Satire: An Easter Revenge

 

Species Fact Profile: Pacific Sea Nettle (Chrysaora fuscescens)

                                                              Pacific Sea Nettle

                                            Chrysaora fuscescens (Brandt, 1835)

Range: Northeastern Pacific Ocean, from southern Canada to Mexico.  Occasionally seen in western Pacific, near Japan

Habitat:  Coastal Waters.  Usually found near the surface in shallow water, but can congregate in deeper water in warm weather

Diet:  Zooplankton, Crustaceans, Mollusks, Small Fish, Jellies

Social Grouping: Asocial, but found in large congregations

Reproduction: Capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction.  Females catch sperm released by males, fertilizing eggs they are holding onto.  Fertilized eggs are attached to her arms, then released as polyps which attach to solid surfaces.  Polyps replicate themselves to form nettles, then release themselves from the surface they are clinging to, undergo metamorphosis, and take on a drifting lifestyle

Lifespan: 6-18 Months

      Conservation Status:  IUCN Not Evaluated

• Jelly with a distinctive golden-brown, lobed bell, capable of growing up to 1 meter in diameter, though usually less than half that.  They long, trailing tentacles (white oral arms and about two dozen maroon tentacles) may be up to 4.5 meters long
• Swims using jet propulsion, pushing water through the bell to allow them to swim against the currents.  Usually prefers simply to float, however
• Catch prey with toxin-laden tentacles drifting in the water, with barbed stingers being released when prey is contacted.  The oral arms begin digestion as prey is transported to the mouth 
• Primary defense mechanism is the potent sting of the tentacles, but some predators seem to not be effected by it.  Predators include large fish, seabirds, cetaceans, and especially the leatherback sea turtle.  The sting is painful, but generally not dangerous, to humans (common name references the stinging nettle plant of Eurasia)
• Small crabs sometimes hide within the bell of the nettle for protection, and may sometimes nibble at their hosts
• Populations have been increasing and range expanding.  Both climate change and pollution (industrial and agricultural runoff dumping nutrients into the water) have been suggested as possible causes

The Secret Lives of Prairie Dogs

Prairie dogs have always been a puzzle to me.  I've worked with them at four zoos, watched pups come into the world, tended injured animals after their frequent savage fights, and acted as a human scarecrow trying to keep hawks away.  But unlike many of the species I've worked with, I've never really felt like I've known prairie dogs.  That's because so much of their life history takes place underground, out of sight and, largely, out of mind of their caretakers.

Salisbury Zoo, Smithsonian research the secret lives of prairie dogs

I was interested and excited to hear about this new study of prairie dogs being initiated at the Salisbury Zoo, with the support of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.  There's so much we don't know about how these animals, which play such an important role in American prairie ecosystems, live their lives.  In cases like this, the zoo can serve as a laboratory to help further our knowledge, as well as to perfect techniques which can later be applied to studying wild populations.

Salisbury Zoo is, of course, one of the tinier of American zoos, easily overshadowed by the big zoos in the region.  This goes to show, however, that even the smallest of zoos - and the most common, most oft overlooked zoo animals - have the potential to contribute to expanding our knowledge base of the natural world.

What a Waste

Not that long ago, our zoo was hosting a special event which required an "all hands on deck" clean up effort.  I was assigned to clean up a planted area, spacious, but not inhabited by animals for many years, towards the center of the zoo.  It was right up against our food court and main visitor services hub.  I was horrified.  Not by the amount of trash I pulled - that I fully expected - but by the fact that, by the time that I was done, at least half of my bag was filled with photo strips from the nearby photo booth.

It was as if visitors were going in, getting their pictures taken, and then immediately dumping them in the bushes outside.

Today, I engaged in my annual ritual of getting food from our concessions, which I do exactly once per year.  As I waited for my order, I watched in awe as patron after patron dumped mostly-full trays of food in the trash, purchased to placate hungry toddlers who then decided that they didn't want it after all.

I could sense the irritation of the parents.  Zoo food ain't cheap.

So much of the zoo's messaging is about conservation, and so much about conservation is about sustainability - being mindful of what we use (or, in this case, don't use).  I feel like whenever this topic comes up, you have people complaining about how this is going to involve all of us living miserably with terrible qualities of life, having to sacrifice everything on the altar of conservation.

Really, though, we won't.    How much oil is consumed to make plastic crap that's thrown immediately away?  How many acres of habitat cleared to grow food which is just thrown away?  It would make a huge diverse to the sustainability of our planet if we would just produce what we actually need and not squander so much.  That's a key lesson we should be trying to live by - and to share with the public.

(... and Aquarium)

There's an old "zoo man" that I'm friends with, someone in the mold of the old-school curators and directors of decades long past; I think we would have been perfectly at home working alongside Hornaday at the Bronx, or Mann at National.  He's the sort of guy who's visited every zoo, seen every animal, and has an encyclopedic memory of all of them.  He's also the sort of guy who retains strong opinions on how things should be properly done.

I had been talking with him recently after my visit to Sedgwick County Zoo, a facility that I enjoyed very much, when he cut me off after a bit and said, "It's a fine enough zoo.  Of course, to be truly great it would need an aquarium."

I unpacked this a bit with him.  His ideal for a zoo was based in the older European tradition, in which a truly great zoo was defined by its buildings.  The Bird House, the Reptile House, a Small Mammal House (which might be a nocturnal house)… and the Aquarium.  To his mind, a zoo could not be great without an aquarium.  How could a park have "zoology" in the name and then cut itself off from the biomes that cover three-quarters of the planet's surface?  (I've heard similar arguments made about the dearth of invertebrate exhibits in zoos... and made a few of those arguments myself).  It's been a longstanding tradition in many European zoos, dating back to when the first public aquarium opened at the London Zoo in the nineteenth century.

In the United States, zoos and aquariums tend to be separate facilities.  Sometimes they retain an association, as the New York zoos have with their aquarium under the umbrella of the Wildlife Conservation Society.  In other cases, they are completely separate with no shared membership or management, though they may collaborate on occasion.   Then there are the facilities that have an aquarium building as part of their main campus, and may even take on the name, "Zoo and Aquarium."  Facilities that fall into this category include Point Defiance, in Tacoma, Washington (which has two aquarium buildings), Pittsburgh, Columbus, and, most recently, Kansas City.

The extent of the zoo-aquariums varies.  None that I've seen so far has even come close to the size and comprehensiveness of the giant US aquariums, like Shedd, Georgia, or Monterey Bay.   Sometimes it's as simple as a few small fish or jelly tanks situated around a stingray touch pool, or in association with a penguin or sea lion exhibit - in which case I feel like the zoo might just be giving itself airs (and by which theory Sedgwick could claim that it, too, has an aquarium, because it has fish on display in its rainforest building).  I don't like the idea of tacking on aquarium just for the sake of saying you have one.  Aquariums require a lot of expense, a lot of infrastructure and investment, and a lot of expertise to run properly.  If you find yourself in possession of indoor real estate that can be devote to animals at your zoo, there's other things you can do with that space.

So, for most of my career, I've felt that separate and specialized is best.  Zoos are best left to handle terrestrial animals, aquariums with the aquatic, with a little overlap.

I recently visited Memphis Zoo for the first time in well over a decade.  Despite not doing so, the Zoo probably has a better claim than some others to tack on "and Aquarium" to its name.  The aquarium in question is a fairly small building, located towards the west end of the zoo.  It consists of a series of fairly small tanks - mostly freshwater in scope - situated around the perimeter of a small room.  There are no sharks or sea turtles here, no grand vistas of coral reefs or kelp forests.  The selection of animals was modest and well-suited for the size of the building.  Another zoo might have cleared most of the tanks away for one, maybe two, room-sized tanks with one or two small side tanks, just to say that they had sharks, octopus, jellies, and sea horses, checking the boxes for what most casual visitors would want to see.  Instead, most of the species chosen for this building were smaller, and more obscure, which actually made them more interesting to me than seeing the same exhibits that I've seen at a dozen places.

When I left to go back out to explore the rest of the zoo, I thought, "This was nice.  A fun break, highlighting a diversity of species, and it would be a nice addition to the zoo on days when the weather was poor."  Something like that I feel would be a welcome addition to many large zoos.

The One That Got Away

 

ReSharking the Oceans

Sharks are among the most famous and popular of aquarium residents.  As a group, they also represent some of the most endangered species in the oceans.  Unlike many terrestrial species kept in zoos, many species of shark don't reproduce especially reliably.  Fortunately, one of the species that does breed well is the endangered zebra shark.  I recently learned about the organization ReShark, which is dedicated to rewildling the world's oceans and rebuilding crashed shark populations.  The zebra shark reintroduction project in Indonesia is an exciting early project from this group.  

Species Fact Profile: Ocellated Stingray (Potamotrygon motoro)

                                                                  Ocellated Stingray

                                            Potamotrygon motoro (JP Muller & Henle, 1841)

Range: Northern and Central South America, including the Amazon, Uruguay, Parana-Paraguay, and Orinoco River systems

Habitat:  Calm Freshwater Habitats – slow moving rivers, lagoons, streams, with a preference for sandy-bottoms to facilitate burrowing.  Found for 0.5-10 meters depth

Diet:  Neonates feed on plankton.  Juveniles feed on small mollusks, crustaceans, and aquatic insect larvae.  Adults primarily consume fish

Social Grouping: Primarily solitary outside of breeding season.  Not territorial, do not maintain home range

Reproduction: Ovoviviparous.  Breeding takes place at night, male clamping onto the female with his jaws.  Mate during the dry season (June through November) with births taking place during the rainy season.  Eggs about 3 centimeters in diameter.  Young nurtures of fatty secretions inside the mother’s uterus.  Gestation usually 6 months, but has been as short as 3 months in aquariums.  3-21 pups (average is 7, but always an odd number) born per litter.  Larger females tend to give birth to larger litters.  May abort young under stress. Females usually give birth to one litter a year for three years, then take a few years off

Lifespan: 15 Years

      Conservation Status:  IUCN Data Deficient

• Roughly oval-shaped.  Robust tail ends with a venomous spine.  Maximum length of 100 centimeters (more commonly 50 centimeters), weigh up to 35 kilograms (more commonly 15 kilograms).  Tail of equal length to disc. Females usually slightly larger than males.
• Eyes positioned on dorsal surface of the head, providing 360 degree visibility. Possess electroreceptors, highly sensitive, that allow for detection of prey and predators.  Also have well-developed sense of smell
• Background color is greyish-brown (very light, almost tan in some individuals, very dark in others), with orange-yellow dorsal eyespots, each surrounded with a black ring larger than the eyes.  Coloration extends onto the tail\
•     Pups are sexually mature at 20-44 centimeters in disc length, with females requiring a larger size than males to be deemed mature and captive specimens reaching sexual maturity at a smaller size than wild individuals (in males, sexually maturity can also be ascertained by the relative size of the pelvic claspers)       
• Undergo cyclical migration patterns within freshwater systems, traveling up to 100 kilometers, cause unknown      
• Major defensive mechanisms are camouflage, burrowing down into the river substrate, and the tail, which has a venomous spine at the tip.  Primary predators are caimans, though may be consumed by larger fish species as well
• Also known as the peacock-eye stingray, orange-spot stingray, or the black river stingray.  Some consideration that it may represent a species complex of closely-related freshwater stingrays
• Status is unknown throughout range, but not believed to be in danger due to widespread range, generalist dietary and habitat requirements, and little commercial demand
• One of the most popular freshwater stingray species seen in the pet trade.  Husbandry considered fairly easy, but requires a large tank.

A Seriously Fun Place

Zoo folks often use Steinhart Aquarium interchangeably with its parent organization, the California Academy of Science.  I certainly found the association between the two pleasing.  I have always liked it when zoos and aquariums are linked with other scientific organizations.  It helps to remind visitors (and management, who might need the lesson even more) that we aren't just a place for a fun family outing.  We also are (or at least we have the potential to be) serious scientific institutions that do (or at least have the potential to do) serious scientific work.  Some facilities do a better job of upholding that standard than others - places that are large, historic institutions, such as the Smithsonian National Zoo and the Bronx - do the best.  Conversely, no one was ever going to mistake the Natural Bridge Zoo for being a pillar of scientific advancement.

What I wish that zoo and aquarium leadership would realize is that serious education and research is not the antithesis of fun.  Visitors adore the dinosaur displays in museums, where they can also watch scientists behind glass actively working on examining fossils and doing other laboratory work.  No one denies that this is real science.  Why not do more to put a public face on zoo science?  Have a blank wall?  Hang posters of presentations of the scientific research done at the facility.  Have a window?   Show diets being formulated, or animals being weighed (as well as charts of those weights to show the growth curves).  Have a social species?  Share an ethogram so visitors can do their own behavioral studies - and take the opportunity to explain science-driven animal welfare.

Science is fun.  Most people who become keepers know that (organic chemistry being the exception, in my experience).  Sharing that simple fact can help zoos and aquariums inspire future scientists.

Zoo Review: California Academy of Sciences, Part II

Today, we'll continue our exploration of the California Academy of Sciences by visiting the second, and older, of it's animal attractions, the Steinhart Aquarium.

Befitting, visitors who enter the aquarium via the rainforest, as I did, will first be treated to a gallery of Amazon river life.  An acrylic tunnel leads through a blooded forest home of arapaima and other Amazon river fish, with an enormous habitat for green anaconda waiting just on the other side.  The aquarium itself is a split between large tanks - most impressive being the 212,000 gallon Philippine coral reef, which itself serves as a gateway to a gallery of coral reefs - and small galleries of smaller, single-species tanks.  Many of these ae grouped into the Water Planet gallery, where tanks are set against a backdrop of flowing blue that it quite soothing to watch.  Among the animals that I was happiest to see was CAS's most famous resident, the Australian lungfish Methuselah.  Methuselah is estimated to be over 90 years old, making him the world's oldest known aquarium fish.

If there's been one uniting feature of all of the California aquariums I've visited - and they have been legion - it's been their excellent displays of California coastal life, and Steinhart is no exception.  While not as large as the Philippine reef, the California coast display is still a beautiful habitat that does an excellent job of recreating the ecosystem that lies just off the shore.  Tide pools are one of the most enchanting features of the coastal environment, so not surprisingly those are recreated here as well.  These tide pool displays double-function as touch tanks, allowing curious visitors to have supervised up-close encounters with marine invertebrates.

As is often the case of aquariums, it seems that there is a suspicion that fish and invertebrates alone have limited power to hold the attention of visitors, and so it often falls to other species to carry the day.  Accordingly, there are several exhibits of reptiles and amphibians in the aquarium.  Foremost among these is The Swamp, a large habitat for American alligator, with a white specimen being the focus.  The alligator exhibit is also home to that other southern giant reptile, the alligator snapping turtle.  This is a species that often gets the short-end of the stick in zoo and aquarium exhibits in terms of size and complexity, so I always like seeing them exhibited with alligators because it generally results in larger, more complex habitats.  The viewing area for the gators and turtles also features smaller exhibits of herps of the southern swamplands.  Besides the underwater viewing area, the alligator exhibit also has an above-level viewing deck from the main floor of the museum.

Steinhart turned 100 years old (even older than Methuselah the lungfish!) the year of my visit, and the aquarium has quite the history.  I'm not sure if it was a temporary display for the 100th anniversary or a permanent one, but at the time of my visit there was a very interesting (if easily overlooked) gallery that displayed images and signage about the aquarium's storied past.  The facility really was a history maker in the world of public aquariums, with many incredible "firsts" to its name, both in terms of animal husbandry (for example, it was the first facility in the US to use brine shrimp, now a culinary staple for aquatic wildlife - to feed the collection) or breedings and exhibitions.  For example, I had no idea that Steinhart was the first US aquarium to house and then successfully release a great white shark.  Even the ring tank, a classic of US aquarium design which allows visitors to stand completely surrounded by fish, made it's US debut here (having first been developed in Japan).

If the California Academy of Sciences has a week point in its animal collection, I'd say it's the one exhibit in the main body of the museum.  Tucked away among the displays of taxidermized wildlife in the Tusher African Hall there is a colony of African penguins.  It's by no means the worst exhibit I've seen of this species, either in accredited or unaccredited facilities.   Compared to the many excellent other exhibits in the aquarium and the rainforest, it just seemed small, plain, and a little shoe-horned in (marine penguins not really meshing as well with the savannah and jungle species on display in the gallery).  I've always been mort impressed with large, dynamic penguin colonies, and while there is nesting and breeding going on in this one, it still seemed like a tiny cameo of penguin life, compared to the excellent exhibits I've seen at some other facilities.  If the CAS wanted a live African animal exhibit to supplement the gallery, I think the space allotment would have perhaps worked better for meerkat, or hyrax, or maybe some African reptiles.

All in all, I could easily have spent an entire day at the California Academy of Sciences.  As it was, I was limited in time and had so much I wanted to do in my day in Golden Gate Park, so I was forced to rush a bit, especially in the aquarium (because no way I was going to rush in the rainforest, on principle, after waiting so long to get in).  It really is a gem of a facility with amazing collections - living and otherwise - and a great history.

PS: Completely unaffiliated with CAS, but if you're in Golden Gate Park, check out the sprawling paddock that's home to a herd of American bison, located on the western end of the Park.

Zoo Review: California Academy of Sciences, Part I

On a brief trip to San Francisco in 2022, I stopped in at the Aquarium of the Bay, located on Fisherman's Wharf.  It was a nice enough attraction, located in one of the most famous locales in San Francisco, but I was surprised that such a big city with such intimate association with the sea didn't have a bigger, more complete aquarium.  As it turns out, San Francisco has another, older, larger aquarium, which I would go on to visit the next year.  That facility is the Steinhart Aquarium, which itself is part of the California Academy of Sciences.

Located in Golden Gate Park, the California Academy of Sciences is one of the world's largest natural history museums, as well as one of America's oldest.  It dates back to 1853, when California was barely a part of the country, and continues to be one of the leading natural science research institutes in the world.  It's present location is not the original one, as a combination of growth and natural disasters (both of which San Francisco has seen plenty of) have caused it to relocate several times.  The campus settled into Golden Gate Park in 1916, with the Steinhart Aquarium being added in 1923.  One of the most interesting features of the building is its living roof, with provides 2.5 acres of green habitat on top of the building and provides an attractive view of the park.

The facility features several exhibit galleries, including dinosaurs, taxidermy displays, and a planetarium.   Our focus, of course, is on the living animal collection, which is divided into two main sections - the aquarium, and the rainforest.

Many visitors first head for the Oscher Rainforest, a 90-foot tall class dome filled with tropical plants from around the world.  As impressive as the view is from the outside, the treat comes from going in. Note - on busy days, like the one in which I visited, there can be a bit of a wait to go inside.  The facility meters access to prevent the dome from becoming too crowded.    On the plus-side, you have a beautiful series of tidepools to walk over and peer down into as you wait in line.  If you're planning a day in Golden Gate Park, I'd recommended getting to CAS early, and going to the rainforest first.

Visitors take a series of ramps (or elevators) through the forest, working their way from the floor to the canopy, where they can observe a variety of butterflies and birds flying free.  There is relatively sparse animal life in the forest, and no mammals, so visitors who are expecting something like the big jungle buildings featured at many zoos may be disappointed.  The relatively light-load of wildlife here (and there's still a lot of birds here, they're just easily lost among the dense growth), however, means that the forest stays lush.  And, to be fair, as someone who has been in rainforests, this is a much more realistic experience.  I think all of my time in zoos spoiled me when I first went into an African rainforest and was confused and surprised by how few animals I saw...

Interspersed along the forest trail are different landing decks, each containing several large, well-furnished terrariums of reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates from rainforests around the world.  Included among these are some zoo classics, such as poison dart frogs, as well as many obscure species that I had never even heard of or seen before.  The Malagasy orb weaver spiders are a special favorite of many visitors.  At the top of the rainforest, an overlook deck provides a spectacular view of the forest, as well as being one of the best places to spot the various brightly colored birds and butterflies from.  An elevator then descends to the aquarium, located below the rainforest.

California Academy of Sciences

Spring Breakers

It's perhaps the most hectic week of the year.  On a rotating basis, that is.

Say what you will about summer crowds, they at least have three months to spread themselves out over.  And sure, field trips may bring crazy numbers of kids, but they are - nominally - supervised.  Spring break is, if you'll pardon me, an entirely different animal.  

After the first week of summer, I feel like most of the crowds are a little settled.  They've got weeks ahead to enjoy themselves are willing to pace themselves.  There's kind of a desperate, almost forced, panicky sense of wildness in spring breaks.  Like the crowds have to fit in as much excitement as they can before they go back to school.  And if they can't find excitement at the zoo, sometimes they'll make their own.  But what makes it especially rough is if you zoo happens to be located at the boundary of several large school districts.  Then, you have to wonder if it's worse to have two or three weeks of back-to-back-to-back spring breaks, or, in some cases, have them all coincide on one crazy week.

The hardest part of spring break, however is that, because it's still part of the school year, we're often still a little short.  We don't have our seasonal keepers, our interns, our volunteers - many of them will be unable to start yet.  So we face the crowds, but we largely face them alone and understaffed.

Right after the relative calm of winter, it can be an especially jarring transition.  It's almost enough to make you wish summer would just hurry up and get it over with.

Book Review: Chasing Giants - In Search of the World's Largest Freshwater Fish

There have been plenty of times when I've been excited to read a book, only to find myself disappointed by it.  Far less frequent are occurrences when I pick up a book, not expecting much from it, and actually end up enjoying it.  Such was the case with Zeb Hogan's Chasing Giants: In Search of the World's Largest Freshwater Fish.  Just glancing at it, I thought it was going to be simply a collection of sensationalized fishing stories about monster fish.  Still, I'd been interested in learning more about freshwater giants ever since my visit to the Tennessee Aquarium, so I decided to give it a go.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Dr. Hogan is  research biologist from the University of Nevada, which seems like a funny place to be from when your life passion is giant freshwater fish.  He frames his book around a very simple conundrum, inspired by a news story of a big catch that caught his eye.  We know what the largest animal (blue whale), land mammal (African elephant), bird (ostrich), fish (whale shark), and so on are.  Why do we not know what the world's largest freshwater fish is?  A freshwater fish, in this case, is defined as one that spends its entire life in freshwater habitats, as opposed to one which may live in saltwater and occasionally venture into brackish water.

The resultant quest takes him around the globe, often as part of a National Geographic film crew (Dr. Hogan hosts the popular National Geographic series Monster Fish).  A decent part of the book takes place in the Amazon, which will surprise absolutely zero people who spend any time in public aquariums - arapaima, arowana, pacu, and other South American river giants are extremely popular in zoo and aquarium collections, and, possibly (but not certainly) excluding native habitats, Amazon River displays are the most common geographic display of freshwater fish to be seen.  And those chapters are nice enough.  What I really enjoyed - and what I'd hoped to get out of the book - were the parts that dove into (pun intended) other freshwater systems that are less-commonly discussed.

Hogan takes the reader to the rivers of Western Europe, where wels catfish are one of the few giant freshwater species to expand their ranges, American bayous prowled by alligator gars, the steppes of Mongolia, home to giant salmon, and to the Australian Outback, where freshwater sawfish join crocodiles and sharks in the rivers.  For each of these species, the author explains not only the natural history of the species, but how it has related to humans throughout history and how it fares in the modern world.  Much of the book, however, focuses on the rivers of Southeast Asia and it is there that Dr. Hogan finds his true giant (the identity of which we'll keep secret here.)

Did the author document the world's largest freshwater fish?  Maybe.  It may very well be that, just downstream, there was a slightly larger fish of a different species.   And maybe a slightly larger fish somewhere else in the planet.  Who knows.  I would say that the important thing isn't so much finding and tagging one fish of one species and putting a "World's Biggest" ribbon in it.  Instead, the book (and the accompanying TV series, which I have yet to watch) can help call attention to an entire group of megafauna that most of us never even consider.  Many of these giant fish are in serious danger of disappearing, whether through overharvesting, pollution, or habitat loss.  At least one species that Dr. Hogan searches for - the Chinese paddlefish, spear-nosed cousin to our American paddlefish - is already likely extinct.  Without conservation efforts, more are likely to follow.

There are indeed monsters in the rivers that this book takes us to.  But they don't have fins or scales.  They have two legs.

Chasing Giants: In Search of the World's Largest Freshwater Fish at Amazon.com

Bedtime for the Butterball

Close Encounters of the Gorilla Kind

 This incident actually happened last year, but it seems to have gone viral now, so I guess we'll share it now!  In a potentially disastrous event, two keepers at the Fort Worth Zoo were out prepping the gorilla yard, when their adult male gorilla, Elmo, turned out to still be in the enclosure.  Fortunately, the keepers both were able to make a break for it and get out unharmed, while Elmo was preoccupied with food.  The event happened while the zoo was open and was filmed by visitors, who were heard commenting as it played out.  Their video footage can be found here.

I've been a similar situation years ago (a bear, not a gorilla... but not sure if that's better or worse), so I can imagine how scared those keepers must have been.  I likewise had a newer keeper let a clouded leopard in on me by mistake (I'm being charitable in assuming it was a mistake).  It's good that the keepers were able to stay as calm as you can be when dashing for your life and took advantage of their chance to get out.  

Keeper error always sounds like such a judgy term, but the fact is that 99% of all potentially dangerous incidents in which keepers and animals come into contact are caused by mistakes on the part of the former.  Thankfully everyone here is safe and well, and hopefully it was a learning experience for everyone.  Except maybe Elmo.  He seems to know what's going on.

The Blameless Ones

As the likely vector of the deadly chytrid fungus, which has imperiled amphibian populations around the globe,  you'd be hard pressed to think of an amphibian which has wrought more destruction upon the natural world than the African clawed frog.  Of course, there is its fellow invasive amphibian, the American bullfrog, which has spread across the globe devouring smaller creatures in its wake.  Oh, and the Cane toad, equally invasive, but with the added disadvantage of being very toxic.

For a class of animals that is generally considered to be highly endangered, some amphibians, it seems, are doing pretty well for themselves...

Efforts to control cane toads, for example (and let's not shy away from it, control = killing) are generally fairly uncontroversial.  Same for invasive insects.  Or snakes, such as the brown tree snakes of Guam, or the Burmese pythons in the Everglades.  But what about when that invasive threat is cute and cuddly... and perhaps answers to the name of Mittens?  

Feral and free-roaming domestic cats are an ecological plague on bird, reptile, and small mammal populations around the globe, having been implicated in many extinctions.  But when you tell many people that, they insist it isn't the cats' fault.  Either they excuse the behavior entirely as "natural" (never mind that domestic cats  aren't "naturally" found in the Americas, or New Zealand, or Australia, or...), or they agree it's a problem, but wrong to take action against the cats, because it's humans who are the real destructive species.

Well... duh.  I mean, it's not like the cats, or African clawed frogs, or brown tree snakes, built and manned ships that sailed the globe and invaded other ecosystems.  They were brought there and released, intentionally or otherwise, by humans.   They are OUR problem... which does still make them a problem.  If anything, it makes control of their populations outside of their range that much more our responsibility.

An African clawed frog that hatches out of an egg in California doesn't know it's any different from one that hatches out in southern Africa.  Both are just trying to survive, which means doing as at the expense of other creatures which are their prey, and, in the case of the California ones, potentially spreading diseases as well.  It's not the clawed frogs "fault" that their an endangered species.  I don't hold it against them, I don't want to suffer to "pay" for it, it's not a moral judgement.  

I just don't want any of them to live either a) outside of their native range, or b) if outside of their native range, in a carefully controlled environment, such as a zoo, where they are unable to impact native wildlife.  It stinks if you happen to be that frog or snake or cat that's collateral damage, caught up in an ecological crisis that you did not - knowingly - contribute to or cause.  But that's our responsibility for cleaning up our environmental messes.

Species Fact Profile: African Clawed Frog (Xenopus laevis)

                                                      African Clawed Frog

                                            Xenopus laevis (Daudin, 1802)

Range: Sub-Saharan Africa

Habitat:  Still Freshwater - Ponds, Bogs, Slow-Moving Streams

Diet:  Aquatic Insects and their Larvae, Crustaceans, Worms, Snails, Small Fish, Tadpoles

Social Grouping: Asocial

Reproduction: Mate year round, but especially in spring and summer (can mate several times per year).  Male clasps female from behind, then female lays up to 2000 eggs, which are externally fertilized.  Eggs stick to underwater substrates, hatch about one week later.  Metamorphosis complete in 6-8 weeks.  Sexually mature at 10-12 months

Lifespan: 30Years

      Conservation Status:  IUCN Least Concern

• Males 5-6 centimeters long, weigh 60 grams, females 10-12 centimeters long, weigh 200 grams.  Flattened body with small, wedge-shaped head.  Eyes and nostrils positioned on the top of the head.  Front limbs are smaller than hind limbs, with non-webbed fingers.  Hind legs are larger and webbed with powerful claws.  Lack eyelids and external ears
• Mottled green-gray-brown color (sometimes with brown or yellow spotting), paler on the underside.  Limited ability to change skin color in response to environment
• Lateral line (similar to fish) sensitive to vibrations in the water.  Visible as series of white markings running down both sides of the frog
• Almost totally aquatic, only leaves water when forced to migrate.  Clumsy and awkward on land, crawls rather than hops (have been observed more than 2 kilometers away from water).  If ponds dry up, they can burrow into the mud and lay dormant for up to a year
• Popular laboratory animal.  Historically were used as pregnancy indicators for humans; a female frog injected with a woman's urine would start to lay eggs if the woman was pregnant.  First vertebrate cloned in a lab, in 1962
• Invasive species across much of the world, having been introduced to the United States, South America, western Europe, and Indonesia, among other regions.  Believed to be the carrier of the chytrid fungus, which has since been spread around the world and imperiled other amphibian species (the clawed frog itself is immune to the fungus) 

Shark-Crossed Lovers?

A Female Stingray That Hasn't Had a Mate in Eight Years Is Mysteriously Pregnant.  Is a Shark the Father?

I remember many years ago reading a rule of journalism, that stated that, if an article asks a question in the title, the answer is almost always "No."  That's because the question is usually something outrageous or controversial that's meant to pull the reader's attention, but leaving it as a question doesn't commit the author to actually sound like they're backing said statement.  They're just asking questions.  

In this case, the answer is, again, most likely "no."  A shark is almost certainly not the father.

Yes, Charlotte, the ray in question, is, in fact, pregnant with pups.  No, she has not been housed with a male for such a long time as to make a previous pairing unlikely to have been the father.  Yes, she is housed with sharks - white-spotted bamboo sharks, to be specific - two of which are males and at least one of which appears to have mated with her, as evidenced by some telltale love-bite marks.  Mating, however, does not equal a pregnancy, especially between separate species.  

"I give a shark the same odds of being the father that I would give Elvis or Bigfoot of being the father - zero," says Demian Chapman of Mote Marine Lab and Aquarium, whereas Kady Lyons of Georgia Aquarium plays down the possibility of any "shark-ray shenanigans" (which is such a fun phrase).

The answer is much more likely to be parthenogenesis, or virgin birth, a phenomena which has been seen a wide variety of species.  Despite its prevalence (in some species it's the default form of reproduction, in others, an extreme rarity), the media insists of treating it like some sort of absolute mystery ("Scientists are shocked by...") whenever a zoo or aquarium announces that their snake or shark or what-have-you has produced offspring without the aid of a male.  Even though these "shocking" occurrences, which don't really shock anyone in the field, happen with some regularity.

Which reminds me of another rule of journalism.  Sensationalism sells.

Cardinal Requiem

Like many young people, one of my first real exposures to a wide variety of people from different cultures and backgrounds came when I went away to college.  The culture shock wasn't so much in the destination - I went to school about five hours from where I grew up - as it was the students.  On my floor were kids from around the country, to say nothing of Brazil, India, Kenya, and Moldova, a country that I actually had not heard of before hearing that particular student introduce himself.

One of my most profound culture shocks, however, came when I met another student with whom I shared a special interest - birdwatching.  This girl told me that her fondest wish at college was to see a cardinal.  

Ok, maybe if the Kenyan or the Brazilian (neither of whom ever expressed any interest in birds) had said that I wouldn't have been surprised.  But this girl was American - just from the opposite coast as me.  It never occurred to me that they didn't have cardinals in the Pacific northwest.  When this girl saw her first cardinal, she told me that it was exactly what she'd hoped for - a male, with blood red plumage, standing out brilliantly in a holly tree on a day blanketed with snow.  For years I had trouble understanding how she could be so excited to see such a common (for me) bird.  Years later, nerding out in a San Francisco park watching a Steller's jay hopping in front a park bench, I finally got it.

Today is World Wildlife Day.  In zoos, we celebrate and cherish animals from the distant corners of the map.  It's important to remember that wildlife is all around us, however, even in some of the seemingly least-hospitable places.  It's important to save the rhinos in Africa and the tigers in Asia.  It's just as important to save the remnants of wild we have living around us, and saving it starts by noticing it and cherishing it.

I found out early this morning that this friend, who'd I'd since lost touch with (through no fault of hers - just the usual drifting apart after graduation and moving to opposite coasts) is not expected to be with us much longer.  I was gutted when I heard, and I wish I'd spent more time with her in our post-college life.  

I'm going to remember her every time I see a cardinal.

The Internship

In the aftermath of the George Floyd protests in 2020, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums asked itself what could be done to improve the accessibility of the zoo and aquarium profession to a broader audience.  One obstacle that was frequently mentioned as a barrier to folks entering the field was the prevalence of unpaid internships.  For many professionals, myself included, these internships were an invaluable resource that allowed me to get some real world work experience, make contacts and obtain professional references, and confirm to myself that this is the field that I wanted to work in.  

I didn't think much about it at the time, but looking back now I realize how lucky I was to be able to do this.  An unpaid internship - in my case in a city where I'd never been before and knew no one - only worked because I had the financial support of my parents.  If I didn't have this support, I don't think I would have been able to do the internship.  And without this internship to give me my experience (to say nothing of the immense amount of volunteer work I'd done before that), I don't know how how successful I would have been in landing my first job as a zookeeper.  Aspiring keepers coming from lower income backgrounds are at a tremendous disadvantage in joining the field (which, to be fair, does a pretty good job of converting you into lower income after you join in).

Yesterday, AZA announced that, starting July 1, it would no longer allow unpaid internship opportunities to be posted on its job board, a site that I tracked religiously both as a college student looking to break into the field, as well as an occasionally-unemployed keeper between jobs.  The responses from keepers I've spoken to have ranged from, "This is huge!" to "Who really cares?," with a few crusty old souls saying it's a bad thing and muttering under their breath about how in their day they had four unpaid internships a week, which they walked to, in the snow, uphill both ways.

To be clear, this isn't the end of unpaid internships in AZA institutions - AZA banning those from member institutions would be a pretty huge step, which perhaps they aren't ready for yet.  To me, it does signify an increasing recognition that, while nice, experience alone doesn't pay bills, and that if you do a day of work, you should get paid for it (though how much of this will result in internships simply being reimagined as volunteering - and no one is talking about getting rid of volunteer departments, though to be fair most volunteers aren't working 20-40 hour weeks).  

Hopefully, it also continues to demonstrate the dismantling of barriers which have kept some potential applicants out of the field.  I've sometimes wondered how many potentially wonderful keepers out there had been passed by over the years, just because they couldn't afford to spend a summer with no pay.