From the News: Sea Lion Escape at Central Park

The weather this past week in the northeast has been horrendous.  Perhaps no clip has been featured on the news more than that of the sea lion that (temporarily) escaped from its enclosure at the Central Park Zoo after extreme rainfall flooded the pool and allowed the marine mammal to swim out of its habitat.

Thankfully, the animals are all back safe and sound.

Whack-a-Mole

For many folks, the roiling call of the kookaburra is the most memorable trait of the species.  For me, it's the second.  What I remember the most about every kookaburra I've worked with (except for Bloke, who I mostly remember for repeatedly hammering me between the eyes when I tried checking on the nest one day) is feeding them.  That and how grateful I am that I'm too big to be considered suitable prey.

Kookaburras are birds that prey on small animals, but they aren't birds of prey.  They aren't eagles or hawks or falcons, with powerful talons and muscular legs.  The claws of the kookaburra are pretty non-existent.  The beak, while robust and strong, isn't very sharp.  How, then, to subdue and kill prey, which may include venomous snakes longer than the bird itself?  By cheerfully beating it to death on a handy branch.

Unlike a lot of feeding behaviors of predatory birds (such as the dive-bomb of a peregrine falcon), this is one that kookaburras can easily demonstrate in zoos.  They will perform it even if the prey in question is already dispatched, as their mice or other offered prey tend to be.  They'll swoop down (some have even been willing to take it out of my hand), fly back to their perch, and then whack it over and over again with a series of small but still audible thuds.  Then, down the hatch it goes, whole.

Kids run to the kookaburra exhibit whenever the birds start calling, attracted by their laughter.  Many try to laugh back at the kooks, seeing if they can provoke more calls.  But, the laughter tends to turn to stunned silence at feeding time, when the beatdown begins.

Species Fact Profile: Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaguineae)

                                                              Laughing Kookaburra

                                                       Dacelo novaguineae (Hermann, 1783)

Range: Eastern Australia.  Introduced to Western Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand. 

Habitat:  Dry Eucalypt Forest, Woodland.  Most common where understory is sparse, grassy

Diet: Lizards, Insects, Worms, Snakes, Rodents, Crayfish, and Fish

Social Grouping:  Breeding pairs, accompanied by as many as five fully-grown, non-breeding offspring from previous clutches, which will stay with their parents to help defend the territory and raise their younger siblings.

Reproduction:  Monogamous, generally for life.   Breeding season starts in August, peaking in September, going through November (if first nesting attempt fails, they may start again).  Nest in unlined tree cavities or in holes excavated in arboreal termite nests.  Clutch typically consists of three glossy white eggs.  Both parents incubate eggs for 24-29 days.  Fledge at 32-40 days, female chicks disperse at 1-2 years of age, male chicks at 2-4 years

Lifespan: 20-30 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern

• Largest species of kingfisher (larger than the giant kingfisher).  Body length 41-47 centimeters.  Females larger, weigh average of 350 grams (but up to 465), versus average of 300 (but up to 450) for males.  Large head with a long, robust bill.  There is a prominent bony ridge at the back of the skull with strong muscles in the neck to aid in killing prey.  Legs are relatively short, weak
• Sexes look alike 9though females often have less blue on their rump).  Upperparts dark brown with some mottled light-blue patching on the wing coverts.  Underparts creamy white.  Tail barred with rufous and black.  Dark brown striped behind each eye.  Eyes are large and brown.  Juveniles are slightly darker than adults when they first grow feathers, but have adult plumage by the time they are about 3 months old
• Territorial call is a distinctive laugh, starting as a low, hiccupping chuckle before picking up volume and intensity, often with several birds calling at the same time (widely used as stock sound effect for jungle movies).  Calls most frequently heard at dawn, dusk, hence their nickname of “the bushman’s clock”)
• Species is sedentary and non-migratory.  Occur at densities of 0.04-0.8 birds per hectare.  Territories mostly marked through calls, will engage in heavily ritualized flight displays to avoid actual physical combat with rivals and neighbors
• Prey is usually swooped down upon from a perch.  Prey is often subdued or killed by being repeatedly bashed against the bird’s perch.  Indigestible components of the diet are regurgitated as a cast
• Predators include large owls and diurnal raptors, while chicks and incubating birds are vulnerable to pythons, varanids, and quolls.  Introduced foxes and cats may also predate adults.  Significant source of mortality is collision with cars
• Name comes from the Wiradhuri name for this species, gugubarra
• Despite scientific name, not found in New Guinea.  First described and illustrated by the French naturalist and explorer Pierre Sonnerat in this narrative Voyage a la nouvelle Guinee, published in 1776 but probably described based on a specimen provided by a naturalist from the Cook Expedition
• Two subspecies recognized – the nominate in eastern Australia (also the subspecies introduced outside of the range), and D. n. minor, in the Cape York Peninsula, which is smaller in size.  All birds in US zoos are of the nominate subspecies
• Commonly encountered in parks, gardens, even urban areas.  Can become very tame, even taking food from people’s hands and allowing their bellies to be rubbed (there are some problems with scavenging from humans, such as stealing hamburgers off of grills, resulting in incomplete, unhealthy diets)
• Commonly known through the 1932 nursery rhyme “Kookaburra,” written by Marion Sinclair (“Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…”).  Species is widely depicted in Australian culture, including on stamps, currency, and as a sport mascot (one of the mascots of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, held in Sydney)

Zookeeper's Journal: I remember a few years back, uncrating a newly arrived kookaburra at our zoo.  It was the first of its species to ever be housed there, and one of the keepers, who was assisting me as I settled it into quarantine, had never seen one before.  When he did, he was not impressed - "the ugliest bird ever" is how he described it.  I thought he was being pretty harsh.  Granted, I never thought of kooks as especially pretty birds - something about their oversized beak and their seemingly-smirking face - but it's not their shape or plumage you remember when meeting one.  It's their voice.  That roiling, wild laughter has made them the living soundtrack of many Australian exhibits, and one of the most memorable of all zoo vocalizations.  Even though I know it's usually wildly out of place, whenever I watch a jungle movie set in Africa or South America and hear that distinctive cry in the background, I never fail to smile... and then scowl and complain about the lack of geographic accuracy

Historical Fiction

It was a rainy, crummy weekend, so I took advantage of the time not spent doing work stuff to hunker down on the couch with a book.  The book I was working my way through was Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan, a historical fiction adventure of a young enslaved man in Barbados in the early 1800s, who befriends an eccentric scientist, escapes the plantation, and goes on to travel the world and have adventures.  One subplot which I had not anticipated involves the title character, who by the end of the book has developed considerable expertise as a scientific illustrator, planning to open what would be the world's first display of marine organisms (one of his artistic specialties) in what he and his newfound partners dub "The Ocean House."  

This, of course, is a fictionalized retelling of the founding of the first aquarium at the London Zoo, which occurred roughly around this time.

The aquarium part of Washington Black wasn't a big enough component of the book to make me want to include it for a book review here.  Still, I really get a huge kick out of seeing zoos and aquariums make guest appearances - however fleeting - in works of historic fiction.  I especially enjoy it when it's in a context that you might not expect, or an era that's no one we particularly associate with the institutions.  I read a book a few years ago that, in part, featured the royal menagerie of the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul - in the 1700s.  Based on the descriptions of some of the animals housed there, it probably wasn't a very realistic depiction, but it was still pretty unexpected.  

Another historic book I read, Buffalo Girls, by Larry McMurtry, featured as a side character a former beaver trapper who found employment in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in the 1800s alongside Sitting Bull, Annie Oakley, and Calamity Jane on its tour of England.  While in London, the trapper stumbles across the London Zoo, and is absolutely spellbound to see... a beaver.  Thousands of miles away from where he would expect to see one, and long after he'd thought them trapped out.  The trapper is so moved by the experience - and the concept of the zoo - that he begins to formulate a plan to restore beaver to the American west.

Little literary asides like these made me smile, thinking that, hundreds of years ago, there were folks going to the zoo, seeing animals for the first time, and being enchanted by them.  There was almost certainly back then for whom a trip to the zoo or menagerie or prototype aquarium was the most wonderful thing imaginable, the highlight of their year, and all they could talk about or think about.

I could relate. 

Students Saving Snakes

I just read an article about this amazing program at a high school in Arkansas.  Young conservationists are given the innovative opportunity to help save one of the country's rarest species - the Louisiana pine snake - through captive breeding and research.   Just think of how many high schools, and community colleges, and four-year colleges and universities there are in this country.  Obviously, they aren't going to managing California condors or Mexican gray wolves - but think of how many endangered invertebrates, and small freshwater fish, and reptiles and amphibians and very small mammals there are.  That's not even touching endangered plants.  Different schools around the country could each adopt a local endangered species - some schools could work as a coalition to care for one species.  If even only a very small percentage of facilities were to opt into a program like this, the collective impact could be enormous.

Besides the conservation impact, imagine the benefits for the students.  Not only the skills learned, but the knowledge and experience that, before you were even a legal adult, you worked to help make such a dramatic difference to make the world a better place... at least for pine snakes.

High School Makes History By Repopulating Rare Species

Sporcle Quiz: Sporcle at the Zoo - Birds of Paradise

 Sporcle at the Zoo - Birds of Paradise

Who You Gonna Call?

I got a text this morning from a colleague, asking a question about hand-rearing flamingos.  I had absolutely no idea what the correct answer would have been - I've never hand-reared flamingos.  Fortunately, the question didn't just go out to me - it was part of a text group of keeper friends, a few of which did have extensive experience with this situation, and who were able to provide some helpful info.  As a bonus, I got to read along and learn, more for my own curiosity than for any practical application.

Over the past few decades, we've greatly expanded our collective knowledge about exotic animal husbandry - but it would be fair to say that this information isn't exactly neatly compiled.  There aren't many authoritative textbooks or published guidelines, for instance.  A few years back, AZA decided that it was going to create a uniform series of Animal Care Manuals to cover all taxa in zoo and aquarium collections.  Now, two decades later, only a relatively small number have been published due to the onerous process of researching and wring them - and, in my experience, they're so stuffed to the gills with boilerplate text (AZA does seem to have a compulsion for uniformity) that they aren't especially useful resources.

Most of our knowledge seems to be floating around in the ether - or, more accurately, trapped in the heads of various colleagues, more folklore than science.  The challenge has been making it accessible to pass it down to future generations.  Right now, the main venue for getting answers seems to be shouting questions out into the (professional) void - and bracing yourself for the fact that the answers that you get back may be contradictory.  I've been on a few facebook groups geared towards zoo professionals, for instance, and some of the advice I've seen offered there from people who are extremely confident is mind-bogglingly wrong.  But how would you know that unless you already knew the right answer?

And so a major part of the job ends up being a combination of researching what verified, published sources there are, trying to cultivate a network of folks with expertise and opinions that you trust, and trying to be a good, accurate resource for those that you can help.

Might be easier if we just did a better job of writing things down.

Satire: Kea Car Disassembly

Well now I'm just very taken with the idea of a flock of kea being stuck in an IKEA overnight, and wondering what sorts of mischief they could come up with.  For those who have never had the pleasure, the cheeky alpine parrots are famed for their love of taking things apart, which I suppose would make them IKEA's natural predator.  Image by Glen Jones, taken from the Facebook page "Birds New Zealand."

Hosting a Wild Event

The Lotus Pavilion towers over Sanctuary Asia at the Oklahoma City Zoo.  It's one of the most readily recognizable structures on campus.  I was hurrying towards it with no little sense of expectation - what would I find inside?  Aquariums?  Reptiles and amphibians?  An aviary?  A small mammal house?  A... food court?  Yep, it was the food court.  And event space.  Lots of event space.  Not even a gecko in a tank to hold my interest before I sadly sulked out.

I can't fault OKC.  Zoos are expensive to run, and to run them successfully takes income - ideally income that you can generate yourself, and isn't in the hands of fickle private donors, or equally fickle government entities.  Many zoos and aquariums now generate an increasing amount of their revenue from private events.  Whether weddings or corporate events or whatever, folks are willing to pay to have their private events at zoos.  Sometimes it's during the day and they visit the zoo as other guests do, perhaps with a catered meal somewhere and some special experiences arranged.  Sometimes it's after hours, maybe even late into the night.

This is changing how many zoos structure themselves.  Many now have entire departments geared towards special events and private parties, which would have been very difficult to imagine when I started off years ago.  It requires considerable collaboration with animal staff.  Will animals be kept out longer than usual to be viewable by evening events?  What species will be most likely to be disturbed or bothered by the noise, light, and other factors caused by these events?  How can events best be planned so that they don't have a negative impact on animal welfare?

These events also play a major role in shaping the future landscape of the zoo.  There is a lot of competition for event venues.  A zoo can't put out some folding chairs and tables and hope for the best, or assume that the cute animals will carry the event on their shoulders and make customers overlook an otherwise unsatisfactory event.  Many zoos are planning special buildings or private viewing areas - such as scenic overlooks of outdoor exhibits - for the primary purpose of being event space.  This can irk both staff (being those who aren't involved in the budget process) and members of the public (being those who aren't booking events), who might rather those spaces go to animal exhibits or other areas that are more central to the zoo's mission and the visitor's experience.

As one co-worker of mine groused upon looking at a copy of a masterplan for our facility, "We're turning into an event venue with a few animals on the side!"

Smart zoos (and, do be clear, I do count Oklahoma City in their ranks) can find a way to strike a balance between meeting the demands of the public for quality event space, which in turn helps to finance the zoo's operations and missions, and the primary goal of the zoo - the conservation of animals and the introduction and education of the public regarding those animals.  Zoos are primarily for animals.  After that, they're for people - those who plan to book a private evening event, as well as those who don't.

The Flying Possums of Perth

Over the years, I've had to devote a lot of mental bandwidth to figuring out ways to protect zoo animals from native wildlife. I suppose I should also have spent some time contemplating how to protect native wildlife from zoo animals.  For what it's worth, Perth Zoo released a statement assuring everyone that the possum so unceremoniously evicted from this climbing structure by the orangutan is, in fact, okay.

Behind the Scenes of the Panda Wars

In the past year, I've written occasionally about the strange online drama that swirled around the giant pandas that recently lived at the Memphis Zoo.  This article sheds a little more light on that controversy, and tells us, as I suspected, that the controversy had a lot more to do with geopolitical tension and social media attention than it ever had to do about animal welfare.  Troll armies are one of the things that they never prepared us for when I first started working in zoos.

Panda exchange program targeted by misinformation, driving anti-US narratives in China

Zoo Review: Oklahoma City and Botanical Garden, Part II

 Continuing with the Oklahoma City Zoo, we enter the section closer to the entrance of the zoo, which is more taxonomic in theme.  Cat Forest takes a new twist on the old felid houses which were once a staple of American zoos.  Here, a wide variety of the world's cats are presented in outdoor habitats, arranged round a central holding building which visitors do not access.  Among the species seen here are jaguar, clouded leopard, caracal, and serval.  (I remember other cats being housed her historically - including my first ever black-footed cats, but lineups do change over the years).  Tigers are the stars of this exhibit complex.  A handsome pride of lions can be found in a hillside habitat across the trail in Lion Overlook.  Such taxonomic exhibits have fallen out of favor over the years, but I think they can offer educational benefit is done well, being just as educational as geographic exhibits.

Another popular taxonomic grouping is the Great EscApe, which features indoor and outdoor viewing of gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans.  Indoor accommodations are somewhat drab (as indoor ape exhibits so often are), but the outside habitats are large and grassy, with lots of climbing structures.

A series of small ponds for turtles lines the pathway to the excellent Herpetarium.  Some visitors, especially those only casually interested in reptiles, may breeze through it - the exhibits are fairly typical in design, and there aren't many of the giant reptiles which tend to really capture the public's attention - no crocodilians, for example.  There are, however, an impressive number of unique species here, including some real rarities, such as Halmahera python.  As seems to be the case with many zoos in the south-central and southwestern US, Oklahoma City Zoo has a very strong venomous collection.

Bigger reptiles can be seen in the nearby Children's Zoo, where Galapagos tortoises plod around a yard.  Other occupants include squirrel monkeys, parrots, and flamingos.  The kid's area also features those three staples of US zoos, a goat corral, lorikeet feeding aviary, and (slightly further away) a stingray pool.  

Tucked away by the entrance of the zoo is the Dan A. Moran Aviary, a fairly small building with a few mixed-species aviaries of mostly Southeast Asian species, with a little geographic diversity thrown in.  Modest, but a cool selection of interesting species, such as Vietnam pheasant, hooded pitta, and spotted whistling duck.   Besides, traditional bird houses are something of a rarity these days, which has led in part to the decline of smaller, tropical species in many collections. Outside and around the corner are more aviaries, including some especially large ones for Andean condors and cinerous vultures, while a series of small mammal grottos (the zoo's old bear dens - one of which has been converted into a picnic area) front the lake.  Since my last visit, the aquarium (which once served as a dolphinarium) has been closed, but it is under renovation, and new habitats for sea lions and penguins are expected in the near future.  I'm not sure if a traditional marine aquarium for fish will also be returning.

I am perpetually confounded that Oklahoma City Zoo isn't more widely regarded as one of the top zoos in the country.  Both the size and diversity of its collection and the quality of its exhibits are very impressive.  Like many zoos, there has been some loss of unique species in recent years.  The construction of the African and Asian areas has eaten up land that once featured expansive hoofstock yard, an impressive collection of wild canids, and a unique Islands building that served as an excellent complement to the Herpetarium and aviary (marine iguanas were once a great rarity held at this zoo, no longer present in the US).  

Such losses are, perhaps, inevitable as zoos prioritize sustainable collections and larger, more complex habitats - but OKC still compares very favorable to many large urban zoos around the country.  This growth and expansion has been the result of considerable investment from the city; years ago, taxpayers voted in favor of expenditures to improve cultural attractions in their city, with the zoo being a prime recipient.  I look forward to a future return to see Expedition Africa... and whatever masterpiece the zoo starts to work on after that.

Zoo Review: Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden, Part I

While many of America's largest cities (and most venerated zoos) are on the coast, I've found that many of its truly great zoos are in the heartland.  Perhaps it's because they are a bit younger, and aren't as handicapped by historical structures which need to be preserved.  Perhaps it's because they tend to have more space to work with.  At any rate, I've often been surprised at where I find my favorite zoos.  One such unexpected surprised for me was the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden.  

I actually had a chance to work at the Oklahoma City Zoo years ago, right out of college.  My first job out of school was going to be one of two zoos, neither of which I'd visited before, and I had to make my decision sight-unseen.  I chose the other.  Months later, I visited Oklahoma City Zoo for the first time, and by the time I walked out the gate, my only thought was, "Man, did I bet on the wrong horse..."  I recently visited it again for the first time in over a decade, and it's only gotten better - and continues to improve.

The zoo, nestled alongside an enormous, beautiful lake (which in itself provides some great birdwatching), is split between taxonomic-themed exhibit areas and geographic ones, with most of the newer exhibits being geographic in scope.   The newest area, Expedition Africa, was in the final stages of construction at the time of my visit, and while I was able to see some of the exhibits as part of the tour, I don't have a full scope of what it will look like, though I suspect it will be incredible, based on the peaks I was given.  Expedition will feature new habitats for some species currently in the collection, as well as new habitats for new species, such as spotted hyena, wildebeest, honey badger, and the denizens of a small animal house, with fish, reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals (including the ever-popular naked mole rat).  I strongly approve of this - too often, African exhibits focus on the megafauna, while ignoring the much smaller but equally fascinating small animals of the continent.  I'm sure Expedition will be a sensation when it opens later this year, and I look forward to going back to see the final project.

The vicinity of this new African area currently has a few exhibits of African wildlife - okapi, giraffe, cheetah, African wild dog - which will be incorporated into the region.  Camel rides are also nearby, though I was unsure how those would fit into the exhibit plan, or if they would be left as is.

Prior to Africa, the zoo's latest major expansion was Sanctuary Asia.  Unlike Africa, Asia is pretty focused on the biggest and most popular of animals, and the cast is fairly familiar to many zoo visitors - though the habitats themselves are quite nice.  The biggest exhibit is for the breeding herd of Asian elephants, which occupy a series of large paddocks, complete with pools, shade structures, and dust bathing areas, centered around a large, heavily-themed barn.  The elephant exhibit itself is larger than some small zoos.  Elephants can be observed doing training demonstrations in an amphitheater, while the inside of their large, temple-like barn is visible through large windows, providing a behind-the-scenes peak into how the elephants are managed.  For neighbors, the elephants have the second-largest zoo residents, Indian rhinoceroses, which occupy their own spacious yard.  The nearby Lotus Pavilion is a two-story food court and event space, which is surrounded by habitats for cassowary, red panda, Komodo dragon, and Francois' langur.  The later (at least at the time of my visit earlier this year) shared exhibit space with raccoon dog, a very rarely kept species in the US and one of the highlights of the trip for me.  Again, some smaller species would have improved the experience, though small Asian birds and herps are exhibited elsewhere in the zoo.

Sanctuary Asia is nice, but for me, the real star of the zoo is Oklahoma Trail, a beautiful, thoroughly-complete complex of the wildlife of this vast, diverse state.  I feel in love with it when I first visited it years ago, and while a few species have phased out of the collection since then, most notably the Mexican and red wolves, it's still pretty spectacular.  With its own walk-through aviary, reptile house/aquarium, and nocturnal house (admittedly all three are fairly small), the trail could serve as a stand alone facility almost.  Along the looping trail, the entrance guarded by a bear statue, visitors will encounter coyote, bald eagle, puma, and whooping crane, among other species.  The small walk-through aviary houses a pleasant variety of birds, with a side aviary for greater roadrunners, perhaps my favorite bird of the American west.  Right next door is a red barnlike structure which serves as a small nocturnal house, with bats, amphibians, owls, and a habitat for ringtails - small, cat-like carnivores which are actually more closely-related to raccoons.  This is only the second time I'd ever seen the species, and never so active.  Nocturnal houses themselves are increasingly uncommon in zoos, and while it was pretty small, it was still a novel experience.

Outside are the big guns of the section - a large paddock of American bison (with a prairie dog exhibit set in the front) and the grizzly bears.  The grizzly bears can also be seen eye-to-eye through glass windows of the Big Rivers building, which houses reptiles, amphibians, and fish, with the wall opposite of the bears serving as underwater viewing into a display of river otters.  Outside, American blacks bears, alligators, and elk round out the collection.  I could easily imagine Oklahoma Trails serving as an excellent nature center if it was found elsewhere, maybe in a small town which couldn't support an enormous zoo like this.  If there was just one thing I would change about it if I could, I'd have more space and spread the exhibits out a little more, creating more room for native habitats and wildlife to appear, complimenting the exhibits.  I think a few exhibits on the history and culture of Oklahoma would also be a nice touch.

Speaking of history, between Oklahoma Trails and Sanctuary Asia is a small, brick building - this is the Gambulos ZooZeum, which tells the history of the institution since it's opening back in 1903.  It's a novel feature, one that I wish more zoos and aquariums would include.

Tomorrow, we'll look at the rest of the zoo, which is more taxonomic in scope.

Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden

Birth of a Giraffe

Footage of the birth of a giraffe at Zoologisk Have.  Some species, you just have to wonder how do they survive in the wild...

Book Review: That Bear Ate My Pants! Adventures of a Real Idiot Abroad

 "'But seriously, I want to know - is there anything here that hasn't bitten you?'
I was forced to think hard for a response.  Machita?  Bitten me.  Don Juan?  Bitten me?  Monkeys, cats, even my beloved Snotty McSnot.  And as for the parrots... it did seem rather excessive.
'Is there anything?' he prompted.
'Yes actually, there is,' I told him.  'The horse!' And with that I stalked off to bleed in the dorm room."

To enjoy a book, I need it to do one to three things.  It has to inform me, provoke me, or entertain me, or preferably some combination thereof.  I had high hopes for That Bear Ate My Pants! Adventures of a Real Idiot Abroad, in which Tony James Slater recounts his time spent volunteering at a wild animal sanctuary in Ecuador.  I've travelled in Ecuador and had some experiences with the wildlife and rescue facilities there, so I was looking forward to a fun set of animal-centric stories.  I was pretty disappointed.

Slater's not an animal person, nor does he show much interest in animals.  He frequently misidentifies things to the point where I'm not always sure what he's talking about.  When he writes about the animals, they seem to occupy some nebulous space between pets and comedic props - there were some cases in which I felt death or sickness were being used for comedic effect.  It almost felt like he thought everything was beneath him - I guess he was going for the classic, jaded Brit abroad stereotype.  I get it, the dude wasn't traveling to Ecuador because he wanted necessarily to work with animals, it was just a chance to escape a humdrum life.  Sometimes an outside perspective can be fun to read, and like I said, being informative isn't the only thing that a book has to offer.  That's what textbooks are for.

It's just that the book also failed to be entertaining.  I have to say, the author came across as kind of an unlikeable jerk.  I swear, he spends most of the book complaining about one of his fellow volunteers to a degree that seems almost obsessive.  What makes it more distasteful to me is that he (repeatedly) mentions that he wouldn't have minded her so much if she'd been hot.  What a prince.

I've read a lot of fun books that have been about a young person's first crash-course in the unpredictable world of wild animal care.  Some of them are my favorite books and I re-read them several times.  I'd been hoping that this would be such a book.  Instead, I was glad to finally be at the end of it.

That Bear Ate My Pants! Adventures of a Real Idiot Abroad on Amazon.

The Frog Keepers

In recounting the drama of animal ownership within zoos and aquariums, few species pose as great of a headache as the Panamanian golden frog.  The story of golden frogs in American zoos is a fairly short one - about 20 years.  Not that there was much of a golden frog story before then, either.  The frogs were barely studied in their wild habitat in Panama when, in the early 2000s, the deadly chytrid fungus began working its way down Central America.  Teams from The Baltimore Zoo and Detroit Zoo collected as many frogs as they could to start an emergency captive breeding population.

It's lucky that they did.  Shortly after the time that they were collecting, the BBC was in Panama trying to get footage for the frogs as a follow up to a segment they'd shot for the David Attenborough series Life in Cold Blood.  There were none to be found - nor have any been seen since.  The Panamanian golden frog is likely extinct in the wild. 

In situations such as this, it's customary for ownership of animals to be held by the range country.  Panama, however, had neither the resources nor the personnel to carry out a breeding program, or track ownership of frogs (themselves a fast-reproducing species) in foreign zoos.  Instead, the decision was made to have ownership of all frogs in the name of The Baltimore Zoo, since renamed the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.  All frogs in the US (and now in Canada) are in the zoo's name.

Ownership comes with some conditions in the import permits issued by the US government - for example, Baltimore is not allowed to send the frogs outside of AZA, with the exception of some that go to university labs for research.  There have been strict efforts to keep the frogs out of the private sector and the pet trade, which appear to have been successful (if there are frogs out there illegally, they're being kept very quietly).  Among other benefits, this prevents the possibility of these frogs being hybridized with other frog species, which would contaminate the gene pool in the hopeful eventuality of a reintroduction program.  So concerned are the zoos about this that there isn't just a studbook for golden frogs - there are three, based on three separate populations that were rescued by the zoos in the early 2000s.  It's a good thing that they were tracked separately, because it turns out that one population was actually a different species than the other two.

Compared to mammals and birds, frogs can be tricky to keep track off.  They breed in huge numbers, transition through different life stages, and tend to look a lot alike, all of which can make it hard for zoos to monitor their numbers.  The problem is complicated because some zoos manage their frogs not as individual animals but as groups, with, say, a group of 20 frogs being tracked as a single entity.  

This has made the Panamanian golden frog one of the most difficult animal populations to accurately monitor in US zoos - but having a single owning entity to keep track of all frogs and with the ability to enforce decisions about where they go and when and to whom they are bred has helped keep it from descending into utter chaos.  All of this will hopefully pay off, someday, when a well-managed, genetically-diverse population of frogs can be successfully and safely reintroduced to Panama.  

Leave Me A Loan

Later this year, the giant pandas of the National Zoo and Zoo Atlanta will be returning to China.  Earlier this year, there was outrage over the handling of a kiwi at Zoo Miami, with some online voices demanding the bird be sent to New Zealand.  Every day in between, there are countless movements and shufflings of animals of all sorts - animals being moved as part of breeding programs, social pairings, rescue efforts, and various other reasons.

In all of these situations, there is one important aspect that many members of the public don't understand - who owns the animal involved?

Zoos don't like to talk about it too much - anti-zoo folks often frame zoos in terms of slavery, which makes talk of ownership can sound distasteful, animals being reduced to property.  The thing is, legally speaking... that's what they are.  Just as we own our dogs and cats, as much as we talk about "adoption" and "fur babies," every zoo or aquarium animal in the country legally belongs to someone.  It may be a private individual, in the case of a privately-owned zoo, or a nonprofit, or a government agency.  All bald eagles in zoos in the United States, for example, are owned by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  It may even be a foreign government - all golden lion tamarins are owned by the Brazilian government.

  

There is plenty of recognition of the fact that animals aren't *just* property - a dog or cat or elephant has more legal rights and protections than, say, a car or an end table.  But the legal owner is the person who has the authority to make decisions about that animal and is responsible for it.  That gets lost on some folks.

The giant pandas are going back to China because... they're China's pandas.  China owns them.  They have just been on loan here, and are slated to return following the completion of that loan.  Conversely, despite all of the demands for the Zoo Miami kiwi to go back to New Zealand, it was NOT New Zealand's kiwi - it belongs, legally, to Zoo Miami.  Zoo Miami opted to change some husbandry protocols in response to the outcry over the bird, but that was their decision.  If they wanted to keep doing photo ops with it, that was their - legal - right.

Whenever an animal transaction takes place in a zoo, it's important for the zoo to establish legal ownership.  If you want to send an animal to another zoo - do you own it, or is it in on loan from someone else?  If the later, do they give permission for the move?  If you bring in an animal, is it a donation, or is it on loan?  If it is on loan, what are the terms?  Is it a breeding loan - in which case, ownership of the offspring may be divided between the organization that owns the dam and the one that owns the sire (and, if both are at a separate third facility, it may be a three-way loan).  Is it an exhibit loan, with breeding prohibited?

These days, most zoos donate animals - it keeps things simpler, and reduces monetary association over the animals.  Some zoos like to retain ownership of animals on loan, just to make sure that they can guarantee that the animal won't ever wind up in a bad situation.   It can all lead to a lot of paperwork and not a little bit of confusion, depending on the situation.

Species Fact Profile: Congo Peafowl (Afropavo congensis)

                                                                      Congo Peafowl

                                                       Afropavo congensis (Chapin, 1936)

Range: Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Habitat:  Lowland Rainforest (Primary or old-growth Secondary), up to 1200 meters elevation.  Often associated with streams, floodplains, closed canopy.

Diet: Fruit, Berries, Terrestrial Invertebrates, Seeds, Ant Eggs

Social Grouping:  Males are territorial, especially during the breeding season, may attack other peacocks after giving a warning call and a display.  Occurs at low densities

Reproduction:  Monogamous.  Breeding takes place in the trees.  Nesting may take place in trees or above the ground.  Breeding season may be determined by rainfall (season seems to be March through November), females may have multiple clutches per year, using the same nest (some birds up to 6 clutches per year).  Each clutch has 2-3 red-yellow unmarked eggs, measuring 5.8-6 x 4.5-5 centimeters.  Incubation is 26-28 days.  Both parents care for chicks (hen incubates while the cock guards).  Chicks are precocial, can walk as soon as they hatch.  Fed by parents, either directly or by placing food in front of chicks, males feed chicks more than females.  Chicks largely independent by about 11 weeks old

Lifespan: 15-20 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Near Threatened

• Body length 60-70 centimeters.  Wings 31-33 centimeters long.  Weight approximately 1.1 kilograms.  Males are larger than females, have longer tails
• Sexually dimorphic.  Male has deep blue plumage with metallic green and violet tinges.  Neck skin is bare and red, feet are grey.  Black tail has fourteen tail feathers.  Crown as elongated white tail feathers.  Female is chestnut brown with black abdomen, dark green back, and short chestnut-brown crest.
• Monogamous, for an uncertain period of time (may be the reason that there is much less ornamentation, displaying in this species than in Asian peafowl).  Male displays consist of male facing female, tail feathers raised, curled downwards (fans its actual tail feathers, while Asian peafowl fan the tail coverts).  Alternate raising and lowering wings.  Receptive females fan their own tails, drop their wings, and raise their head
• Primarily terrestrial (also spend some time hiding in low branches), roost in trees at night
• Most vocalizations occur at night, hoarse calls between pairs as a duet.  Also give alarm calls in response to predators, which may be responded to by other species, such as primates.  Chicks may start vocalizing while still within the eggs
• Only member of the genus Afropavo, meaning “African Peacock.”  Species name refers to the Congo.  Also known as the African peafowl or buy its native Bakongo name, mbulu
• Hunted by local peoples both for meat and for feathers, which have been used as ornamentation for headdresses.  Some villagers raise chicks alongside their chickens to eat later
• Threatened by habitat loss for mining, agriculture, and logging.  Populations suffered during military actions in the region from the 1990s onward, including influx of guerilla fighters from Rwanda.  Increase in bushmeat trade, egg poaching during times of conflict (sometimes targeted directly, sometimes caught in snares set for antelope and other species)
• Discovered to western science after American ornithologist James Paul Chapin noticed feathers worn in Congolese headdresses that he could not identified; later saw two stuffed specimens in the Royal Museum of Central Africa (Belgium), misidentified as Indian peafowl.  First specimens secured by Chapin in 1955
• Species was first kept at the Antwerp Zoo.  First seen in North American zoos in small numbers starting in 1966.  First hatch in AZA occurred at the Bronx Zoo in 1981 from birds imported from Antwerp the previous year.  Breeding success has been sporadic.  All birds in AZA owned by Antwerp.  High chick mortality

Stamp of Approval

The holidays will be here before you know it, and with that comes greeting cards.  Why not spruce up your holiday greetings and spread some cheer by helping to save endangered species?  The US Postal Service has teamed up with photographer Joel Sartore of The Photo Ark to produce a series of twenty stamps commemorating America's endangered wildlife, with proceeds going to endangered species conservation.  They're a fun mix of the iconic (sandhill crane, gray wolf, cougar) and more obscure (Wyoming toad, Micronesian kingfisher).  You can buy a set of these forever stamps to send out on your holiday cards - or just get a set to frame as wall art.  The only sad part is that I can easily imagine another twenty endangered American species for a sequel set... and then another set after that.

Endangered Forever Stamps

Will You Be My Friend?

You see, I'm calling BS on this one.  I know plenty of people who would do this... but they are actually some of the least sociable people that I know.  At least towards other humans.