Back in a Bit

The Zoo Reviewer blog will be experiencing a period of inactivity for a few weeks while I go on a sabbatical - I'll be back posting sometime late next month.  Thanks!

Adventures of an Armored Bear

Years ago, I read and fell in love with Philip Pullman's fantasy series, His Dark Materials.  Among the unique features of the world that Pullman created were the Panserbjørne, or armored bear, which have since become some of the most recognizable creatures of his work.  I wonder if any of the Denver Zoo keepers were reading those books to their bear and planted the idea in her head... that or she's already thinking ahead for Halloween, and decided she wants to be a Roomba.

Species Fact Profile: Aye-Aye (Daubentonia madagascarensis)

                                                            Aye-Aye

                                           Daubentonia madagascarensis (Gmelin, 1788

Range: Madagascar (primarily the east, but some populations in the north and west)

Habitat: Forests - Rainforest, Decidious, Mangrove, Dry Scrub

Diet: Fruits, Nuts, Plant Exudates, and Insects (especially beetle larvae)

Social Grouping:  Solitary

Reproduction: Mating in the wild has been observed October through February.  Females mate with multiple males, and males presumably mate with multiple females.  Female estrous cycle is 21-65 days, marked by the vulva changing from small and gray to large and red.  Mating can take up to 2.5 hours, done while hanging upside down from a tree branch. Gestation period is 152-172 days, with a single infant born from February to September.  There is usually an inter-birth interval of 2-3 years, probably due to the slow development of the infant and high levels of parental involvement.  Only the female cares for the young.  Infants weigh 90-140 grams and resemble adults except for their eyes, which are green, and their ears, which are floppy instead of erect.  First leave the nest at 8 weeks, begin to eat solid food at 20 weeks (but may attempt to suckle until 1-year-old), sexually mature at 2.5 years.

Lifespan: 20-25 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Endangered, CITES Appendix I, USFWS Endangered

• Body length 36-44 centimeters, with a long, bushy tail longer than the rest of the body (44-53 centimeters).  Body is relatively slender, but appears bulky due to thick fur.  The ears are large and triangular with complex ridges in the interior that help channel sounds.  The snout is short.  Adult weight 2500-2700 grams.  No significant sexual dimorphism, apart from males being on average slightly larger than females.   Female has a single pair of teats near the groin.   The world’s largest wholly nocturnal primate
• The teeth are chisel-like in the manner of a rodent and grow throughout the animal’s life (originally classified as a rodent) – half as many teeth as other lemur species, with a large gap between the incisors and molars. 
• The third digit of each hand is very long, slender, and flexible (can be folded over or under the hand), appearing almost skeletal.  Often carried curled inward or otherwise sheltered when the animal is climbing or walking.  An early name for this species which never fell into common usage was “long-fingered lemur.”  They also possess a sixth digit which serves as a pseudothumb for gripping branches
• Long, coarse coat is dark brown or black with a scattering of white guard hairs.  The fare and throat are pale grey.  The eyes are pale yellow or orange (tapetum lucidum to reflect light).  The nose is pink.  Juveniles have a silvery stripe down the back that darkens with age·         
• Males largely tolerant of one another outside of breeding.  Males have been observed pulling other males off of females in the act of breeding.  Females are dominant to males
• Nocturnal.  Most of the day spent sleeping in a nest of twigs and dead leaves in the upper canopy, sometimes shared but usually alone (different individuals may occupy the same nest at different times).  Sometimes forage in small groups.  Most active in the hours immediately after sunset.  Home ranges are marked through bite marks in tree bark.  Home ranges overlap, with male ranges being larger than those of females.  Largely arboreal, but sometimes come to the ground
• The third digit is used as a probe to pierce fruit skin and scoop out soft interiors, or to tap on wood in search of cavities which may shelter beetles.  Once a dead space is found, the aye-aye bites into it using its powerful incisors to access the insects.  Possible predation on amphibians.  Only primate to forage through echolocation. Can consume 240-340 kilocalories a day, slightly less in the cold season than in the rest of the year.  May travel up to 4 kilometers per night foraging
• Unknown to what extent they are predated.  Fossa ae believed to be a possible predator, as well as larger raptors and possibly snakes for young aye-aye
• Only living species of the genus; 1 extinct giant aye-aye, D. robusta, was discovered in 1990’s, estimated at 3-5 times the size of the living species.  Cause of extinction unknown.  Genus named after French zoologist Louis J.M. Daubenton, who first discovered the animal in 1780, species name for Madagascar
• Common name may be derived from their vocalization, hai-hai, made when startled or fleeing
• Thought to be extinct in the early twentieth century until rediscovered in 1957.  Primary threat is rapid loss of natural habitat
• Sometimes killed by native Malagasy, who may view it either as an agricultural pest (they will raid fruit plantations readily) or out of superstition, as it is seen as a bad omen.  It is traditionally considered a harbinger of evil – the belief holds that if it points its skeletal finger at you, then you will die.  Some people (Sakalava) even claim that the aye-aye directly kills its victims by stabbing them through the heart with the finger.
• One of the few depictions in western culture is the character “Maurice,” the councilor to ring-tailed lemur “King Julian” in the Dreamworks Madagascar movies

Following Themes

When I was a kid, for a while I got really into the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.  They were fun stories to get lost in, but even as a young kid, two issues stood out to me.  One, they were kind of racist... in the same way that water is kind of wet.  Two, after a while, they began to get a little formulaic.  Every single novel seemed to be about Tarzan and his friends stumbling across yet another lost city - this one from Atlantis, this from the Middle Ages, this one from Ancient Rome.  Towards the end, I was wondering how there was any room left in the jungle for animals - the entire place seemed to be filled to the brim with lost cities, one right after another.

Burroughs would doubtlessly have approved of modern zoos, with their unabashed adoration of rainforest exhibits built around temple ruins.  I've commented before on the somewhat overused trope of jungle temple exhibits, as well as the rationale that goes into them.  Temples are but a single example of what has become an increasingly popular trend in zoo exhibits - theming.  This is the incorporation of non-animal elements into zoo exhibits in order to heighten the visitor experience.  In some cases, the theming can be focused on human artifacts and culture, such as the aforementioned temples, as well as totem poles in North American exhibits and land rovers in African savannah exhibits.  In other cases it can be themed around natural elements.  The local zoo that I visited as a kid had a ginormous TV tower not far outside the gates, dominating the landscape whenever you looked in that direction.  My dad would joke that they should have been more considerate of the zoo visitors when they'd installed it and disguised it as a termite mound - a 700 foot tall when - so it wouldn't detract from the experience.

Photo Credit: ZooChat, loxodonta

Theming can be a controversial element in zoos.  It takes money to design and install it, money which, arguably, could be better spent on more animal-centric components.  A jaguar cares little if the rock ledge that it is resting on looks like a Mayan ruin or a park bench.  The benefit in this case is for the public, not for the animal.  Done correctly, theming can help educate visitors about the animals and their environment.  An artificial termite mound installed in a giant anteater exhibit, for example, can be used to show how the animal feeds naturally, instead of just out of a slop bowl.  If done poorly, especially in cases where it's a cultural element, it can lead to confusion or offense.  For example, totem poles have been used in arctic exhibits for polar bears... despite totem pole cultures being found much further to the south.

Another challenge with theming is that, in attempting to evoke a specific landscape or region, it can lock a facility in place should it try to diverge from that original exhibit theme.  When The Baltimore Zoo opened its new arctic exhibit, Polar Bear Watch twenty years ago, just as much of a highlight as the bears was the Tundra Buggy, an enormous arctic exploration vehicle which had been driven into the zoo, parked in place, and had the exhibit built around it.  Visitors would enter the Buggy and look out the windows to observe bears, just as tourists in Manitoba, Canada would do.  It was a very innovative exhibit idea... which fell apart a bit when the zoo got out of having polar bears a few years ago.  They could have tried to have gone with sloth bears or Andean bears, both endangered species in need of more holders - but neither would have made much sense with a giant, now-immobile Tundra Buggy looming next to their habitat.  The exhibit now features grizzly bears, which sort of works, but not really.

While Baltimore (now the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore) had polar bears, the theming for the exhibit was a great asset, allowing the zoo to do something unique and interesting while educating visitors about a specific habitat.  In the absence of that species, the theming became a limitation, rather than an asset. 

One Step Forward, One Step Back

Despite their collections of animals from around the world, zoos and aquariums can often make their biggest conservation impact by acting locally.  This can pose a special challenge because many zoos and aquariums are located in highly developed urban areas, where there isn't much natural landscaping left.  Still, with some perseverance and creative thinking life, as Dr. Ian Malcolm liked to say in Jurassic Park, finds a way.  

There are all sorts of great stories out there about zoos helping to restore native ecosystems.  In Baltimore, this was driven home earlier this year when the National Aquarium unveiled its new floating wetland habitat in the City's Inner Harbor.  River otters have already been seen frolicking in the restored habitat.

Of course, for conservation efforts to be a success, it helps if everyone is on the same page, mission-wise.  This was (exasperatingly) driven home in northwestern Ohio this week, where the Toledo Zoo had painstakingly restored a highway median to be a wildflower garden and wildlife habitat, providing crucial habitat and sustenance for butterflies, bees, birds, and other native species.  Then someone complained that it looked unsightly and, without even consulting the zoo, it was mowed down.

One step forward, one step back.

You'd think the sign would have given them a clue...

Zoo Review: Binder Park Zoo, Part II

Continuing the visit to Battle Creek's Binder Park Zoo, we leave the East Zoo behind and enter Wild Africa.

Wild Africa can be accessed through one of two methods.  Visitors may either take a tram, which runs continuously, or may take a walk of about fifteen minutes through the woods (the trail is well marked and runs alongside the tram road, so there's no fear of getting lost).  The concept of an established zoo having a large, newer African area tacked on and separated from the main zoo by a short distance is, interestingly, one that I have also seen at least twice before, at the Dallas and Kansas City Zoos.

The African area is stylized as a fictitious "Zuri National Park," - having a fictitious location, of course, can help explain away that many of the animals found in this exhibit complex are from different parts of Africa and would not cohabit.  Visitors approach the exhibit by entering through a visitor center that resembles a village serving as the park headquarters (again reminiscent of Kansas City).  As is often the case, the structures here double-function by housing the visitor service facilities, such as the restaurant and gift shop.  Other buildings feature educational displays about the animals to be seen along the trail, along with other African wildlife.  I actually found the theming here to be some of the more realistic I'd ever encountered in a zoo, and in the dusty clearing with crates, landrovers, and faded posters tacked to walls, I was reminded of my first visit to Africa long ago.

The showstopper of Wild Africa is the savannah, an 18-acre grassland that dominates the horizon.  A good balance was struck with the stocking of the exhibit.  There is a large variety of species - I counted four species of antelope on my visit, along with zebras, ostrich, marabou stork, and cinereous vulture - and most of the species were maintained in small herds, rather than a pair or trio as one often sees in zoos.  At the same time, the yard was also sufficiently large that it was able to retain grass.  The savannah yard is no real rival to the field exhibits of the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, but it is a fair-sight more impressive than the dusty paddock that one often sees billed as an African savannah in zoos.  The stars of the yard are, as they usually are, the giraffes, and in keeping with what's popular in zoos, there's the inevitable giraffe feeding station where visitors can meet the world's tallest land mammals at eye-level and offer treats.

The remainder of Africa is a walking path of about a mile (for a zoo with a relatively small collection, you sure get your walking in here) that loops through woodlands, meandering among several exhibits.  It was a slow start, and I was a little disappointed initially.  The first exhibit I saw was a massive, meshed-in enclosure, that seemed to hold nothing by a single blue duiker (looking back, I realize that I was visiting during one of the many recent periods of concern about avian influenza, so I suspect that this was normally an aviary and the birds had been pulled).  This was followed, and my experience improved, by an excellent habitat for red river hogs, perhaps the most spacious that I'd seen, as well as a large muddy yard for Aldabra tortoises (this fictitious African park apparently holding desert antelope from the Sahel, such as addax, wild pigs from the rainforests, and tortoises from islands far out in the Indian Ocean).  Primates were represented by two exhibits, one a dynamic mixed habitat of black-and-white colobus and black crested mangabeys, the other of red-capped mangabeys, both very good exhibits, with mangabeys being a group of monkeys I don't see too often anymore.

Of course, no African area is complete without at least a few of the large carnivores, and Binder Park delivers.  Visitors can climb into an old school bus and peer out the windows into the habitat of the lions.  It's a cool idea, but the viewing from the bus wasn't actually the best because of the wire fencing in the way - much better viewing was to be had through ground-level viewing windows nearby.  Nearby, African wild dogs can be found.  The nest of the carnivores habitats, in my opinion, was the cheetah exhibit down the trail.  Cheetah exhibits are often long and narrow, meant to encourage running and keep the cats in view.  This was a spacious, deep habitat, which also had the advantage of being built onto a hill and having some height to it.  From the top of their habitat, the cheetahs would have had a commanding view of the savannah across the trail.

The trail circles back to the entry plaza, where the tram or trail await to take visitors back to the East Zoo.  Tucked behind the savannah is a tented campsite for adventurous overnight guests.

Binder Park was an interesting facility of highly variable quality.  The collection, while containing many popular species, was still somewhat generic to me, and seemed to have several holes, especially in the lackluster bird and herp collections, while perhaps being a bit too heavily biased towards large carnivores.  Exhibits ranged from very impressive, especially in Wild Africa, to simply adequate, such as the lemur and owl exhibits in the East Zoo.  It also just didn't seem to fit together - the highly themed, well-designed Wild Africa, with the children's zoo banality of East Zoo, with North America being somewhat intermediate in quality.  I hope that the zoo continues to build on their success with the African expansion and reimagines East Zoo - it's not a bad zoo by any stretch, but as the African area shows, it has the potential to really be so much more extraordinary.

A final word to anyone planning a trip - this zoo is closed for about half of the year, so if it's on your list of zoos to see, make sure to plan accordingly!

Zoo Review: Binder Park Zoo, Part I

When I was a kid, my parents gave me my first copy of Allen Nyhuis's The Zoo Book (later updated and republished as America's Best Zoos).  It was my first introduction to the number and variety of zoos around the country, and it was the first time that I'd heard of many of them.  Even at that young age, there were two facilities among the fifty-plus listed that didn't quite seem like they belonged, based on their size and appeal.  One was West Virginia's Oglebay's Good Zoo.  The other was Michigan's Binder Park Zoo.

Located in Battle Creek (itself better known as the headquarters of Kellogg's, the cereal company), Binder Park Zoo struck me as kind of small and unremarkable to be listed alongside San Diego and the Bronx, and I wondered what inspired Nyhuis to include it.  Of course, that book was published decades ago.  At the time of my first visit, the zoo had more than doubled in size with the addition of an expansive new Wild Africa exhibit.  While still not one of the larger collections I've seen, it still manages to be one of the largest collections in Michigan, with exhibits that range in quality from meh to truly impressive.

Visitors entering the zoo are first left to explore the "old" part of the zoo (Binder Park Zoo was founded in 1977, so "old" is a relative term here), called the East Zoo.  It's a largely wooded campus with various exhibits scattered around them, many of which of the fairly simple wood-and-wire style that you see in many smaller zoos.  Owls, lemurs, and southern ground hornbills occupy these habitats, while kangaroos, wallabies, and cassowaries occupy field habitats.  There are two exhibits of red panda on opposite ends of the grounds.  Both struck me as kind of bland, sufficient for the animals (which themselves I find to be fairly low maintenance), but certainly less impressive than the excellent exhibits I'd seen in Fort Wayne immediately prior to coming here.  The red pandas seem to do well enough, though; elsewhere in the zoo, I was able to see a youngster being reared in a window of the veterinary hospital.

The zoo's single indoor exhibit is the Binda Conservation Discovery Center, which gives off more of the vibe of a nature center at a local park than the reptile and amphibian house of a major zoo.  Many of the enclosures are stand alone tanks with a variety of herps and inverts, ranging from the exotic (such as Panamanian golden frogs) to species of local conservation concern, such as spotted turtles, but almost all fairly small species.  The two largest exhibits house the species that are most likely to be of interest to visitors, reticulated pythons in one, cotton-topped tamarins and Linne's two-toed sloth in the other.  

Most of the grounds had kind of a kid-zoo feel, so not surprisingly there was also a children's zoo with domestic animals, including a goat corral.  This children's zoo was also taken over with large sculptures of dinosaurs, while a small train serviced the area.  Nearby was a  play structure, with a ropes course and ziplines.  The sole other animals in this area were a colony of prairie dogs.

The largest animals in the region are the occupants of a series of carnivore exhibits grouped towards the eastern end of the zoo, which also seem to be some of the newer exhibits.  Visitors can observe the occupants of the Smith Snow Leopard Encounter from a canvas and wood yurt, with the cat's exhibit wrapping around it.  It was an adequate exhibit, and it took me quite a while to spot the well-camouflaged cats, though I do think it would have benefited more from some vertical complexity to maximize the usable space and provide more climbing opportunities.  

Nearby, a bridge meanders across a creek to a small North America region.  There, there are habitats for American black bears, bald eagles, and Canada lynx.  The best exhibit by far was a spacious, wooded habitat for Mexican gray wolves.  As with the snow leopards, it took me a while to find the wolves, and I had to swing by the exhibit a second time to finally see them.  I was well-pleased when I finally did, however.  Among the popular zoos animals, wolves are actually one of the hardest to actually see, and to get to watch a pack flitting through the woods, active but seemingly at east, is always a nice treat.

Tomorrow, we'll continue to the Wild Africa portion of the zoo.

Binder Park Zoo

Banksy Woz Here

Recently, staff at the London Zoo came in to work to find an unexpected surprise... which isn't an unusual occurrence when you work at a zoo, but at least this was a good one.  One of their entrances had been "visited" overnight by famed graffiti artist "Banksy," who depicted a gorilla lifting up one of the metal garage-style doors and letting animals out into the park.  

Nor is this the first time Banksy was graced the London Zoo.  A previous painting in the penguin exhibit informed keepers that the birds were tired of fish (that one I actually have a little problem with - we have to go through a pretty exhausting process to make sure that paints used in animal areas are safe for the critters, so I'd have just as soon not had a random guy come in and spray whatever he likes.  The front gate is considerably less objectionable).

The Zoo has since removed the gate in question while they figure out what to do with the painting.  It is one of several recent animal-themed artworks that the mysterious Banksy has graced the London landscape with recently.  It remains to be seen what will ultimately happen with the mural.

Photo Credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Hammers and Whales

At the time I was listening to the audiobook, I wasn't sure when Brooke Bessesen had written her book Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez.  As such, I wasn't sure if it was recent enough to include the saga of the effort to bring vaquita into human care.  Unfortunately for me, it was, which meant, after hearing the author express hope that this last ditch Hail Mary effort might help save the little porpoise, I got to experience the devastation alongside her (even though I knew it was coming) of its failure.

It was a risky proposition from the start.  Dolphins are kept, albeit controversially, at many institutions around the world, and we know a lot of their husbandry and management in a captive setting.  Porpoises are kept much, much less frequently, and it seems that they're shier, more secretive manner makes them much more easily stressed than the bolder, more confident dolphins.  Perhaps if the project had been attempted decades earlier when there were more vaquitas, a little "trial and error" would have been permissible.  Some animals likely would have been lost, but if a formula for successfully managing the species was developed, it would have resulted in better success before they got into the single digits...

Or perhaps not.  Maybe, best intentions aside (and I'm certainly not faulting anyone who was willing to think outside the box to save this species, because nothing else seemed to be working), captive management just wasn't going to work for vaquitas.

The detractors of zoos and aquariums can be far too dismissive of the role that we can (and do) play in conservation of endangered species - and I don't think there's an endangered species alive that we can't contribute to the conservation of.  What that contribution is varies from species to species, though.  Housing animals and breeding them under human care is what we're best at, so it makes sense that it becomes our go-to solution for every problem.  But captive breeding is just a tool for conservation.  In some situations, it's the best, most valuable tool.  For others, it can be part of the solution.  And for others, it might not work at all... might even make the problem worse.

But you know what they say... when you hold a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

Again, I don't for a second blame or fault the folks who thought that capture and removal from the wild was a worthwhile idea to pursue for the vaquita.  One of the best reasons to try removing animals from the wild is if it's proving impossible to adequately protect the animals in their natural habitat (which, also, is no slight against all of the folks who were working so hard to do just that in the Sea of Cortez, sometimes putting themselves in harms' way to protect the porpoises).  If someone hadn't tried to capture vaquitas, and they'd gone extinct (as they still seem likely to do), we might be cursing ourselves for not having tried to capture any.  

As that ever-quotable philosopher, Dwight Schrute from The Office, says, "Not everything's a lesson...  Sometimes you just fail."  Although as long as there are still a few vaquita breaking the surface of the Sea of Cortez, I suppose we haven't failed yet.

Book Review: Vaquita - Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez

About ten years ago or so, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums launched SAFE (Saving Animals From Extinction), aimed at integrating zoo-based conservation with research and protection methods in the wild.  Ten programs were chosen to kickstart the project, representing several well-known species, such as the black rhinoceros and sea turtles.  Also among them - and the most endangered of all - was a very little known species of porpoise, never seen in captivity.  This was the vaquita.

Found only in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, the vaquita (Spanish for "little cow") is the world's smallest species of cetacean (whale, dolphin, porpoise).  It is also the most endangered.  Its decline is perhaps made all the more tragic because of the fact that it's unintentional.  No one is deliberately setting out to harm the little porpoises, but they are dying all the same, entangled in illegal fishing nets strung across the sea in pursuit of another endangered species, a fish called the totoaba.  We know where the vaquita lives.  We know what is threatening it.  We know how to save it.  And yet, no positive change seems possible, and the numbers continue to decline.

When I first learned of the vaquita (AZA kicked off SAFE by drumming up financial support for conversation programs for this species - my zoo, which has zero marine mammals, still contributed what we could), I was shocked that I'd never heard of it before.  I shouldn't be surprised, however - it turns out, even a lot of the folks living along the shores of its sea have never heard of it.  Some of those who have think it's mythical.  Others hate it as an impediment to financial progress.  If there was ever a species in need of a good storyteller, it was this one.

The vaquita found its champion in science writer Brooke Bessesen, who wrote Vaquita - Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez.  It's an absolutely excellent book which covers history of this little porpoise (unknown to science until fairly recently), its decline, and the various efforts made to save it.  The author recounts her frequent voyages to the region, where she interviews scientists, conservationists, fishermen, and other local people to try to weave together the story of the cetacean.  She meets researchers who are working on methods to monitor the populations of an animal that it almost impossible to see in its native habitat, as well as the volunteer activists ships which cruise the range of the vaquita, trying to protect the few that remain.  Fair warning, as is often the case when documenting the saga of a critically endangered species, this book can get quite sad at many points.  This was especially driven home to me because I experienced Bessesen's writing not in print but as an audiobook.  The sorrow and anguish at each setback, each porpoise lost was painfully driven home in the narrator's voice.

A decent section of the book is devoted to one of the more controversial aspects of the vaquita conservation plan - where AZA came in.  A plan had been drawn to round up the last survivors and bring them under human care to protect them from fishing nets, a plan which (as it always has, such as in the case of the California condor), was starkly controversial.  I really applaud Bessesen's analysis of the subject, which was rational and logical, weighing the risks (and there were many) of both trying to capture vaquitas and bring them into captivity, versus leaving them be and watching more drowned bodies wash ashore.  Conservation issues are so often portrayed as black and white, and we often don't dig much deeper than acknowledging that we should protect endangered species, that we seldom really dive into discussions (let alone detailed, nuanced ones) of how we should protect them.

This is not a feel-good story, so consider yourself forewarned, any particularly tender-hearted readers.  In the book, you get the sense that some folks - and not just illegal fishermen - just can't wait for the species to go extinct.  Then, it'll be over and done with.  We'll be spared scenes like the author describes of impossibly tiny porpoises being laid out on necropsy tables, in perfect condition up until the moment that they drowned in gill nets.  Looking away is easy and comfortable, which I suppose is why so many people do it.  The real challenge is doing what Bessesen, and the conservation heroes that she covers in her book, do - face the prospect of an oncoming extinction, one that seems inevitable, and know that, if it does happen, they're at least doing everything that they can to prevent it.

Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez at Amazon.com

Candid Cat Camera

 When you realize that you're on camera... lions at the Oregon Zoo

From the News: Owl at Minnesota Zoo eaten by a tiger after it flies away

Owl at Minnesota Zoo eaten by a tiger after it flies away

Free flight shows are one of the most spectacular of educational animal demonstrations.  There are few things more thrilling that watching a bird - especially a large bird - take flight.  The challenge, of course, is that once the jesses are loosed and the bird is in the air, it may not opt to fly to exactly where you intended it to.  And sometimes, it may land in a place where you (and the bird) will soon really, really wish it hadn't.  

(Nor is this the first time something like this has happened - a similar incident involved a macaw landing in a tiger exhibit at the Lincoln Children's Zoo in Nebraska.  Likewise, Minnesota Zoo had another Eurasian eagle owl, Gladys, fly off in 2021).

There is an enormous amount of risk assessment that goes into most animal care decisions in a zoo.  I think that ambassador birds that participate in free flight demonstrations are given tremendous opportunities for enrichment and improved welfare, as well as a special opportunity to make a connection with the public that visitors won't soon forget.  But still, that risk is always present...

The Best of the Least

Sand cats aren't an especially common species in American zoos, and while I've never been a keeper for the species, I've still managed to see them in a half dozen or so facilities over the years.  One of the challenges involved in keeping these desert-adapted felines is their tolerance for a limited range of temperature and humidity.  This, combined with their small size, often results in them being kept indoors, in exhibits that tend to lean heavy on the concrete and fake rocks, less so on the... well, sand.  Most of them tend to be on the smaller side, even for such a small cat.  Thinking upon it, I don't know if I've ever seen a sand cat exhibit that I would call truly great.

I've seen some magnificent exhibits for lions, tigers, and cheetahs, as well as decent ones for a variety of other cats.  But a great sand cat exhibit?  That, theoretically, should be the easiest thing in the world to do.  They're small, so a proportionately large and complex exhibit should be a lot easier and cheaper to build than a lion exhibit.  They live in the desert, so no expensive water features, or refrigeration systems (it always seems to be cheaper and more economical to heat exhibits than to cool them).  I feel that for a relatively paltry sum, I could build the best sand cat exhibit in the world.  Or at least in the US.  There are some pretty excellent sand cat exhibits in Europe.

And it's not just sand cats.  There's a lot of smaller, less-celebrated species where we seem to be stuck in the mindset of "good enough."  Zoos trip over themselves to build increasingly elaborate exhibits for animals like polar bears and gorillas, spending tens of millions, sometimes with the end result of something that's strictly middling.  For a percent of those costs, they could to something incredible.  Imagine saying you have the best exhibit ever of North American porcupine, or pale-faced saki?  Wouldn't that be something?  Wouldn't it help push the envelope on the husbandry of that species?

Years ago, a tree fell at a zoo where I worked and damaged a small aviary, one that held a single species of smallish bird.  After the rubble was cleared (no birds were harmed or escaped), my co-workers and I realized that there was nothing particularly close to this aviary, so when we were rebuilding it, why not expand it?  We ended up making it over three times larger, which allowed us to do so much more with perching and substrate and terrain, as well as building an indoor holding component.  This was all done in house, except for a little electrical work we needed to contract out, seeing as we didn't want to die, and cost us very little.

I'm not saying that the finished product was the best exhibit for that species ever built, but to be honest, it was the best I'd ever seen.  I was quite proud of it, at any rate.  With the result that, whenever I see that species at another zoo in a smaller, nondescript aviary, my first thought is, "Come on, even I could do better than that..."  And that should be a lesson that we take away when we look at a lot of these smaller animals.  We can do better... and in many cases, it wouldn't even be that hard.

Species Fact Profile: Sand Cat (Felis margarita)

                                                              Sand Cat

                                           Felis margarita (Loche, 1858)

Range: Northern Africa through the Arabian Peninsula into Central Asia

Habitat: Sandy, Sparsely-Vegetated Desert

Diet:  Small Mammals (mice, jerboas, gerbils, young hares), Reptiles (including venomous snakes), Birds, and Arthropods

Social Grouping:  Solitary

Reproduction:  Breeding season varies across range, believed to be based on local climate conditions.  Estrus 5-6 days.  Gestation period 59-67 days.  Litter may consist of 1-8 (usually 2-4) kittens, each weighing only 40 grams at birth.  Independent at 6-8 months old, sexually mature at 14 months.  Can give birth twice per year

Lifespan: 10-15 Years

      Conservation Status:  IUCN Least Concern, CITES Appendix II

• Among the smallest of wild cats, weighing 1.4-3.4 kilograms (males are larger than females).  Body length 45-57 centimeters, with an additional 28-35 centimeters of tail.  Short limbs with thickly furred feet as protection from hot sand.  Broad head with low-set, disproportionately large ears, the most recognizable trait of this species
• Coat color ranges from pale yellow to gray, with dark brown or black stripes on the tail and limb, eyes accentuated with reddish-orange fur from the cheeks.  Black fur on the pads on the feet.  Chest and chin are white.
• Characteristic way of moving, belly low to the ground, can run up to 40 kilometers per hours.  Not especially good climbers or jumpers, but excellent diggers.  Capable of digging shallow burrows (up to 1.5 meters deep) to escape the midday heat (avoid habitats with compacted soil, which may be too difficult to burrow in).  Will also use dens dug by other species, such as foxes and porcupines.  Burrows may be used by multiple cats, but not at the same time.  Primarily nocturnal to escape heat (some northern populations may be crepuscular during winter months)
• Males and females have overlapping territories, about 16 square kilometers.  Communicates with loud, raspy call and urine spraying.
• Opportunistic hunters. Obtain moisture from their prey.  Primarily hunt by hearing (ear canal is twice the size of a domestic cat, hearing range is 8 decibels greater).  Captured prey may be buried for later consumption.  Can also dig to unearth hidden prey
• Predators include jackals, wolves, caracals, and owls.  If encountering predators at night, the cat may close its eyes to prevent predators from seeing their eye-shine
• Four subspecies recognized: the nominate in North Africa, F. m. harrisoni in Arabia, F. m. thinobia in Turkmenistan (at one point recognized as a separate species), and F. m. scheffeli in Pakistan.  Subspecies are geographically separated, and have some differences in skull formation and coat patterning
•  Large geographic range, naturally occurs at low densities.  Poorly studied in wild.    Threats include habitat loss and degradation (mostly caused by livestock, fencing), which can overgraze vegetation needed to sustain their prey base
• Introduced feral dogs and cats pose predation risk, as well as disease transmission.  Sometimes killed in traps, poison baits set out for other carnivores, or captured for the pet trade

Are 20,000 Big Cats Caged in the U.S.? Highly Unlikely.

 Are 20,000 Big Cats Caged in the U.S.?  Highly Unlikely

For as many years as I've been working with animals, I've heard the statistic about how many big cats are kept hidden in various corners of the country.  At times, I've heard it said that there were more tigers in Texas than there were in India.  Heck, I've probably used that stat myself in a keeper talk.  Is the initial source of the statement correct?  Hard to say... but a new study seems to suggest that we aren't as likely to be overrun by rogue lions and leopards as one might suspect.

(Also, for what it's worth, I've been hearing the stats about the number of big cats for many years.  It's entirely possible that there were historically a lot more privately kept big cats decades ago before regulations - such as the Big Cat Public Safety Act - made the ownership of pet big cats in backyards much less common).

Extreme Olympians

Every time that the Olympics comes around, it invites comparisons between human athletes and animals - how fast a cheetah can run, how far a kangaroo can jump, things like that.  Which got me thinking - just as some of our human athletes seem almost superhuman in their abilities, are their animal counterparts?

Many humans can swim, but few us could swim the way Michael Phelps can.  Many of us can tumble around a little, which is nothing compared to how Simon Biles can move.  Are there individual animals which outpace their conspecifics to such a dramatic degree?  Top speed for a cheetah is 60-70 miles per hour, and they can only hold that speed for about a minute.  But that's what we say an average cheetah can do.  Is there some super cheetah out there who can run 80-90 miles per hour, or can hold it for a much longer distance?  Are there individual animals which are just much stronger, faster, and otherwise more capable than others of their species?

Nor is this all idle amusement or speculation.  We base our exhibit designs and husbandry around the physical abilities of the animals.  Or at least what we assume the normal abilities are.  A lion may be able to jump a distance of 30 feet, so a moat that's 40 foot wide should contain them, right?  Well what if you have the Olympic gold medalist of lions, who just so happens to be able to jump 45 feet?  This isn't even taking into account that, like humans, animals under extreme duress or pressure can perform physical tasks far beyond what they normally could do (think of the stories of people lifting cars to help save folks trapped underneath).

I once heard someone say that no one had ever taught a gorilla bodybuilding techniques, so we don't know how strong one is actually capable of becoming.  Not that I'm advocating giving barbells to gorillas - they'd probably cause all sorts of trouble with them - but it does raise an interesting point.  In some ways, the only thing more impressive than what we know our animals are capable of is the potential of what they could be capable of.

Photo Credit: Getty Images, Hasan Akbas

Cogs in the Machine

July 1st  (so, a month ago) was National Registrars Day.  I had no idea that it was National Registrars Day.  I'm not entirely sure if our registrar knew that it was National Registrars Day, and even if they did, I'm not sure they would have told us - perhaps a bit too much like telling folks it's your birthday in hopes that they bring you cake or throw you a party?  I'm not sure what we would have done or said, anyway.  "Hi!  I know we keep you in a broom closet for 99% of the time and only remember that you're there when we need something, usually last minute... but, uh, thanks!  Here's a cupcake!  See you next year!"

My facility is one that goes all in on National Zookeeper Week - parties and games and prizes and lots of free food - while other members of the staff kind of look on awkwardly from the sidelines.  Zookeepers are very important - in many ways they're the lifeblood of the zoo, the frontline for animal welfare.  But the longer I spend at the zoo, the more I come to appreciate the other people who are there who quietly keep the zoo running.  

People talk a lot about the devotion of the keepers, and they truly are devoted.  But there's also the maintenance guys who come in at midnight or during a storm (or a storm at midnight) to fix a generator that goes down or some similar emergency.  The keepers also get a fair bit of sympathy for not getting paid a lot and the sacrifices they make as a result.  Dear reader, that also applies to everyone else at the zoo...

A few months ago, I did a series of posts detailing the jobs of the various people who go into making the zoo operate.  Some of them have very public facing jobs, and their contributions to the zoo are readily, physically obvious - we can all appreciate a beautiful, well-landscaped planting bed that the horticulture teams puts in and admire how it contributes to the zoo.  Others are less visible, like the life support technicians - you don't think about them or notice them because they are doing their job.  If they were ever to stop... well, we'd notice pretty fast.  Especially anyone involved in keeping fish.

It takes a village to run a zoo.  I often wish that we'd take at least a little of the energy that we put into lionizing (hee hee) the zookeepers and shine some light on the other staff.  Every staff member is a cog in the (occasionally well-oiled) machine that is the zoo, and everyone is essential to keeping it running.