February Flip-Side

A few days ago, I mentioned that in late winter, keepers and animals alike got so stir-crazy with being inside that the staff sometimes relented and let animals out on days when they might not have earlier in the year, just so the critters could get some more outdoor time.  Seeing animals having a fun day outside always makes me smile, but the treat isn't one that we can extend evenly.  It really only works with animals that can quickly, easily, and safely be moved back and forth between their indoor and outdoor areas.  For example, if all that separates a rhino or a giraffe from its outdoor yard is a single gate, you can easily put them out on a warmish winter's day.  Then, they'll get hungry and want to eat, so you can get them back inside without too much trouble.  That works well, because the next day might drop down ten or twenty degrees, when you really don't want that animal to be out overnight.

With some animals, though, the winter quarters aren't next to the outdoor exhibit.  Primates might be on outdoor islands in the spring, summer, and fall, but brought indoors in the winter.  Birds in a free-flight aviary might be caught up and taken into a building.  Tortoises, crocodilians, and other large reptiles are hauled into indoor quarters.  Once these animals are in for the winter, they can't be quickly or easily brought back out for the occasional warm day.  Once they are in, they are usually in until it is reliably warm enough for them to stay out for the season.

I was thinking of this as I walked around my zoo this week on what was an unseasonable warm day.  It was fun seeing some of the animals out and about who would normally be in barns and dens this time of year - but one of the outdoor aviaries was empty.  It was a major project last fall (as it was every fall) to catch up the birds and move them inside, and keepers wouldn't but the birds - or themselves - through that much stress just for a few days of "false spring."

Ideally, the best solution would be for the indoor and outdoor quarters to always be adjacent so that animals can always have access to outdoor space.  Sometimes, if the exhibits aren't built that way originally, they can be modified.  At the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, the smaller primates in the Chimpanzee Forest were kept in outdoor enclosures a few hundred yards away from the indoor exhibit building in the summer and were kept indoors in the winter.  The recent construction of an overhead trail system bridges that distance, allowing animals to be moved indoors and outdoors during changes in the weather (which does cut both ways - sometimes you have unseasonable cold snaps in warmer months, in which case it's desirable to bring the animals in for their safety and comfort).  Additionally, modifications can be made to  outdoor exhibit spaces - shelters, heat lamps, etc - to try to extend the amount of time each year when the outdoor space can be usable for the animals.

This is one of those concepts that I feel like we as a field have just started to really think about in recent years - how to maximize the amount of choice and opportunity we offer animals under our care.  Few choices are more enjoyable to animals than whether or not to be in one environment (inside) or another (outside), both with very different conditions.  Hopefully, more and more future projects and developments in zoos will be be designed to facilitate these choices - and, not incidentally, improve the visitor experience by allowing more animals to comfortably be out and about on the nicer winter days.