The Worst of the Best of Polls

It's time for that annual poll from USA Today to rank the 10 best zoos, aquariums, safari parks, and exhibits in the US.  Every year this poll gets put out, and every year I admit that I find it a little more exasperating.  It's not just the decision about who is included and who isn't (disclaimer: my current facility is not on the list, which I am completely fine with).   What I like isn't necessarily what members of the general public prefer, and if we want to be successful, we have to strike a balance between the conservation, research, and education that is our mission and the factors needed for public appeal, such as popular species and interactive exhibits.  I'm not a purist, at heart.

It's that it these lists seem so... random.  Some of the "exhibits" aren't even exhibits... or are closed for the last year due to COVID.  Some of the exhibits are single animals, others are complexes with dozens of exhibits.  How do you compare those apples and oranges (or, single apple versus an orange tree)?  Big Cat Rescue is many things (one of which may be a sanctuary, depending on how you feel about them), but a safari park?  In absolutely no way.  Where's the "safari" aspect?

The more time I spend with zoos and aquariums, the less interested I become in rankings and trying to sort things out from best to worst.  I sometimes do find myself thinking, "This is the best alligator exhibit I've ever seen," or "This is the worst giraffe exhibit I've seen," but those are usually the impressions of the moment.  I suppose things like this provide useful PR bragging rights for the "winning" institutions.  I just can't see much other use to them.

Movie Review: Mighty Joe Young

History, it has been said, doesn't repeat itself, though it does rhyme.  That sets it apart from Hollywood.  Hollywood definitely repeats itself.

It seems that every movie that has ever been made is in the process of being remade.  Sometimes the newer version is an improvement.  Sometimes... less of one.  Consider, for example, the 1998 remake of the 1949 gorilla flick, Mighty Joe Young.  

The story of both movies is a scaled-down version of the more famous King Kong.  White folks go to Africa, meet a giant gorilla (not Kong giant, but still much bigger than a typical gorilla), bring him (and his attractive white female companion) back to the states, and the gorilla ends up running amok, as gorillas in movies brought to the big city inevitably seem to do.  Unlike King Kong, Joe has a happier ending,  being recognized as a hero after saving a child from danger (and therefore allowing the audience to care about him) and eventually being repatriated to Africa with his human friends, where he lives happily ever after.  The end.

I'd seen the 1949 movie and, for what it was, enjoyed it - it's not great cinema, but it was a fun old adventure movie and it was actually somewhat unusual to see gorillas portrayed positively in film back in those days.  So, I decided to give the 1998 movie a stab.  Ok... so if you are showing it to small children, it will be fine.  If you have even the slightest familiarity with animals, it will be exhaustingly illogical and drive you to distraction.  The presence of a 15-foot tall, 2000 pound gorilla is actually the least improbable, unbelievable aspect of this movie.

The world has changed a lot since 1949, especially as it pertains to the movements of animals across the globe.  That the main characters decide to quickly and easily transport a giant gorilla from Africa to America and back again with no apparent difficulties (or notice) strikes me as a little... silly.  That they bring Joe to the wildlife reserve in California without telling anyone at the park what to expect, just show up and unload a giant gorilla?  Hard to swallow.  The bad guy is the obligatory creepy Eastern European (why is it always Eastern European?) poacher, who runs a sham wildlife sanctuary that is actually a front for dealing in the parts of endangered species.  We encounter him at one point as a zoo director, unaware of his sinister dealings, is trying to rehome a giant panda who has outgrown his enclosure.  First of all, it's a panda, not a goldfish - that's not really how pandas work.  Secondly, a western zoo that has a giant panda and doesn't want it anymore?  THAT might be the hardest plot hole for me to swallow in this entire movie.  That and they would send it to the bad guy's compound in Africa instead of, I don't know, China?

I know it's a movie for kids, and as such it can help to simplify things a little bit and make characterizations of people very good or bad to make sure the message doesn't get muddled.  Still, the remake of Mighty Joe Young was a pill too cheesy, saccharine, and unbelievable for me to swallow.

World Tapir Day

We zoo folks, we love our "days."  There is World Penguin Day, World Cassowary Day, World Tapir Day, the only thing we don't have a day for is World Javan Whistling Duck, and trust me when I say, it's probably only a matter of time.  Enjoy this bathing beauty from the Los Angeles Zoo!

Species Fact Profile: Northern Tree Shrew (Tupaia belangeri)

 Northern Tree Shrew
Tupaia belangeri (Wagner, 1841)

Range: Southeast Asia – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam

Habitat: Tropical and Subtropical Forests, up to 3000 meters elevation

Diet: Primarily feed on insects, but also eat fruit, buds, small lizards, and eggs.  

Social Grouping: Male and female sharing overlapping territories (home range is about 0.8 hectares).  Territories are marked with scent from glands on the chest, and violence may be used to defend territory against rivals of the same sex

Reproduction:    Breeding can occur at any time of year with no seasonal peaks.    Gestation period 41-45 days.  Litter consists of 1-5 young weighing 6-10 grams, born naked, blind, and helpless; ears open at 10 days after birth, eyes at 20 days.  Weaned at 35 days old. Sexually mature at 4 months, at which age young are driven from mother's territory

Lifespan: 5-10 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern, CITES Appendix II

•       Head to body length 12-21 centimeters with an additional 14-20 centimeters of tail.  Weigh 50-270 grams.  Males are somewhat larger than females and typically have broader skulls.  Snout is pointed, ears are small and bare, toes clawed.
•       Short, course fur is grayish to olive in color (sometimes with a reddish tinge in the northern populations).  Often has a faint, pale stripe on shoulder.   Paler on the underbelly.  Males often have a ring of white hair around the eyes
•       Unable to obtain much moisture from their food, have to drink free water daily.
•       Predators include snakes, birds of prey, and small carnivorous mammals
•       Makes nests in tree hollows, fallen trees, or bamboo cavities.  Body temperature rises from 35 degrees Celsius at night to 40 degrees Celsius during the day
•       Weaned at 35 days old (females only nurse the young every other day or so – milk is very high in fat of compensate).   Males are not involved in parental care; females have perhaps the least amount of contact with their young of any mammal species
•        Genome was sequenced in 2006.  Used as a medical model for study in potential treatments for hepatitis C and photoreception (eyes are more similar to those of humans than those of other lab models such as rodents are).  Highest brain to body mass ratio of any animals
•       Originally considered to be part of the order Insectivora (hedgehogs, shrews), later considered to be some of the earliest primates, tree shrews are now believed to be more closely related to rabbits than to primates, but this is still disputed – diverged from primates, rodents, and rabbits over 90 million years ago
•       One of 19 tree shrew species.  Genus name comes from the Malay tupai, which means “squirrel”

Protecting the Wild - the Return of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

 

Red Wolf Rising

Happy Earth Day!

It's not often that we can celebrate the holiday with some good news, rather than the usual plea to just do something - anything - to stem the tide of extinction.  This year, however, we do have good news.  Great news, actually.  One of the first major changes to take place at USFWS under the Biden Administration was the restarting of the red wolf introduction program, which had been left to pretty much fizzle out in the wild.  Wolves were released back into Alligator River in an attempt to reserve the drastic decline of the species, the reintroduced population of which had numbered over 100 previously.

Those recent releases have born fruit - hairy, squiggly, adorable fruit.  For the first time in four years, a litter of red wolf puppies - six of them! - has been born in the wild.  May many more come to follow as the species reclaims its foothold in the American southeast!

Photo Credit: Red Wolf Recovery Facebook Page

Meet and Greet

When COVID-19 hit (man, has it already been over two years?), one of the first things to get scraped by the zoo community was travel.  Partially this was to save money, as we had no idea how long the shutdowns would last and we needed to save every penny we could.  Mostly, it was to do our part to not spread the disease.  Even with the rollout of vaccines in late 2020 and early 2021, when every zoo was open again and almost every other aspect of zoo life was back to normal, last year most conferences moved to a virtual format for safety and economic reasons.

This year, we're starting to see the first tip-toeing back to full normalcy.

This week, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums is holding its first in-person conference since fall of 2019.  The conference, hosted by the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, is an event that has many folks excited.  I know I am... but also a little conflicted.

You see, conferences are a blast.  You get to go and see friends that you might not have seen since last year, do some wheeling and dealing, sit in on all sorts of presentations that you might otherwise have missed out on and learn all sorts of great things, and visit other institutions, often with special access that visitors never get to experience.  I always leave conferences energized and invigorated to an extent that I never was before, sure that I can do so much when I get back.

The thing is, conferences also cost money.  There's the registration.  The hotel.  The transport.  The meals.  It adds up, to be sure, which is a big part of the reason why few people get to go.

Over COVID, we still had conferences, but they were virtual, and in some cases, free of charge.  Anyone got to go.  I "went" to the conferences that I would normally go to, but I also "went" to ones that I never would have gotten the approval or budget to go to before.  It was great - I was able to learn so much, ask questions, network, and all in all, have a great time.  It was disappointing not getting to see friends in person, or visit the zoos and aquariums and see the animals, but hey, the price was right.

Now that another conference - in person - is coming, and I'm talking with friends about the will-you, won't-you aspects of attendance, I feel a little sorry that we're losing the accessibility of online.   Not every zoo has the budget to send people, which is understandable, but still sad.  True, online isn't the same - when I listen to an online conference session, I'm usually also doing something else at the same time, like record entry or emails, so I'm kind of only half listening and not getting the full benefit.  But that's certainly better than the zero benefit of not going.  At the same time, I know that if conferences were in person AND online, a very large number of people would opt to only go online to save money, which in turn could make it difficult for the conference in person to be cost effective.

I am excited for the next time that I travel and reconnect with the people and ideas and experiences that have inspired me so much in the past.  Many of the my best non-animal zoo memories come from these conferences.  I just wish everyone got to experience them whenever they happened, not just a lucky few now and then.

Satire: Zoo Assures Public Escaped Leopard Will Kill Them Quickly

 Zoo Assures Public Escaped Leopard Will Kill Them Quickly

"At press time, Lloyd warned that the escaped rhino, on the other hand, would take its time before allowing you to die"

An Easter (Monday) Tradition

Yesterday, tens of millions of Americans celebrated Easter, with many families partaking in traditions that go back generations.  There are egg hunts and Easter baskets, chocolate rabbits and church services.  Many of these traditions are fairly similar across the world, wherever the holiday is celebrated.   In the Washington DC area, however, there's an added tradition among the District's Black population, and this one takes place the Monday after Easter.

Go to the Zoo.

It's not entirely clear when or why going to the National Zoo on the Monday after Easter Sunday became traditional among the African American community in the nation's capital.  One theory is that Monday was the day that many Black families, many of whom were employed as servants, were given the day off after working Easter dinner for their employers the previous day.  The Zoo was seen as a nice place for a rare day off in springtime, and that's where families congregated.  Another theory is that the holiday was in response to the segregation which kept Black children from participating in the White House Easter Egg Roll on the lawn of the President's house, a rule which remained in place until the Eisenhower years.  Unwelcome at the main Easter festivities, Black families went somewhere else.  

The Roll is now open to all, but the Zoo still remains a popular destination for families on Easter Monday.  By now the tradition is over a century old.  The Zoo is proud to market the history behind the event every spring.

Antelopes and Underwear

It's a source of great irritation among many antelope keepers that the members of the public can't seem to be bothered to appreciate the variety and diversity of antelope.  To them they are all just... Bambi.  Which is extra frustrating, because Bambi wasn't even an antelope, he was a deer.  In the past, when waxing on the virtues of this particular branch of the Bovidae, I've talked about the variations in size, horns, behavior, and habitat.  Perhaps I should have been focusing on their butt patterns all along...

Training Walls

The first big cat that I ever worked with as a primary trainer was a spunky young female jaguar.  There was a lot that I was hoping to do with her - facilitate medical care, provide mental stimulation, build a better personal relationship with her, and, I'm not ashamed to admit it, boost my profile with my boss.  The only problem was where to do it.  

Outside, at the front of her exhibit, was no good.  The mesh had openings that were more the large enough to accommodate her paws, and most of her legs.  If I was near enough to interact with her, she would be able to grab me, pull me in close, and then demonstrate the skull-biting behavior for which jaguars are so well known.  Doing it behind-the-scenes wasn't a great option either.  The building was claustrophobic, and I only had a relatively small section of exposed fencing to work with her through.

The exhibit, I mused, trying without much success to tong feed her rewards in the holding building, the only place where it was at least safe to work her, was not set up for enrichment.  When I later tried showing another keeper the progress that we were making, I always screamed with frustration.  There was barely enough room for us all to work in the cramped back section.  Showing any special guests what I was doing would have been impossible, or unsafe, to say the least.  Showing, say, a crowd of school children?  Laughable to even consider.

That's why many zoos are now building training walls into their exhibits.  A training wall is a section at the front of the exhibit, usually only opened up at certain times, where animals (in their primary exhibit enclosure) approach to participate in training demos with their keepers, who are outside in the public space (blocked off from the general public, but still accessible for them to see, watch, and ask questions).  Here the keeper can safely interact with the animal in an environment that is specifically designed with training in mind - i.e., the openings might allow for a tail to be drawn through for a blood draw, but not enough for paws to come out, or have platforms built on the animal side to allow the animal to sit at a level which puts them at eye level with a keeper, making them feel more secure.    While the keeper trains, another keeper, or perhaps an educator, can field questions about the process, helping visitors better understand what's going on and how training helps animals participate in their own care.

Training walls are becoming standard features in new exhibits for a variety of species.  At Como Park Zoo & Conservatory, I enjoyed seeing training walls for polar bears and gorillas.  They weren't in use at the time, but just seeing them was a reminder that the zoo was building new exhibits with improved animal welfare, keeper safety, and guest engagement at the forefront of their planning process.  

Zoo Review: Como Park Zoo & Conservatory, Part II

 Continuing the visit to Como Park Zoo & Conservatory...

The African ungulate yards are complemented by a series of yards for North American hoofstock; not surprisingly, these species are much more at-home year-round in Minnesota's weather, so there are no indoor viewing opportunities available.  The largest paddock is given over to the continent's largest land mammal, the American bison.  Additional yards house two species that are seen far less often, caribou (reindeer) and Dall's sheep, the Alaskan equivalent of the more-commonly seen bighorn.  An additional smaller yard (smaller in comparison to the hoofstock yards, but still very spacious) houses arctic foxes.  The ungulate exhibits are nice, but viewing is a bit more difficult than it is for the African ungulates, with fencing in the way that makes photography of species a bit more challenging.

Nearby are the likely stars of the Como Park Zoo, the polar bears.  For such a small zoo, this facility does have one of the better polar bear exhibits I've seen - not the best or second best, but quite respectable.  It has natural substrates, including grass, which I feel is lacking from many exhibits as architects focus more on creating the "idea" of the arctic rather than a nice habitat.  There are two habitats seen from a number of vantage points, including a hidden cave view.  Both can be seen simultaneously from yet another education building, which also offers underwater viewing.  This building also provides a behind-the-scenes view of the bear holding area, including a training wall.  I don't recall ever being at a zoo exhibit for polar bears with a BTS component, so I appreciated the novelty.  The building also houses a number of educational displays about life in the arctic and climate change.

Out back is another building, the Aquatic Animal House.  This might strike me as the weak link in the zoo - it tries cobbling together too much without doing a great job of anything.  Indoor exhibits house African penguins and tufted puffins, as well as indoor exhibits for seals (Como has three species of pinniped - California sea lion, gray seal, and harbor seal), and a few fish tanks which seem out of place.  The building would be better served, I feel, by phasing either penguin or puffin out - and my vote would be to keep the puffins (less commonly kept, and it's hard to be impressed by this penguin colony if you've seen larger African penguin colonies in outdoor exhibits) - to build a larger colony in a larger exhibit and try to come up with some better theming.

The pinnipeds, at least, have much more expansive and attractive digs outside, especially the sea lions, which are the occupants of the brand new Como Harbor.  This spacious habitat is the new home to the Sparky the Seal Show, a classic feature of the zoo from years past (yes, the animals in question are seals, not sea lions).  Visitors have stadium-like seating to few training demonstrations, or they can view the sea lions from above or below water, cruising past underwater windows.

A final animal feature of the zoo is the rainforest.  This is a fairly boilerplate building of tropical plants with some free-flying passerine birds, sloths, and a few aquarium tanks of green anaconda, turtles, the usual suspects of large Amazon River fish, and some small terrariums of frogs and invertebrates (one exhibit consisted of a bucket with a glass front and housed a tarantula - it was cool thematically, apparently featuring a spider that had just been "collected" by a researcher, but I question whether it was the best habitat for the animal).  The bird collection has a few rarities, but they are very hard to spot, and with the crowds and the COVID risk (this was several months ago), I didn't want too linger too long inside to wait them out.  I could see it potentially being more exciting of an exhibit if you had the time to really stay and appreciate it, but as a push-through experience, it was one of the more forgettable rainforest displays I'd seen (though one of the better planted ones).

Speaking of plants, I would be remiss if I neglected the "conservatory" part of the zoo's name.  The rainforest is attached to the main conservatory, which visitors can meander through on their way out of the zoo.  I'm very limited in my botanical knowledge, so my appreciation of greenhouses, conservatories, and botanical gardens often comes from more of an aesthetic viewpoint.  On that score, I loved the displays.  Again, as was the case with the other indoor components of the facility, I was reluctant to linger with crowds for too long, so my impressions were somewhat fleeting.  That being said, if you are visiting, you should definitely take the time to appreciate this attraction, especially if you're more into plants and gardens than I am.

Como Park Zoo & Conservatory was a "plus one" I tacked on to a trip that was mostly geared towards seeing the Minnesota Zoo, and I hadn't gone into it with too high of expectations - there were no "must see" exhibits or animals that would have called me to take a separate trip for its own sake.  To that end, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  It featured a lot of megafauna - lions, gorillas, giraffes, zebras, polar bears - that Minnesota Zoo lacks, in exhibits that were almost uniformly quite nice (the bird and reptile collections, on the other hand, were somewhat frustratingly lacking).  I appreciated the many little education-centers tucked away across the grounds, which I feel have great value as classrooms, all while making the zoo more of a year-round attraction.  I would say that the people of the twin cities are lucky in having two great, yet very different, zoos that they have in their backyards.

Zoo Review: Como Park Zoo & Conservatory, Part I

The Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis are home to two great, yet very different, zoos.  The elder of the two facilities is the Como Park Zoo in St. Paul, Minnesota, which traces its origins back to the late 1890's.  When the much larger and more modern Minnesota Zoo in nearby Apple Valley was proposed, it seemed like the days of Como Park's animal collection might be numbered.  Instead, the two zoos have continued to grow alongside one another.  Of the two, the smaller Como facility is in many ways the more conventional zoo; for its small size (11 acres), it boasts an impressive number of the "must see" zoo mammals which are absent from Minnesota Zoo.  It also remains one of the few zoos in the country which charges no admission fee.

Upon entry, most visitors are usually directed first to the beautiful duck pond, a feature that used to be much more commonplace in zoos, but has sadly become something of a rarity these days.  The assorted ducks and geese share their lagoon with flamingos, while during warmer months Galapagos tortoises occupy a grassy yard adjacent to but separate from the waterfowl.   Standing across from the duck pond is the zoo's old animal house, another feature of zoos of yesterday which has since largely vanished.  Unlike the duck pond, this structure is no longer housing animals, though it remains an impressive architectural display.  Signage posted on the outside walls helps visitors understand the evolution of the Como Park Zoo from a handful of pet deer to the facility that they now explore.

The nearby primate house features indoor habitats of a diverse collection of lemurs and monkeys, including a few rarely seen species, such as blue-eyed black lemurs.  The exhibits themselves are of decent size and complexity (especially for the smaller species), though lacking any particular charm - gunite rockwork and deadfall for climbing.  The two largest species - Sumatran orangutans and lowland gorillas - have adjacent outdoor habitats (it would be great if outdoor opportunities were set up for the other primates, if only on a rotational basis).  The orangutan exhibit is somewhat bland, a moated grassy yard with a climbing structure.  The gorilla habitat is much more impressive - very spacious, with viewing opportunities from a variety of angles, including windows from a bunker-like structure that serves as an education center, as well as through mesh outdoors.  

A second taxonomic compound can be found nearby for the large cats.  Pumas and snow leopards have mesh-capped exhibits with rocky backdrops, while lions and Amur tigers have large grassy yards with pools and trees.  The cats can be observed from the roof of a viewing building (excellent views of the two larger exhibits, but not the best viewing of the two smaller exhibits, which look much smaller and drabber when seen from up here), or from inside the viewing building, with glass windows on either side looking out into all four habitats.  This indoor space also provides educational opportunities about the cat species.  Immediately outside is a wooded yard for grey wolves.

The center of the zoo is dominated by barns for African hoofstock.  Plains zebra, lesser kudu, reticulated giraffe, and that honorary-ungulate, the ostrich, can be found in two open yards attached to barns.  There is indoor viewing of the animals in these barns (a reasonable concession to the cold Minnesota winters), as well as a few small terrarium habitats for small African animals, such as pancake tortoise and spiny mice.  Ironically for such a small zoo, there are relatively few small animals in the collection, including reptiles and amphibians.  The African hoofstock barns (there are two adjoined buildings) aren't remarkable in terms of their exhibitry - it's sort of like they were built to be off-exhibit, but the zoo changed their mind and added a lobby to each), but they do provide a no-frills, not-dressed-up peak and the care of the animals as it occurs behind-the-scenes.

We'll continue with the rest of Como Park Zoo & Conservatory tomorrow.

Como Park Zoo & Conservatory

Any Way You Swing It

 

The workload of a keeper varies widely from zoo to zoo.  Some keepers, such as elephant and great ape keepers, take care of only a handful of individuals.  Others, such as aquarists, may care for thousands of individuals a day.  Some keepers have their charges assigned based on taxonomy (cat keepers, bird keepers, primate keepers), others based on their geographical location within the zoo (this building, that section of yards, etc).  Some keepers take care of the same animals every day.  Others are the swings.

Swing keepers fill in where needed, able to take on the challenge of working with every (or almost every) animal in the zoo.  I've been a "steady" keeper and I've been a swing keeper, and there are advantages to either.  It's great having access to the entire zoo, the fun of working with every species and getting to experience what it's like working with all of the animals.  On the other hand, you really don't get the chance to build as much expertise and as close relations as you do when you work with the same animals day in, day out.

Enjoy this video from the St. Louis Zoo, detailing the day of a swing keeper.

Small Zoos, Big Impact

It wasn't a prank. On April Fool's Day, the Salisbury Zoo announced the birth of twin Andean bear cubs, born earlier this year.  The cubs would have been significant anyway - their father is the only wild-born animal in the US population, so his genes are very valuable.  What really makes this a crazy birth is how small the US Andean bear population is.  With these twins and their parents, tiny little Salisbury Zoo now has over one-tenth of the US population of these endangered bears.  The other significant breeder of the species is another small zoo (albeit one with bigger connections, being part of Wildlife Conservation Society), the Queens Zoo.

When people think about zoos, they tend to think of the bigger, more famous ones - Bronx, San Diego, St. Louis, National.  Those zoos are wonderful, and are very important in the conservation of species.  Their fundraising abilities are especially noteworthy.  It's worth remembering that a zoo doesn't have to be huge to have a big impact on conservation.  Bears might not be the best example - Salisbury and Queens have a single breeding pair each.  For smaller species (songbirds, snakes, marmosets), however, in which a zoo can house a few enclosures and a few pairs, a little zoo can have a tremendous impact, single-handedly driving that population.

Even if they aren't mega-breeders, small zoos can play an important role in holding animals for the big guys.  If they don't have the space or facilities for breeding, they can house juveniles who are too old to be with their parents, yet too young to breed, or animals which are past their reproductive prime and need a comfortable home to retire.  They can work with endangered local species that might be far-removed from the big zoos.  They can also provide education and inspiration about wildlife to communities without close access to big city zoos.

I've got a lot of appreciation for the good little zoos.  They're doing the same good work as the much-celebrated big guys - just on a scale that's more manageable for them... and usually a lot quieter.

Strike a Pose

"C'mon already, just do it..."

This I muttered under my breath for the sixth or seventh time as I squinted through my camera.  My companions were getting bored, wondering why I was insisting on spending so much time with a camera trained on what, to them, anyway, appeared to be nothing more interesting than a very malnourished impala.  I had my reasons, which for some reason it didn't occur to me to explain.  I'd been watching the gerenuk for a few minutes, and noticed that one of them seemed intrigued by some browse that was hung overhead, just too high for her to reach on all fours.  She seemed to be giving in to temptation, and it seemed like it was just a matter of time until...

On cue, she stood up on her back legs, towering over the other members of her herd, her seemingly tiny head now a good seven feet off the ground.  With one long, delicate forelimb, she hooked the browse down a bit, and then began to nibble at it.  I was delighted.

As I finally consented to move on, I thought to myself, "I always wanted to see that."

Gerenuk diorama, American Museum of Natural History (Photo Credit: AMNH)

I'd seen gerenuk in zoos before - not too often, they aren't a very common species.  I'd also spotted one in the wild once on a trip to Africa.  But I'd never really felt that I'd seen one - actually seen one, anyway - until I saw it in its most characteristic, famous behavior, standing erect to feed.  Well, I had seen it before, I guess - in natural history museum dioramas.  Every display of gerenuk I'd seen in a museum had an animal in that remarkable pose.  It's the one thing the species is best known for.

There are a number of similar behaviors or postures that I could think of that are very evocative of certain animals.  A leopard lounging across a tree limb.  A hippopotamus yawning.  A gorilla beating its chest.  A chameleon flicking its tongue, or a rattlesnake curled up, buzzing its tail.  Perhaps the best known of all, a peacock splaying its train of beautiful tail feathers.  If you'd never seen an Indian peafowl before, and then were one day shown a single female with its drab brown plumage, or a very young chick, perhaps, would you really feel like you'd actually seen one?

At one past zoo I worked at, we had a small pack of wolves.  Whenever I heard one start to howl, I would (when safe to do so), drop everything and run over.  I loved seeing a wolf standing on top of the mound in the center of their habitat, head thrown back, eyes closed, howling in response to territorial urging.  Once, when I was working late for an event, I saw it, the silhouette framed against a (mostly) full moon.  It was spine-tinglingly beautiful.

Some of these behaviors can be encouraged through enrichment and habitat design, as was the case with the gerenuk reaching for the hanging browse.  In other cases, behaviors are sensitive to time and season; more than one visitor has expressed disappointment at seeing a bedraggled-looking peacock at the wrong time of year.  Some are pure luck.  And some... aren't ones which we should encourage.  Some of the most impressive animal behaviors are defensive, and as cool as it can be to see the behavior, I wouldn't want to needlessly stress the animal for those reasons.  A cobra reared up and hooded is a much more impressive snake than one at rest, but I'd rather see a cobra in a zoo that's at ease and relaxed than one which is constantly agitated.

Years ago, I was visiting Shedd Aquarium for the first time.  There were a lot of beautiful exhibits, including several species which I had never seen before, such as green sawfish and Pacific white-sided dolphin.  What I remember most about that visit, though, was a species which I'd seen several times before - an alligator snapping turtle.  I'd never seen one display its famous fishing behavior, mouth open, tongue wriggling like a worm to attract fish within its waiting jaws.  That might have been when I first began to appreciate the difference between looking at an animal at a zoo display, and really seeing it.

Species Fact Profile: Gerenuk (Litocranius walleri)

Gerenuk
Litocranius walleri (Brooke, 1879)

Range: East Africa – Ethiopia, Eritrea, southern Somalia, Kenya, and northeastern Tanzania.  Historically present in eastern Egypt and northeastern Sudan as well

Habitat: Dry Grasslands, Savannahs, Scrubland, Semi-Desert, Desert

Diet: Tender young leaves.  Have been observed eating over 80 species, with a preference for Acacia

Social Grouping: Males solitary and territorial.  Females form small herds (10-12)

Reproduction:  Females breed every 1-2 years, breeding can occur year round. Usually a single calf born after a gestation of 165 days.  Young are precocial and can walk within minutes.  Females wean at 1 year, males at 1.5 years (and usually stay with mother until age 2).  Sexually mature at time of independence, but males don’t usually breed until they are able to establish a territory at about 3-4 years old

Lifespan: 10-15 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Near Threatened

•       Body length 140-160 centimeters, 90-105 centimeters at the shoulder, tail length 22-25 centimeters, weight 29-58 kilograms.  Recognizable by very long, slender neck and legs and a long, narrow head.  Sexes are of similar size, but males are more muscled, making them weigh more.  Males alone have curved, ridged, lyre-shaped horns 25-44 centimeters long
•       Coat is short, fine, glossy, pale tawny brown fading to a white on the breast, underbelly, and the inside of the legs, with darker patches on the knees of the forelegs and the end of the tail.  Additional dark patches around the eyes, growing paler around the edges before fading to white
•          Vocalizations include an alarm buzz, an irritation whistle, an aggressive grumble, a loud bleat for danger, and a softer bleat used by mothers to call to their calves
•       Courtship display consists of male displaying his horns and neck in a sideways pose while the female holds her nose in the air and lays back her ears; the male will then rub the female with his preorbital gland and follow her, occasionally kicking at her.  Male samples the urine to determine receptiveness.  
•       Males mark trees and shrubs with their preorbital glands to establish territories of 300-850 acres.  Younger males are run off, females are allowed to come and go (other dominant males are also allowed entry).  Young males often form bachelor herds until they are able to establish their own territories.  
•       Able to stand on their hind legs (due to strong hind legs, wedge-shaped hooves, and specialized lumbar vertebrae) to obtain leaves that are out of reach of other antelope, with a standing height of over 2 meters.  Able to use their front legs to hook and pull down branches 2.5 meters high.  Long tongue and mobile lips help select small leaves, while lashes around eyes protect eyes from thorn scratches.  
•       Does not drink standing water, instead obtaining moisture from succulent plants
•       Mostly active by day, but will rest in the shade during the hottest part of the day
•       Predators include cheetah, leopard, lion, hyenas, and African wild dogs, with calves vulnerable to large captors, caracals, and other mid-sized predators.  Not very fast runners, primarily depend on remaining still and unseen to avoid predators.  Horns are mainly used in territorial disputes between males rather than in defense.
•       Common name from Somali name for the animal, garanuug (“giraffe-necked”).  Sometimes called “giraffe gazelle”
•      Two subspecies – the northern (L. w. sclateri) and southern (nominate).  The boundary between the two is not clearly defined.  Northern subspecies is slightly larger 
• ·        Degradation of habitat for other antelope species can actually lead to improved gerenuk habitat, as they prefer the sort of scrublands that can arise from overgrazing, but excessive desertification (brought about by clearing of brush for firewood, charcoal can harm them).  Much of range is too arid to support intensive agriculture
• ·        Other causes of decline can include hunting (exacerbated by wars), drought, and introduced disease from domestic livestock, such as rinderpest.
• ·     Depicted in carvings from Ancient Egypt, hinting as past range extension to the north

Animals on the Easel

In the mid 1800s, a young German man of an artistic inclination became a regular at the newly opened Berlin Zoo.  During his visits, he befriended Martin Lichtenstein, the Zoo's first director, who then began to offer the youngster access to some of the behind-the-scenes areas of the zoo, getting even closer to the wild animals.  Those encounters sparked a lifelong passion in young Paul Friedrich Meyerheim.  Though he would go on to paint the usual landscapes and portraits that one would expect of an artist of the age, he also began to specialize in animals.

Meyerheim would paint many animal masterpieces.  Some depict animals at the zoo, or in the traveling menageries which were still common in his day.  Others would recreate scenes of the animals in the wild, or in other settings, such as imagined combat between lions and an elephant in a Roman amphitheater.  All demonstrate his familiarity with animals - their anatomy, their behavior, their mannerisms - which can only can come with close association and careful study.  Some of his work even went on to adorn walls within the Berlin Zoo itself. 

These days, every visitor who comes into our facilities has a camera on their phone, thousands of images are taken and shared daily (along with videos), and painters are seldom to be found stationed outside of exhibits (and I can imagine the chaos that could cause in a bustling spring or summer weekend as people push up against the railings, angling for a better view, a closer picture.  It would actually be a nice touch, I feel, if zoos and aquariums would do more to encourage local artists - special hours, closer access, reserved stations (similar to the wheelchair stations I saw at one recent aquarium).  Zoos are about conservation and education - but they can also provide inspiration for paintings, drawings, sculptures, poetry, even music.

I'd be delighted if the walls of some of our animal buildings at my zoo were covered not only with educational plaques, but of artwork inspired by the animals around us.

Before the Curtain Goes Up

Things vary from zoo to zoo, but most keepers get to work about an hour before the gates open for the day.  Zookeepers are essential for the operation of the zoo when it's open, and since they work an 8-hour day, there's a desire to open the zoo shortly after they arrive so that the zoo can be open for as long as possible, attracting the most visitors.  What this translates to is that the facility will be open for all but a relatively brief portion of the keepers' days, a little at the beginning, and a little at the end, after closing.  

Most of the daily work has to be done, then, when the gates are open and the public present.

So what do you do with the precious amount of time you have to yourself?  What do you prioritize for the part of the day when you are free from the distractions of visitors and chaos of the public?

Not surprisingly, the animals dictate what needs to be done first in the morning.  The first priority is to check to make sure everyone is present, alive, and well - in that order.  If there is a missing animal, you definitely want to know that before you open the gates and greatly increase its options for escape.  If an animal is sick or injured, it's a lot easier to manage that early in the morning before everyone has scattered to the wind.  Catching an animal for medical treatment is never facilitated by having dozens of visitors yelling on the sidelines.  If an animal is deceased, the sooner you can get the body to the vets for analysis, the more likely they'll be able to figure out what happened.

Other animals have time-sensitive needs that mean that make them early-morning priorities.  Some species require feedings or medications to be administered early, or several times a day, so you'd want them spaced out as much as possible.  Other animals have to be enclosed in indoor holding at night, either for safety reasons or because of temperatures.  Many keepers want to get those animals out as soon as they can in the morning so that they can have the most time outdoors.  Or, if it's still a cold morning, but is going to warm up later that day, they may put those animals aside for a bit until the weather is more in their favor.  Medical procedures are often scheduled for this time, when there is more peace and quiet.

Some zoos place an emphasis on making sure that all of their animals (or at least as many as possible) can be on exhibit by the time the public comes in.  That means prioritizing animals that are worked protected contact and shifted off-exhibit while the keepers service them.  A keeper can service the lemur exhibit with the lemurs present, meaning that there's no real drawback to saving them for when the zoo is open.  In fact, cleaning and feeding that exhibit while the zoo is open is a great way for staff to simultaneously educate and engage with visitors about the animals.  For, say, chimps or tigers, though, it's not possible to safely be in the exhibit with the animals.  By cleaning those exhibits when the zoo is open, not only will visitors not see those animals at that time, but keepers will also be subjected to endless hackneyed versions of "Look at that funny animal" or "What kind of animal are you?"

That first hour or so of the day flies by fast, and I'd always felt the urge to cram as much as possible into it.  It really sets the tone for the rest of the day - if something is going to go wrong, I feel like that's the window when you find out about it.  It's also one of the only parts of the day I felt like we keepers had much control over.  Because once those gates open on a nice spring weekend, all bets are off...

Pretty Bird Floyd

No, this is not an April Fool's Joke -Pink Floyd is back!  Not the classic band (because they never left), but Pink Floyd the Tanzania-born greater flamingo, who for the past 17 years has been on the loose!  The flamingo escaped from Wichita's Sedgwick County Zoo in 2005 after missing a feather trim and flew the coop.  Over the past decade-and-a-half, the wily bird has been spotted up and down the length of the central United States, from Wisconsin in the north to Louisiana in the south.  This week, he was spotted in south Texas.

Flamingos are among the longest-lived of birds, so who knows how much longer Floyd sightings will be gracing the heartland.  They are also one of the most social of birds, living in huge colonies in the wild.  It really is too bad that he can't make his way a little further to the east, where he might have a chance of meeting the wild American flamingos which inhabit south Florida... or drop in at another zoo with flamingos.   Someday he'll likely just disappear, unless he is recaptured, which does seem unlikely at this point, after so many years.

Until then, I imagine Wichita bird keepers following the news and muttering under their breath, "How I wish, how I wish you were here..."