No Small Jobs

"It takes a village" is something of a cliché, but like most clichés, it gets used so much in large part because it is very true.  I often think of running a zoo like running a small city - even in the smallest of towns, you need a people with different jobs to make the place function.  Many of those jobs are fairly similar across communities, but will just vary by scale.  A small town might have a single constable, as opposed to a big city which might have an enormous police force.  In some towns civic leaders might wear many hats, each of which would represent a separate department in a bustling metropolis.  

It's similar in zoos.  Some zoos might have three or four keepers, others might have one hundred.  At some facilities the registrar might also be a vet tech or curator; a very big zoo might have a dozen vet techs, half a dozen curators, and two or three registrars.  Some roles have a bigger part to play in some institutions than others; even a small aquarium will need to put more focus on life support and water quality than a large zoo that doesn't have any aquatic exhibits.  Bigger zoos see more specialization.  Smaller zoos really get their mileage out of the phrase "Other Duties As Assigned," to the point where it almost became a mantra at one of the smaller places where I worked.  

In many ways I did prefer working at a smaller place, where there was much more variability and novelty in the work.  At the same time, it is also kind of nice being at a bigger place where there are opportunities for specialization and perfecting skills.  Most of the jobs that I highlighted this month have been ones which would take place in a mid-sized zoo with some specialization, with separate departments.  All of them represent tasks and jobs which need to be done for the management of a successful zoo, whether they are a shared responsibility or a separate team.

Compared to the keepers, many of these jobs don't take place in the public eye, and aren't as celebrated or discussed as often as the work of a zookeeper.  All of them, however, are important for the success of the zoo and the care of the animals that live there.  We celebrate National Zookeeper's Week every July (the Vet Techs have their week in October), but no one celebrates the commissary steward, the registrar, the behavioral specialist (and I've seen some pretty catty keepers get indignant when their zoo has tried to slide those folks under the umbrella of NZKW, feeling it cheapens "their" week).  

So, just to say it here, there are no small jobs in the zoo - and that's including the jobs which I didn't focus on here and are even more further removed from the animals, from admin to guest services to custodial.  Everyone has an important job in making the zoo what it is.

Species Fact Profile: Blue Death-Feigning Beetle (Asbolus verrucosus)

                                                       Blue Death-Feigning Beetle

                                                       Asbolus verrucosus (LeConte, 1851)

Range: Southwestern United States, Northwestern Mexico

Habitat:  Dry, Sandy Desert

Diet: Fruit, Lichens, Dead Insects

Social Grouping: Colonial

Reproduction: Females lay eggs in moist substrate.  Eggs are very tiny (about 2 millimeters) and hatch after 2-3 weeks.  Mealworm-like larva undergo metamorphosis to become adults when the grubs are about 5 centimeters long.  Transition from egg to adult can take 6-12 months

Lifespan: 8 Years

      Conservation Status: Not Evaluated

• Body length 1.8-2 centimeters.  Males slightly smaller than females.  Forewings are covered with small wart-like bumps (though they have wings, they do not fly)
• Powdery blue coloration, the result of a wax-like coating on their body to retain moisture.  Turn darker blue, almost black, in high humidity conditions.  Males have bristly red hairs on their antennae
• If threatened, their primary defense mechanism is to feign death, flipping on its back and becoming rigid.  If no danger is sensed, they will right themselves and continue to move along.  Beetles that are kept in captivity can become habituated to handling and may cease to feign death
• Predations include a variety of rodents, birds, lizards, and spiders
• Popular in the pet trade due to their easy care requirements/hardiness, docility, and longevity, as well as their ability to cohabit with a variety of other species, but difficult to breed in captivity - while adults are tolerant of a variety of environmental conditions, humidity requirements for both egg-laying and pupation are very specific

Researcher

I've often felt that in recent years, as zoos have emphasized the educational and inspirational aspects of their missions, they've left behind one of their earliest goals - research.  Many of the oldest zoos in Europe were founded as scientific establishments devoted to research; for the first few years of its existence, the London Zoo wasn't even open to the public, only to the fellows of the Zoological Society.  

"Research" can cover a broad variety of topics - I generally would define it as the process of obtaining information that is new and currently unknown.  This separates it from education, which is the sharing of known information with an audience.  It can encompass everything from vivisection and other highly invasive practices (which is what most people think of when they first hear the word, and might explain why zoos de-emphasize research) to behavioral studies.   I'd go so far as to say that much of, if not most of, the research being done in zoos is behavioral in nature.  This is the purview of the behaviorist positions that many zoos have added in recent years.

Other research can focus on other topics - physiology, nutrition, or reproduction, for example.  Again looking back at the earliest zoos, next to nothing was known about many of the animals back then, and there were constant opportunities to learn from the specimens, both in life and (especially) after death during dissections.  As it happens, there's still a lot that we don't know about many taxa.  Part of it comes down to the small sample sizes that we've been looking at.  Part of it is because we haven't been asking enough questions - or even know what questions to ask.  One zoo recently documented parthenogenesis - virgin birth - in an American crocodile, the first ever known occurrence of the phenomena in a crocodilian.  Or what about a few years ago, when it was discovered that Tasmanian devils were bioluminescent?  

Aquariums, which hold a variety of species seldom kept elsewhere due to their reliance on collection of fish and invertebrates from the wild, are often the centers of the most exciting discoveries - there are cases of animals being brought into aquariums which have never even been scientifically described or named.  Currently, only the larger facilities tend to have designated in-house research departments.  Zoos and aquariums of all sizes, however, can work cooperatively on research projects, polling their resources and data to help expand our knowledge of a wide variety of animals.

From the News: Birmingham Zoo wants to build a new cat exhibit. First it must deal with unmarked graves

 The Birmingham Zoo wants to build a new cat exhibit. First it must deal with unmarked graves

Building a new exhibit in a zoo often poses unexpected challenges.  Here's one that the Birmingham Zoo has come across.  This isn't the first time I've heard of a zoo having this challenge - Nashville Zoo had a similar issue with a slave burial ground uncovered on grounds years ago.  The goal is to find a way to move forward while treating all remains uncovered with sensitivity and respect.  It does make me wonder, however, how many construction projects - zoo and otherwise - take place that cover human graves that we never even have an inkling are there. 

Sporcle Quiz: Jobs at the Zoo

Jobs at the Zoo

Exhibit Design

 Here's an employment category the definitely differentiates the big zoos from the little ones.  The larger zoos will actually have a designated in-house team for the design of new exhibits.  This differs from the smaller places, which will have the keepers build (much simpler, generally) habitats .  Many other zoos contract exhibit design out to outside firms, such as CLR, which may have something to do with the end result that a lot of exhibits at different zoos kind of look the safe.

An in-house design team does have advantages, especially as far as familiarity with your facility and its landscape and other conditions.  After all, what may work well at one facility might not be as successful at another.  Nor is the work limited to the big picture of designing whole habitats and complexes.  It also consists of designing features for your animal habitats, especially ones that you want to have a natural touch.  Want a slide for your river otters?  Sure, you could get a plastic slide from a kid's play set - or you could have one crafted to look like a broken off tree limb.  Or, perhaps you want a realistic looking termite mound for your chimpanzees, one which they can actually fish for treats out of like they would in the wild.

I've spent most of my career at zoos on the smaller side, so most of the exhibit work I've done has been along the lines of, "Here's some lumber, there are the nails and wire, we've got two hours before we need to get ready for closing, so let's get on it."  A few years back, however, I did sit in on a workshop hosted by Disney\s Animal Kingdom on how to use silicone to cover enrichment objects and furniture - we wrapped hoses and ropes with the gunk, then used textured stamps and animal-safe dyes to disguise them as weathered old vines for a tamarin habitat.  (Disney, of course, with their staff, budget, and commitment to detail, is all about this sort of thing).  I thought it was cool - but to be fair, if I'd had the budget to do that for my zoo, I probably would have used it to hire an extra keeper or two instead.

Registrar

I've always felt that the average layperson would be shocked at how much work goes into the management of a modern zoo.  Specifically, they'd be shocked at how much paperwork goes into it.

The registrar is the employee responsible for maintaining the animal records of the zoo or aquarium.  Those records, which at some zoos may date back over a century, and which continue to grow every day with new data input, contain all sorts of information vital to the wellbeing and management of the collection.  They can include medical histories, behavioral notes and observations, feed logs and other dietary information, husbandry notes, and training and enrichment data.  They can also include reproductive information, especially the recording of parentage, very necessary for managing the future genetic health and sustainability of the population, as well as transaction information, necessary for establishing legal ownership of the animals.  

Historically, recordkeeping was done on paper, either through journals and diaries or through individual sheets of paper representing daily reports, which gradually migrated onto computers.  Today, the vast majority of zoos and aquariums use web-based databases to record their animal information.  The most commonly used programs are ZIMS (Zoological Information Management Software), Tracks, and Animal Care Software.  At some zoos the registrar is responsible for entering all of the information online, receiving reports from the individual keepers.  At an increasing number of facilities, however, keepers are now engaged in direct entry of their own data and have responsibility for input of information into the records.  At these facilities, the registrar is responsible for training staff on recordkeeping (not only on how to use the software programs, but on how to determine what information goes in and what makes a good record), as well as overseeing the data entry for accurateness and completeness.  Another recordkeeping duty is the management of the animal inventory, which can include not just the animals that the zoo owns on-site, but those that are in on loan from other facilities, or out on loan to other facilities.

The registrar is also responsible for the permitting of the animal department.  Zoos and aquariums are highly regulated entities, whether at the local, state, national, or, in some cases, such as those involving CITES permits, international level.  There are permits needed for the acquisition or transfer of various species (especially native wildlife or those species that are considered potentially invasive).  In some cases, such as bald eagles, even individual parts of the animals are governed by permit regulations, which is why a keeper can't give an eagle feather to a visitor, no matter how much they beg (and believe me - I've seen some begging).  Recordkeeping and permitting come together during animal transports between zoos.  Registrars share the animal records between zoos to help curators, keepers, and vets to provide as much information about the individual animal and its care as possible in order to facilitate the transition between the two institutions.  They also clarify and coordinate any regulatory requirements that might exist to move the animal between jurisdictions.  Some states, for example, may require certain medical tests to be completed to bring an animal into their borders.

Advances in animal care over the past several decades have been contingent upon building upon and expanding upon past successes, as well as learning from past failures.  Learning from our past is only possible if we have that past information available to us.  Without recordkeeping, we lose our link to our institutions' pasts and all of the knowledge there, and deprive ourselves of the ability to make use of the knowledge we currently have in the future.

Behavioral Specialist

As a young keeper, I had the advantage of coming of age at a time when the concepts of behavioral enrichment and conditioning (training) were just starting to crack into the mainstream of keeping.  There was an increased understanding that it wasn't enough to keep animals that were physically healthy and breeding.  It was also the duty of the zoo to promote the mental and behavioral health as well as the physical.  Enrichment provides animals with an opportunity to live a life that more closely resembles that of its counterparts in the wild.  Training provides the animal with the opportunity to participate in its own care and reduces the need for stressful or invasive management practices.

In those early days, this was all being done piecemeal by whichever keepers were interested, whenever they could catch a break from their "real work."  It was very much seen as an extracurricular.  Even as recently as a few years ago, I worked with would complain that some keepers were just "playing" with their animals instead of doing the hard work of cleaning, diet prep, and groundskeeping.  To be fair, a lot of these earlier attempts and behavioral management of animals, while well-meaning and better than nothing, fell far short of their desired goals.

Now, most zoos recognize that behavioral management of the animals isn't a part-time hobby, nor is it frosting on the cake of animal welfare - it's a major component of the animals wellbeing.  To that end, loosely governed "playtimes" of keepers and animals have been replaced with more structured programs with defined goals and clearly measured outcomes, governed by science.  Many zoos now have an employee, or a team, who is responsible for the coordination of training and enrichment programs.  While much of the actually work is still done by the keepers, having this position enmeshed in the zoo's hierarchy not only ensures that the protocols are being implemented, but that they are being carried out uniformly and in a manner that is most likely to result in positive outcomes.

Much of the behavioral specialist's job takes the form of observation, either directly or through cameras, studying the activity budget of the animals, establishing behavioral goals, and working with the animal care team on how to implement them.  Those goals might be trying to understand why an animal is engaging in an undesirable behavior and redirecting it towards a more natural behavior, addressing aggression or anxiety within a social group, or trying to understand why an animal might not be utilizing some aspects of its environment, such as avoiding a portion of its enclosure, thereby limiting itself from using all of the available space and features.  Then, there are the training goals, many of which are aimed at supporting medical care - dental checks, hoofwork, blood draws - all while trying to minimize the need for physical or chemical restraint, which can be dangerous and stressful for both the staff and the animal.

So yeah, as a field we've come a long way for tossing a boomer ball to the animals and calling it a day.

Species Fact Profile: Pot-Bellied Seahorse (Hippocampus abdominalis)

                                                     Pot-Bellied (Big-Bellied) Seahorse

                                                       Hippocampus abdominalis (Lesson, 1827)

Range: Southeast Australia (including Tasmania), New Zealand.  Reports from Thailand and the Philippines unconfirmed

Habitat: Rocky reefs and shallow waters, estuaries, usually among algae and sea grasses.  Usually found at less than 50 meters deep, but sometimes at 100 meters.  Juveniles are pelagic

Diet: Small aquatic crustaceans, such as copepod

Social Grouping: Largely asocial outside of breeding groups

Reproduction: Reproduction occurs year round, but peaks in the warmer months.  Sexually mature at about 1-year-old (as early as 4 months).  Courtship consists of changing colors and postures, male inflating and opening and closing his stomach pouch, fins fluttering.  Aggregations of females may compete for the attention of a single male.  If she is receptive, she will change colors to match him.  Females transfer their eggs to the males, squirting them into the opening at the front of his pouch.  Males may brood 300-700 young at a time, with up to 4 broods per season.  Eggs from a single brood will be from a single female, with the male going to different females between broods.  Hatching occurs at night, usually at the full moon, 4-5 weeks after transfer.  Young immediately emerge from the pouch and float to the surface, grabbing debris with their tails

Lifespan: 3-6 Years

      Conservation Status:  IUCN Least Concern, CITES Appendix II

• One of the largest of sea horses, measuring up to 35 centimeters long (usually about 18 centimeters).  Largest in Australia.  Forward-tilted body with long-snouted head, narrow pot-bellied body (sometimes called the pot-bellied seahorse), and long, coiled tail.  Low, triangular coronet on top of the head.  Small dorsal fin.
• Coloring is a variable shade of brown (sometimes reddish or whitish), mottled with yellow-brown with some dark patches.  Tail circled with yellow bands.  Can change color to take on color of surroundings.  Those in deeper waters tend to be more brightly colored
• Males differ from females in having a soft, pouch-like area at the base of the abdomen, where stomach meets the tail.  Females have pointier stomach with more prominent fin at the base     
• Primarily forage at night, spending days in hiding in sea grasses or sponges.  Feed by sucking small organisms into tubular snout
• Genus name Hippocampus from the Greek for “Curved Horse.”  Species name abdominalis refers to enlarged, prominent abdomen.  It’s been suggested by some authorities that this species is actually two separate species – H. abdominalis and H. bleekeri, based on differences in head size, snout length, and the number of spines. 
• Dried specimens sometimes sold as traditional medicine or as an aphrodisiac in Asia.  Also popular in the aquarium trade. Sustainable harvesting allowed, sometimes caught as commercial bycatch.

·        

Commissary Keeper

At most zoos, the first members of the animal care staff to show up every morning aren't the keepers - it's the commissary staff.  A zoo has a lot of mouths to feed, and keeping them fed is a major task.  While at a smaller zoo that job of prepping diets may fall to the keepers themselves, many zoos - especially the larger ones - have designated commissary teams to handle the orders of animal feed - grains, produce, meats, supplements - prepare the diets, and deliver them to the animal areas.  At some zoos they may drop off a tote of veggies and a few sacks of grain or bales of hay for keepers to work with.  At others, the commissary team may make every single meal completely and deliver them to the keepers ready to serve.

Working the commissary is a lot like running a grocery delivery service.  (At one very small zoo where I worked, we actually sent a keeper to the grocery store once a week to do most of our shopping).  Much like a grocery store, the workers manage not only food, but other materials as well, such as cleaning supplies.   There are constant challenges of inventory (both making sure you don't run out of food items or that they don't go bad), supply chain and seasonality, and sourcing hard-to-find items.

Making zoo diets requires the balancing of several variables.  First, obviously, is health - how to make a diet that is as nutritionally complete as possible.  Secondly, there is palatability - it doesn't matter how good the diet is if the animal won't eat it.  Then, after you pick your perfect diet, you have to figure out, in many cases, how to make it varied - some animals will happily eat the same thing every day, others will get bored and want daily variation.  For a while, there was a heavy focus on diets that were commercially prepared and as complete as possible - sacks of chow, tubes of meat.  These may provide all of the nutrients that the animals need, but they can be a bit boring (ok, really boring) and fail to stimulate natural behaviors.  A snake may swallow a rat and then be inactive for days, but a primate or a bear may spend most of its waking hours foraging.  If their diet is just presented in a bowl once a day, they'll eat it in five minutes and then have nothing to do all day. 

Diets are constantly being tweaked based on seasonality (some animals eat more at some times of the year than others, or eat different foods at different times), health and reproductive status, and for other reasons, requiring keepers and commissary staff to be flexible and constantly adjusting their plans.  Perhaps an animal is prescribed a particularly unpleasant-tasting medicine - you may need to figure out how to find a food item that the animal will take it with.  Or, you may need to bulk an under-conditioned animal up, or slim down an over-conditioned one.  It's seldom possible to perfectly replicate the diet that an animal would have in the wild, and it's a constant challenge to find the best substitute for it.  For some species, there might not be a good substitute; if your zoo has koalas, you either need to grow your own eucalyptus, or source it from somewhere - perhaps even flying it in and no small cost.

Keeping the animals well-fed is a herculean task... as is washing all of the dishes afterwards.

Horticulturalist

It's been said that the animals are the stars of the zoo, but plants set the stage.  Before most visitors see a single animal upon entering the gates, their first impressions are already being formed by the landscape that they walk through.  In some cases it's formal gardens of flower beds.  In others it's manicured lawns.  In other's still it's wildness, either native habitat or a landscape that is meant to be evocative of the habitats from which the zoo's animals come.

And that's not even counting the plants and landscaping within the individual animal enclosures.

Responsibility for the zoo grounds falls to the horticulture team.  They are responsible for the upkeep on the plants on zoo grounds, often both in and out of the exhibits (though at some zoos keepers assume responsibility for the plants within animal habitats).  Many non-animal facilities have horticulturalists on staff, from business parks to universities to private estates to, of course, botanical gardens.  The duties and challenges of the zoo horticulturalist go beyond making the grounds aesthetically pleasing, however.  They are also responsible for maintaining plants that help provide comfortable living conditions for the animals.  That means choosing and cultivating plants that are  attractive and appealing for the animals.

Zoo animals come from all over the world, and, not surprisingly, so do the plants that the cohabit with.  Not all of those plants can thrive in the climates that we keep animals in, and while you can move a giraffe inside for the winter, it's not as easy to that with an Acacia tree.  So horticulturalists must work with plants that may not be natural to the animal, but will grow and thrive under the local climatic conditions.  They'll have to be plants that can take some abuse and attention from the animals - browsing, climbing, scratching, etc.  And besides keeping the plants safe from animals, they have to keep animals safe from plants (for a great fictional example, the original Jurassic Park features InGen's Stegosaurus repeatedly get sick from browsing on toxic plants). 

Many zoos tack on "and Gardens," or "and Botanical Gardens" to their name, and while I feel that some of them due it a little lazily, there are others which really are true botanical gardens with an equal emphasis on their plant collections, both in terms of size and scale of collection and the nature of the work they carry out.  At some zoos, the plants featured might even be more endangered than many of the animals.  The breadth of plant species on display (or cultivated for food on grounds) requires a tremendous degree of knowledge.  Like the zookeeper, however, much of the horticulturalists time and energy is usually taken up by the botanical equivalents of shoveling poop and chopping diets - mulching, raking, pruning, weeding, and watering.

Zoo Review: Tennessee Aquarium, Part II

 Until 2005, the focus of the Tennessee Aquarium was solely on freshwater ecosystems.  That changed with the opening of a second building on the campus, this one devoted to the world's oceans, Ocean Journey.  It could easily serve as a stand alone aquarium (I've been to aquariums that I've enjoyed less), though it does come across as a lot more "typical" and less unique than the original, freshwater building.  Still, this building does house most of the more popular, crowd-pleasing species of the aquarium, and certainly as its devotees.

The top floor of the second building (like the first building, we begin at the top and work  our way down) is home to a rainforest habitat under skylights similar to those of the Appalachian Cove Forest.  This forest, however, is the home of ring-tailed and red-ruffed lemurs, which can cross between habitats using an overhead tunnel system.  In keeping with the aquarium's commitment to rare chelonians, the lemurs also share their habitat with radiated tortoises; a variety of (non-Madagascar) fish inhabit the moat of the exhibit.  Interactive features of the floor include a walk-through butterfly habitat (with chrysalis chamber on display) and a stingray touch tank.

Visitors will be especially drawn to the sub-Antarctic penguin exhibit, home to Gentoo and macaroni penguins in a fairly typical habitat.  Much of the rest of Ocean Journey is standard marine aquarium exhibits, featuring many of the commonly-seen fish and invertebrates.  I especially liked the Japanese spider crab exhibit, which featured pop-up bubbles reminiscent of those often seen in prairie dog exhibits.  The spider crabs are a part of Boneless Beauties, an invertebrate gallery, which also includes jellyfish and giant Pacific octopus.  This invertebrate display is often supplemented with glass artwork from Chattanooga's Hunter Museum of American Art (I always enjoy it when zoos and aquariums form partnerships with other local cultural and educational facilities).  I also got a kick out of the seahorse exhibit; I recalled reading about the Tennessee Aquarium's seahorse breeding program years ago in the book Poseidon's Steed, one of my earliest introductions to the facility.  There is also a small island gallery, which mostly serves as an opportunity to display some terrestrial reptiles, as well as a coastline exhibit with cascading waves hammering rocky cliffs.

The largest exhibit in both the ocean building and the aquarium itself is Secret Reef, the aquarium's obligatory shark tank.  Styled after the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico, the nearly 620,000 gallon tank houses a variety of what I like to think of as "the usual suspects" that feature in most aquarium big shark tanks - headlined by the ever-popular sand tiger shark - as well as non-releasable sea turtles.  What set Secret Reef apart for me compared to many aquarium shark tanks was the viewing.  At most facilities, you get a big window into the tank.  Here, the visitor instead snakes alongside the tank, getting periodic glimpses through caverns and crevices.  I actually liked this approach better in some ways - it made viewing more intimate and created lots of senses of surprise and discovery, rather than taking in the entire scene in one glance.   I also appreciate it when zoos and aquariums try to tie their exhibits to a specific habitat, rather than some nebulous wild place.

Outside, yet another building houses an IMAX theater.  The Tennessee River itself is steps away from the aquarium, with beautiful views available.  It's well worth a walk, especially if you're a history buff - not only can you learn about Chattanooga's mercantile history, but the city features prominently in both the Trail of Tears and the US Civil War.  The Aquarium itself offers daily tours of the Tennessee River Gorge on its 65-foot catamaran.

Aquariums, much more so than zoos, have a tendency to be somewhat repetitive and monotonous - there are only so many ways that you can house a fish, after all.  And, as much as I enjoy aquariums in any capacity, it makes me all the more appreciative when I visit an aquarium that's very different or unique from the rest.  Monterey Bay Aquarium is one such facility, with its unique collection and beautiful exhibits, as well as its robust research and discovery programs.  Tennessee Aquarium, while much less-celebrated, impressed me just as much as a unique, extraordinary aquarium.   It may not have the scale and grandeur of the Shedd Aquarium, or the big-name species of the Georgia Aquarium, but it has a unique collection that it supports through involved conservation work.  It's focus on the freshwater makes it an aquarium like few others in the country, and one which I highly recommend seeking out.

Zoo Review: Tennessee Aquarium, Part I

Like many cities, when it came time for Chattanooga, Tennessee, to revitalize their waterfront, the city fathers decided upon building an aquarium as a centerpiece attraction.  The Tennessee Aquarium was one of several aquariums that opened in a relatively short time frame across the globe.  Aesthetically, both the interior and exterior bear a striking resemblance to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which was designed by the same architects.  So striking is the resemblance that a friend of mine who worked at NAiB and visited the Tennessee Aquarium with me joked that she could give a tour of the place without ever having stepped inside before.  In reality, Tennessee differs from Baltimore - from all of the other major US aquariums, really - in one key respect.  It's primary focus is not on the oceans as much as it is on the rivers and other freshwater habitats of the world.

A journey through the aquarium's freshwater building starts on the top floor.  At Baltimore this glass pyramid houses an Amazon rainforest (a fairly common exhibit at aquariums), but Chattanooga's focus is closer to home.  The Appalachian Cove Forest starts off with a habitat of North American river otters, which can be observed both above and below the water, before meandering into an indoor forest which houses native songbirds flitting about (easier to hear than see, alas).  The vast skylights allow much natural light to enter the exhibit, allowing native vegetation to flourish and create a very realistic habitat.  The exhibit than descends into the Mississippi Delta, where American alligators are the stars.  Situated along the gallery walls are tanks of native herps, such as gopher tortoises and ratsnakes, as well as the very impressive collection of small North American freshwater fish - shiners, darters - for which the aquarium is famous in professional circles.  I'm a zoo person primarily, and my interest in fish is usually drawn towards the biggest or weirdest species.  For the ichthyologically-inclined, however, the collection is an absolute treasure trove.

The exhibit eventually moves to deeper waters, and a more conventional aquarium setting, and it is hear that visitors will start to see the bigger fish of the river.  Among the impressive specimens seen are alligator gar, sturgeons, and, my personal favorite, prehistoric-looking paddlefish.  Smaller side displays include amphibians, such as hellbenders, as well as a lab-like display that highlights Tennessee Aquarium's impressive conservation work with native fish.

If the aquarium is famous in aquarist circles for its freshwater fish, zookeepers will best know Tennessee Aquarium for its other specialty of the house: turtles.  This facility has the most impressive public display of freshwater turtles that I've ever seen.  Some of the species are seen in a special turtle gallery, with each geographic display featuring a handful of species from that region.  Others can be seen in the nursery, where hatchlings are raised in smaller, simpler tanks to allow aquarium staff to monitor their growth.  Others still can be found in what was one of my favorite displays, Rivers of the World.  This section could have been an aquarium on its own, a gallery of tanks that featured freshwater fish and herps (including Chinese crocodile lizard, dwarf crocodile, and yes, more turtles) in habitats depicting riverscapes such as such as the Congo, China's Yangtze, and New Guinea's Fly River.  The variety of turtles here really is spectacular, including such rare and beautiful specimens as the bog turtle, spotted turtle, four-eyed turtle, Sulawesi forest turtle, and black-breasted leaf turtle (Asian forest turtles, being among the most endangered, are the best-represented here)

The center of the aquarium is a series of ramps sloping through the darkened interior of giant tanks housing giant river fish from around the world (again very reminiscent of Baltimore - this time taking the space of the Atlantic reef and shark habitats).  The tanks an international smorgasbord of big fish, such as giant stingrays, arapaimas, and Pangasius catfish (most aquariums have an Amazon fish tank, but the diversity of big fish from around the world is truly impressive).

Until the mid 2000's, this would have concluded the Tennessee Aquarium experience, but after the addition of a whole new compound, there's plenty more to see!  We'll explore that tomorrow. 

Tennessee Aquarium 

Life Support Technician

Years ago on this blog, I commented that, in my opinion, caring for aquatic life in an aquarium (especially deep sea species) is the closest we have to maintaining extraterrestrial beings in a zoo.  Years later, I'm still convinced that this is the case.  There are so many factors about the water quality that have to be managed -temperature, oxygen levels, clarity, chemical composition, pH, salinity.  Every aquatic species has its window that it will comfortably live in.  For some species that window is very wide.  For others, exceedingly narrow.

Sometimes referred to as water quality technicians, life support technicians are responsible for monitoring the suitability of water and other abiotic systems that support the living collection.  I especially associate them with managing the pumps and filters which keep the tanks from turning into a thick, smelly primordial soup.  At some facilities that work is divided among the aquarists, each responsible for the systems of their assigned habitats.  At others, there may be a designated team responsible for water quality.  I sometimes like to think of them as specialized zookeepers, only their "animals" are mechanical.

Some water quality tests are very easy to perform on the spot, such as temperature (using a thermometer) and pH.  Others require more sophisticated testing, using instruments which many zoos and aquariums may not have available.  At some facilities, there may be in-house labs, while others may send their water samples out to be tested at either a municipal lab or an independent lab.

Water quality is most associated with aquariums, of course, but it is also an important component of zoos.  It is measured and modified for enclosures that contain animals that spend much of their time in the water, such as penguins, crocodilians, and otters - even though these species breathe atmospheric air, their health can easily be negatively impacted by what's in the water.  USDA in particular has specific requirements for the water quality of habitats for marine mammals - dolphins, seals and sea lions, polar bears, manatees, etc.  Perhaps the most sensitive species to poor water quality are many of the amphibians, which spend much of their time in the water and, with their absorbent skin, are more susceptible to contaminants in the water.

Species Fact Profile: Kaiser Newt (Neurergus kaiseri)

                                                           Kaiser (Luristan) Newt

                                                       Neurergus kaiseri (Schmidt, 1952)

Range: Zagros Mountains (Iran)

Habitat:  Highland Streams and Pools, Arid Woodland

Diet: Small Invertebrates

Social Grouping: Asocial/Loosely Social

Reproduction: Breeding takes place in March or April, courtship taking place on land near water, with males fanning their tails to spread pheromones'.  Male deposits a sperm packet and guides the female over it to pick up in her cloaca.  Up t0 60 eggs laid in the water attached to a leaf.  Larva complete metamorphosis is 3-5 months.  Upon completed metamorphosis, move onto the land until they are ready to mate.  Mature at 2-4 years old

Lifespan: 10-15 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Vulnerable, CITES Appendix I

• Body length 10-14 centimeters.  Females are larger than males
• Primary color is black with a narrow stripe of red, orange, or yellow running gown the length of the back, several white spots on the sides and legs.  Bright coloration serves as a warning to potential predators that there are toxins in the skin
• During hot, dry summers, the newts may estivate underground to conserve moisture
• Very little studied in the wild, both due to rarity, limited range, and geopolitical relations between Iran and other countries.  Most knowledge of the species comes from a combination of work with captive animals and extrapolations from related salamander species
• Endangered due to extremely limited natural range, declining habitat (construction of dams may lead to localized droughts), and overcollection for the pet trade.  The species was previously listed as Critically Endangered, but recent estimates of the population indicate that there may be more individuals in the wild than were previously thought

Veterinary Technician

Apart from the zookeepers (and their supervisors - the lead keepers, collection managers, and curators), the most widely known position in the zoo to the general public is the veterinarian.  The size of a zoo's veterinary practice can vary widely.  Some of the larger zoos employee several vets.  A mid-sized facility typically has one or two.  The smallest facilities might not even have one, instead contracting out the services to an independent vet.  

If veterinarians are the animal equivalent of human doctors, than the vet techs (sometimes called "para-veterinary workers") fill the role of nurses.  These are the professionals who are responsible for much of basic running of the veterinary program, such as the administration of medications, changing bandages and cleaning wounds, assisting with surgeries, and other medical procedures.  In some situations, the vet tech may work largely independent of the vet; this is especially true at smaller facilities in which the contracted vet may come in only every week or so, leaving the majority of the operations to a vet tech who is employed at the facility.  At some facilities vet techs also double-function as zookeepers, caring for the animals that are kept in the zoo hospital, including those currently in quarantine. 

Like the veterinarians, vet techs must have familiarity with a wide variety of taxa, knowing what is normal for those species so that they can better diagnose when something is abnormal.  A knowledge of medications is also essential - how different drugs interact, how different species react to the same drugs (what cures one animal may kill another), and how best to administer them.  They also have to have experience working with a variety of technologies and materials, ranging from the high-tech, such as digital x-rays and anesthesia, to the much more low-tech, but still challenging, splints and bandages.  They also tend to be among the most experienced in direct handling of animals in a safe, effective manner.

The vet techs are a group of employees that I've never envied.  Unlike the zookeepers, their exposure to the animals is mostly limited to when things go wrong.  They have more exposure to the illness and injury of the collection, which means that they tend to deal with more than their fair share of death.  This is worsened by the sense of urgency and responsibility that they feel, a burden coming from the rest of the animal care employees that sometimes manifests itself as the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) question, "Why isn't it getting better?"  This question is seldom appreciated by the vet tech who has stayed up all night trying to nurse a sick animal back to health, only for it to succumb.  

The veterinarian is typically one of the most celebrated and respected members of any zoo staff, and competition for the positions can be very strident due to the low number of vacancies.  Even the most knowledgeable and respected vet, however, would typically accomplish very little without the skill and dedication of their vet techs.

Book Review: Bald Eagle - The Improbable Journey of America's Bird

"The charismatic bird became more than a patriotic totem.  It evolved into a measure of well Americans were advancing a healthier intercourse with nature, a place where people, not just wildlife, lived."

On the Fourth of July, patriotic imagery can be found just about everywhere - the flag, Lady Liberty, and, of course, the avian symbol of our nation, the bald eagle.  It's hard to imagine an America without the eagle, and the story of how this iconic bird almost went extinct due to the pesticide DDT, and its subsequent rescue by eagle-loving Americans in the nick of time is one of the cornerstones of our US conservation mythos.  And yes, that all happened.  As it turns out, though, that's not the entire story.  Pesticides and Silent Spring weren't the eagle's first brush with extinction.  And the first time, the eagle's near-demise was much more deliberate.

In The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America's Bird, Pulitzer Prize winner Jack E. Davis tells the full story of the species, from its early natural history to its role in pre-Columbian America to the fateful moment when some bepowdered-bigwigs in Philadelphia put the eagle on the seal of an upstart new country.  From the very beginning, America has had a two-sided relationship with the bald eagle.  As a symbol, it was (and still is) adored, used in all sorts of patriotic imagery and lore.  As for the real, live bird itself... there was considerably less enthusiasm.  

Sure, Davis picks up that old chestnut about Benjamin Franklin wanting to make our national bird the turkey, not the eagle (which, as with many of our founding legends, has some truth behind it, but also a lot of mythologizing).  Many early Americans, including naturalists such as John James Audubon, were dismissive of the eagle as a hunter, regarding it as a glorified vulture.  Other, however, thought it was a hunter... and too good of a hunter at that, one which posed a threat not only to our fisheries and animal agriculture, but to small children as well.  One of the earliest movies ever made, staring D. W. Griffith himself, is about a feather saving his baby from an evil eagle who has carried the child off for supper.

With such lousy PR, it's no wonder that for decades it was open-season on eagles.  Even organizations which ostensibly should have been in the birds' corner, such as the National Audubon Society, brushed aside any concerns about saving the raptors.  

The Bald Eagle is full of vignettes such as Griffith's movie, including "Old Abe," an eagle who was drafted as a Civil War mascot and saw active combat in the war, and the fascinating bureaucracy behind the National Eagle Repository, from which Native American tribes obtain eagle parts and feathers for ceremonies and regalia.  There are times at which the narrative seems a little waylaid by sidetracks as Davis pursues one anecdote after another, especially pursuing the biographies of some of the many humans - politicians, artists, scientists, enthusiasts - who become intertwined with the story of this species.  

That story is often held up as an example of American greatness - how when we, as a society, realized that we were on the verge of losing our national icon, we rallied to its defense and rescue, eventually resulting in its removal from the Endangered Species list.   The real story of the eagle's decline is much darker; there are plenty of folks from the last century who, upon being told that the bird might go extinct, would have replied, "Good."  Perhaps that's what makes the true story the better story, however - that our country was willing to change its collective mind about saving an endangered species - and if there was hope for saving the bald eagle, there might be reason to hope for other species as well.

The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America's Bird at Amazon.com

Other Duties As Assigned

When I was first trying to break into the zookeeping profession, I must have filled out hundreds of job applications, and for ever job I applied for, I must have read three or four job descriptions.  Tucked away towards the bottom of almost every single one of them, nestled as an afterthought to the list of responsibilities of the position, I'd almost invariably find a final bullet point with four words.

"Other duties as assigned."

This translates roughly as, "You are mostly hear to feed and clean up after the animals, but make no mistake.  Your job is what we say it is."

Over the past decade-and-a-half, those "other duties" have included construction, maintenance, guest services, parking lot management, painting, public relations, errand running, and more.  I've gotten jobs thrown my way ranging from unclogging the most horrifically befouled toilet I have ever seen to dressing up as a the Easter bunny and letting hundreds of kids climb all over me in 100 degree weather while wearing a fur suit and a mask almost completely devoid of airholes.  I preferred the toilet, to be honest. 

Most of this all happened when I worked at smaller zoos, where there is considerably less specialization among the staff, though sometimes the bigger zoos I've worked at have also had "all hands on deck" situations, like zoo-wide clean ups and major events.   And there are some things that you're always expected to do, even if there's someone else with that specific job, like pick up trash that you see on grounds, or assist visitors with questions or concerns, animal-related or otherwise.

There are times when I prefer the big-zoo life, where you have your job, you know what it is, and you can really focus on it, specializing at it.  There are other days when I prefer how it is at a small zoo, when every day is different and your hair is a mess from pulling on and off a half dozen hats a day, metaphorically speaking. 

At the smaller zoos I've worked at, keepers or other staff have often taken on many of the jobs we'll be looking at this month.  At bigger zoos, the roles are more defined and specialized.  All are important to the functioning of the facility and the wellbeing of the animals, in one form of another.
 

It Takes a Village

As I may have mentioned from time to time on this blog, when I was growing up, the only thing I ever wanted to be was a zookeeper (which, considering how many of my classmates wanted to grow up to be professional football players, astronauts, President of the United States, or princess ballerinas, seemed fairly reasonable to me).  I was in preschool and kindergarten back then.  All I knew was that I loved the zoo, and the zookeepers were the folks who worked there.

Which is true.  But they aren't the only ones who work there.

Every month or so, my zoo has an all-staff meeting.  It's a decent sized zoo - not one of the mega giants, but still a fairly large one with a large staff.   Without fail, every time I go to one of these meetings, I'm immediately struck by the question - who are all of these people?

The animal department represents only a fraction of them - a sizeable one, perhaps the largest individual piece, but by no means the majority.  As younger me didn't realize, running a zoo takes a village.

Some of the folks there have the sorts of jobs you might see at any organization - HR, marketing, finance, custodial.  There are other positions, however, which are somewhat more unique to the zoo world - not just the animal keepers, but a host of other positions which are needed to keep the zoo functioning.  At some zoos - like some of the very small ones I've worked at - their duties might be absorbed by keepers.  At very large zoos, they might represent separate departments.  At mid-sized places, maybe it's just one person per job, or one person taking on two or three jobs.

So this month (which happens to also feature National Zookeeper Week), I'm going to shine some light on some of the less-celebrated by still-essential folks who make the zoo go round.