policymakers and zoos had bowed to the opinion of the small but loud minority of protestors, this species would certainly no longer be with us.  

If there is a lesson in this, it's that zoos and aquariums should listen to the public and all voices therein and be mindful of what they have to say, even when it disagrees with us.  But that at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to do what we believe is best for the animals, both in our collections and around in the wild, in our backyards and around the world (while keeping in following with all local, national, and international laws, which we can't override, even when they're stupid.  Especially when they're stupid).  We have the expertise and the experience to make the decisions  It's irresponsible to surrender that responsibility to the whims of the public, especially if it comes down to a question of who can be the loudest.

From the News: Two hippos in Belgian zoo test positive for COVID-19

Two hippos in Belgian zoo test positive for COVID-19

Not gonna lie, if you told me this time last year that I'd still be writing articles about COVID... I probably would have believed you.  Even as zoos start to vaccinate their animals against the disease, we continue to learn that more and more species are susceptible to it.  Hippos, such as the two afflicted animals in Antwerp, are the latest on roster.  They are not a species that I would have suspected of coming down with the disease, which so far has been primarily seen in carnivores and primates.    At my zoo, at least, those are the species that staff had been taking the most precautions with.  Now, I'm wondering if we need to reassess the potential risk and start taking more precautions to protect more species.  Granted, the cases seen in these two animals appear very mild - runny noses, and that's it.  Still, who knows how this disease might manifest itself in other species.   

Christmas at Honolulu Zoo

 "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..." (Photo Credit: Honolulu Zoo)

Water, Water, Everywhere, Let's All Have a Drink

I've loved working with all sorts of animals in zoos, but have tended to be a lot more selective about what I bring home as a pet.  I've liked reptiles, because they're relatively undemanding of time and attention compared to, say, a dog, and as I travel a lot, they can be left home alone for a few days without a problem.  I've a bias towards lizards, just because snakes can a) be a little more escape prone and b) apartments are more tolerant of lizards than snakes.  Lastly, I've steered towards desert lizards, because then I don't have to spend a lot of time fiddling with humidity.  Keep them hot and they're happy.

I've kept bearded dragons, leopard geckos, rock agamas, and ridge-tailed monitor lizards - desert species from three continents.  Husbandry and care requirements have been different for all of them.  One thing that has been consistent has been water.  I've always made sure each had a clean bowl of water.

This is why I was so perplexed when I came across a young hobbyist, new to reptile keeping, who had been advised by online correspondents not to give his new pet rosy boa (a North American desert snake) water, except maybe twice a year as a treat.  He was advised that the snake would get all of the water it needed from prey.  Or, perhaps, they suggested that, in the presence of a water bowl, it would glug it all down in a flash, get sick, and die.  Or (and this one strikes me as just lazy), they'll poop in the bowl.

I can't subscribe to this mindset.  This is not Dune and we're not on Arrakis.  Water is not a "treat."  It's a basic requirement of life.  Yes, desert species encounter water less in the wild than they would under human care.  They also encounter predators, too - does that mean we should periodically stuff a hawk or badger into the snake's terrarium also?  I've worked with desert antelopes, kangaroos, camels - all species that can go long times without a drink.  I've never been to a zoo that didn't provide these species with all of the water that they could drink.  I wouldn't give a rosy boa a bathtub, but a little bowl of fresh water won't hurt - far from it.

It saddens and irritates me that reptile care lags so far behind mammal care.  Yes, boas are very different from bears and their care should reflect that.  But it still feels like there are too many lazy hobbyists (and not a few zoo professionals) who seem to look at reptiles and find excuses not to do the most basic parts of their job - providing a large enough, complex enough habitat (see my rack rant).  Enrichment.  But water?  Come on, people...

Species Fact Profile: Upside-Down Jellyish (Cassiopea xamachana)

                                                           Upside-Down Jellyfish

Cassiopea xamachana (Bigelow, 1892)

Range: Western Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico

Habitat: Muddy Seabeds, Shallow Lagoons and Bays

Diet: Zooplankton, Phytoplankton, Algae.  Supplemented by photosynthesis of symbiotic organisms.

Social Grouping: Large Aggregations

Reproduction:  Reproduction is asexual and sexual.  Female's eggs are fertilized by sperm released into the water by males, brooded internally.  Larva are free-swimming until they anchor at a permanent spot, become medusas.  Reproduction driven in part by water temperature

Lifespan: Unknown

      Conservation Status: Not Evaluated

• Diameter of 25 centimeters.  As the name suggests, it is "upside down" compared to other jellyfish, with the saucer-shaped bell at the bottom, anchoring the jelly to the seabed, with the tentacles drifting upwards
• Symbiotic single-celled organisms in the tissues are photosynthetic, give the jellyfish a variable blue-gray-green color
• If disturbed, the jellyfish may rouse itself from the seabed and drift for a while, re-anchoring itself in a different location
• Surrounded by a layer of mucous that contains stinging cells, which not only stun or kill their prey, but also provide a deterrent to predators
• Sometimes uprooted by crabs, which will place the jellyfish on their shell as a form of protection from predators
• Have been introduced outside of their range into the Pacific Ocean and Mediterranean Sea
• Primary predators are sea turtles.

Satire: Commode-O-Dragon

 

Feel the Warmth of a Cold Nose...

The perfect commercial doesn't exi- 

Ok, this Holiday season I've really told myself that I'm going to do my best to stay away from Amazon and try to support smaller, more local businesses.  Counterpoint - small local businesses don't have the budgets to make commercials like this.  My first thought was that it was a trailer for a movie, one that I was definitely going to have to see two or three times.

A Tale of Two Turkeys

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is a great day to express appreciation for many things, turkey being pretty high up on the list.  Besides being delicious, the turkey is special in that it is one of the only domestic animals to come out of the New World.  While Europe, Asia, and Africa gave us the domestic cat, cow, pig, sheep, goat, duck, swan, and chicken (to say nothing of the much less-utilized camels, reindeer, water buffalo, and yak), the Americas gave us the turkey, the llama, the alpaca, the guinea pig, and the Muscovy duck.  Of those, only the turkey was present in North America.  Both hemispheres had domesticated dogs, though they were far more prevalent and diverse in the Old World than the New.

I suppose the first Thanksgiving could have been a very different one if Europeans came to America and found herds of domestic bison or peccary.  Alas, only the turkey was domesticated - and only in parts of its range.  When Cortez and his men visited the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, long before the Pilgrims hit Plymouth Rock, Emperor Montezuma II was going through hundreds of turkeys a day to feed the big cats, raptors, and other predators of his private zoo.

What a lot of folks don't realize is that there are two turkeys native to the New World.  The domestic turkey is descended for the wild turkey, which looks like a sleeker, cagier version of its Butterball cousin.  On the Yucatan, however, we find the ocellated turkey.

The ocellated turkey is considerably smaller than the wild turkey of North America.  That, along with its much smaller range, might have had something to do with it never being domesticated.  Personally, I wonder if the warts have something to do with it.  The face of both sexes is electric blue, covered with bright orange warts.  The first picture I ever saw of one was when I was a small child reading my Ranger Rick magazines, with a photo spread devoted to solving the question of which was the ugliest bird in the world.  The bird which I photographed above is, to be a fair, a lot less warty than the extreme example I saw in the magazine.

Other contestants included the shoebill and the California condor, but my vote went straight to the turkey.

Not that being ugly has spared the ocellated turkey from the dinner table - it's just eaten on a much smaller, much more local scale, hunted by local peoples.  No one is accusing the domestic turkey of being the most handsome of birds.  I wonder what it would do to its popularity if it, too, looked like a diseased, Day-Glo nightmare of a bird.

Book Review: The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy - What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens - and Ourselves

I remember many years ago, Animal Planet ran a TV special called "The Future Is Wild."  It purported to show how animals would evolve in the distant future, in a world long after humans have presumably driven ourselves (and many of our cohorts) to extinction.  There were seabirds that basically turned into walruses, squids that swung through the jungle canopy, and spiders that farmed mice for meat.  Even at the fairly young age I was, I remember being highly skeptical.  What are they basing this off of?  I wondered.

If it seems doubtful that we could predict what life in the future of our planet will look like, it would seem impossible that we could predict what life on other planets would be like.   But can we at least make educated guesses?  Cambridge University zoologist Arik Kershenbaum believes so.  In The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens - and Ourselves, Kershenbaum takes one small step into the hypothetical.  He postulates that, no matter how different other inhabited planets may be from earth, we will see some striking similarities.  That is because evolution through natural selection is likely to shape species in the same way no matter the planet.  As different as the landscapes may be, any alien animals that we encounter will have much in common with earthling analogs.

Astrobiology, the search for alien life, is mostly more focused on microbes than, say, Vulcans, Wookies, or any of the other fictional alien civilizations that we see in Sci-Fi.  Kershenbaum doesn't spend too much time speculating about alien cultures and technologies, but instead visualizes landscpaes more along the lines of earth ecosystems, with niches for producers, herbivores, predators, and scavengers.  He starts off at the most basic level of form and function - what would these different organisms need to be able to do to survive (find food, avoid being eaten, reproduce) and how would that impact their structures.  We would likely see forms of convergent evolution with earth species, on the grounds that there are only so many ways to do certain jobs and do them well.  Bats and starlings, for example, are not closely related, but both have fairly similar body plans, even though the skeletal structure of their wings are very different, because there are only so many ways that an organism can fly.

From there, Dr. Kreshenbaum looks at other aspects of animal existence to pose a variety of questions about hypothetical aliens.  How will they move?  What sorts of intelligence will they display?  Will they be social or solitary?  How will they communicate and process information?   All of these questions are illustrated with interesting examples from across the breadth of (Earth's) animal kingdom.  In some cases, he explores how things might have evolved very differently on other planets - aliens that might communicate through radio signals, or with an actual, complicated language of scents.  In others, he dismisses some Sci-Fi possibilities as being unlikely to be able to arise through natural selection.

He ends on a more philosophical note, inviting his readers to ponder what the nature of humanity is, and whether it could rightly be applied to alien species that we encounter.  At a time when some humans are pushing for recognition of some species on earth as "non-human persons," it is interesting to consider how we would relate to species from other planets.  He notes that if intelligent aliens from a distant planet - with cultures, technologies, civilizations, etc. - visited us, we would have more (biologically) in common with, say, cockroaches than we would our visitors - but which species would we be most likely to form a real connection with?

Normally I'm not too keen on taking speculation too seriously, but when it comes from such an informed source as Dr. Kershenbaum, it's hard not to be intrigued.  The author admits towards the end of the book that he considers it highly unlikely that we will encounter alien life in his lifetime - and we certainly shouldn't plan on seeing alien species in zoos any time soon.  Which isn't to say that such speculation is fruitless.  As his subtitle suggests, to understand alien life, we first have to devote ourselves to better understanding the life on our own planet.  That's always a worthwhile task, and one where there is still much work to be done.

The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens - and Ourselves at Amazon.com

My Life In Ruins

Years ago, my girlfriend and I took our first international vacation together.  We hemmed and hawed for a while about where to go, finally settling on the Central American nation of Belize.  There were two main attractions for me.  First, there was the chance to see Neotropical wildlife - though jungles are much harder habitats to spot animals in then savannahs, so most the animals I saw on that trip were in the Belize Zoo.  The second was to indulge another interest of mine - history - and explore the ancient Mayan ruins.

Probably the most dramatic moment of the trip for me was rounding a corner in the trail and opening up into a field that was dominated by towering stone temples and pyramids.  As we walked towards the main pyramid and prepared to ascend the steps to the top, I found myself glancing from side to side.  Against all logic, I half-expected to see a jaguar lounging on one of the nearby ledges.

Zoos and aquariums, I have been deeply frustrated to observe over the years, tend to have questionable commitment to the concept of creativity.  Someone will come up with an idea that is absolutely unique and stunning.  Within a few years, everyone has copied it.  One such exhibit motif that I've seen done over and over again is displaying jaguars on Mayan ruins, or tigers on Indian, Khmer, or other South/Southeast Asian ruins.  Looking back on, I have probably seen more jaguar exhibits with the ruin design than I have without.  Even some of the zoos that I've worked in have adopted the style - though admittedly, the execution was so half-butted that it wasn't readily apparent that they were supposed to be ruins.

I'm not sure who originated the concept.  The tiger exhibit at Zoo Miami (then called Miami MetroZoo) was an earlier practitioner, though I don't know if they were the first.  It probably arose in the 1980's, when zoos were moving towards more natural exhibits, the concept of immersion.  The challenge was that animals - especially tropical animals like jaguars - still needed support buildings, and obviously non-natural buildings tend to take away from the atmosphere that the zoo is going for.  But what if the buildings could be made part of the experience?  By putting up a façade, that drab service building suddenly becomes an outlier of Tikal, Chichen Itza, or Caracol - going from something that you're trying to obscure to becoming the perfect photographic background of your display.

At least, that's the thought.  Some of the buildings look stunning - as is often the case, the earlier works are the best, and Zoo Miami has one of the best-looking tiger exhibits I've ever seen.  Others look obviously phony, borderline tacky.  What irks me - besides the aforementioned lack of originality - is the lack of respect in some cases.  Sure, the Mayan city states are no more, and the culture largely collapsed, but its descendants still live in Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala.  If you're going to incorporate that culture into the exhibit, it should be done respectfully and accurately.  It should also be more than a backdrop.  Jaguars (and other Central American animals) played an enormous role in Mayan culture, in legends, artwork, and history.  These stories should be woven into the exhibit, whether through signage or other aspects.  Or, think outside the box a bit...

Recently, I was doing some research on the waldraap, or northern bald ibis.  This endangered bird is typically seen in African aviaries, and they do, in fact occur in North Africa.  Historically, however, they were more often associated with Europe and the Middle East.  One fact that I read that sparked my interest was that the species would nest on the battlements of ruined European castles, before being driven to near extinction on that continent.  I began to wonder if a zoo somewhere would build an exhibit of a ruined Austrian castle, its banners torn and fluttering in the wind, with waldraaps perching on the stone windowsills from which archers once (in this fantasy version) would have fired arrows.  

It would be something different, to be sure.  And for a change, it would be our culture in the zoo.

From the News: New Orleans Audubon Zoo welcomes a trafficked jaguar cub

 New Orleans Audubon Zoo welcomes a trafficked jaguar cub

They make up a relatively small number of zoo animals, but some of the most fascinating stories are the exotic animals that were rescued from the illegal wildlife trade.  Years from now, people will be hearing the story of this cub and how he came to be in the zoo.

Fish Out Of Water

The first time that I saw a mudskipper, I had no idea what to make of it.  I was pretty young, and my grade-school brain was not about to process the concept of a fish - a live one, anyway - outside of the water.  I assumed that it was some sort of amphibian, a tadpole that I happened to come across at the exact moment that it was transitioning from life in the water to life on land.  We literally have the expression "fish out of water" to describe someone in a situation which is totally alien to them.  And yet, here we are.

Nor is the mudskipper (mudskippers, rather - there are several species) alone.  There are lungfish of Australia, South America, and Africa, which are among the most popular of aquarium exhibits - even though I've never seen one out of water.  A few years back, much of the eastern US was in a tizzy about the invasive northern snakehead, a fish from East Asia that can crawl from pond to pond over dry land.  

I remember the news articles of the early 2000's treating this fish like it was some sort of ravenous mutant.  There were no fewer than three B movies (if not C or D movies) based on the fish - Snakehead Terror, Swarm of the Snakehead, and, using the popular nickname for the species in the media at the time, Frankenfish, as well as a catchy song by the parody musical group The Capitol Steps, "This Fish Was Made For Walkin'," a spoof off the popular Nancy Sinatra song.

That's not how this works.  None of this is how this works...

The fact is, there's nothing unnatural about fish getting out of the water, though relatively few species can do so.  It's just that we're fascinated by animals that don't follow "the rules."  Birds that don't fly.  Mammals that lay eggs.  Bears that live almost exclusively on bamboo.  There is no rule book in nature, though, except, perhaps, for do what you must to survive.

Species Fact Profile: Atlantic Mudskipper (Periopthalmus barbarus)

Atlantic Mudskipper

Periophthalmus barbarus (Linnaeus, 1766)

Range: West Africa

Habitat: Tidal Flats, Mangrove Forests.  Brackish water, with some tolerance for freshwater

Diet: Worms, Insects, Small Fish, Crustaceans

Social Grouping: Solitary, Territorial

Reproduction:  Sexual maturity reached at about 10 centimeters in length.  Breeding takes place year round, usually March-May.  Mating takes place in burrows, where the female deposits thousands of eggs.  The male guards the eggs after the female leaves.  Eggs hatch into larvae which drift in open water for 30-50 days.  Juveniles hide in the mud until they are large enough to establish territories

Lifespan: 5 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern

• Can grow up to 16 centimeters long.  Tadpole-shaped body.  Eyes are very large and protruding on the top of the head.   
• Best known for its ability to leave water and crawl on land.  The body is covered with scales which are in turn covered with a layer of mucous, which helps the fish retain moisture.  A pair of pectoral fins allows the fish to 'skip' along on land, traveling from one body to water to another.  Sometimes seen perched on logs above water
• Olive green coloration with light blue spotting, dorsal fins (which can stand erect) are bright blue
• Capable of storing water within their gill chambers, allowing them to breathe out of water; also capable of breathing through the skin
• Emerge to forage during low tides; during high tides, they hide in their burrows, which may be 1.5 meters long
• Feed by creating suction by opening their mouths suddenly while lunging, sucking in small animals.  Hunt from ambush positions
• Still common in the wild, but in decline due to overfishing (both for food, bait, and as pets), as well as pollution (their absorbent skin soaks up contaminants easily)
• Not currently bred under human care, due in part to difficulty in replicating their natural reproduction with burrows

To Prague with Pangolins

Pangolins are, paradoxically, both some of the world's most obscure animals and simultaneously some of the most coveted.  The vast majority of people have never heard of them.  For those who have, it's often in their capacity as the world's most heavily trafficked mammal.  The scales of the pangolin are greatly coveted in Traditional Chinese Medicine, which has led to the decimation of populations of all species of pangolin in both Africa and Asia.  Further complicating matters has been the historically dismal record of pangolins in zoos and rehab facilities.  Even when live pangolins were rescued from traffickers, they usually died shortly after.

Photo Credit: Taipei Zoo

In recent years, tremendous strides in pangolin husbandry have been made in the United States, with several zoos forming a consortium to work towards the conservation of West Africa's white-bellied tree pangolin.  The results have been promising, with increased longevity and reproduction taking place.  All of this has raised hopes that pangolins could be bred in zoos and, at some point, be used to repopulate wild habitats.

Recently, there has been some noise across the Atlantic of pangolin populations becoming established there.  In a twist on China's famous Panda Diplomacy, Taiwan is sending some of its rare Formosan pangolins to the Prague Zoo.  This is an enormous development in the zoo world, and if a population of these animals (already accustomed to zoo life in Taiwan) can get breeding, it could enormous implications for pangolin husbandry.  Not only could pangolins become established in European AND American zoos, but our understanding of their nutrition, medicine, and behavior could greatly improve our ability to rehabilitate and rescue pangolins from the animal trade and restore them to the wild.

Prague mayor eagerly prepares for arrival of Taipei Zoo pangolins

Taiwan's bold move is motivated just as much (probably more) by politics than by conservation.  The island nation lives in the shadow of its much larger, more powerful rival, China, which refuses to acknowledge the island's status as a sovereign nation.  Distributing pangolins is meant to be but one prong of a charm offensive as Taiwan seeks to build friendships and strengthen ties across the globe. 

Will Taiwan's 'pangolin diplomacy' be a turning point or a double-edged sword?