Ferrets on the Edge

Speaking of the more important things that conservation dollars could be going to rather than pseudo-science dire wolves, a very real, live (at the moment) endangered species could stand to have some support.  Sadly, there are some folks in power - including the Secretary of the Interior - who don't seem to see the value in saving iconic American species such as the black-footed ferret

Dire Straits for Conservation

Years back, a Chinese zoo earned well-deserved mockery by painting two dogs so that they could be passed off, unsuccessfully, as giant pandas.  Now, imagine taking the basic premise of that scam, making it much more expensive and complicated, and then bragging to the world about it.

Just in time to have missed April Fool's Day, the American biotech company Colossal claimed that they have brought the dire wolf back from extinction through cloning.  It's a story that the media has been fascinated with and which has garnered a lot of attention and speculation.

Counterpoint: No, they really haven't.

The animals that they produced are nothing but (slightly) genetically-modified wolves.  There isn't a trace of actual dire wolf DNA in them.  There is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a dire wolf is in pop culture, which is probably not helping the situation.  A dire wolf is not a made-for-fiction animal, that is essentially a big gray wolf as seen in Game of Thrones (actual, the species is often shown as being larger in fiction than it was in real life).  It wasn't even in the same genus as modern wolves under recent classification - it was an entirely separate canid.  The fact that they made a point of making them white - which there is no evidence that they were, but seems to have been an aesthetic choice to match the wolf "Ghost" from A Game of Thrones - makes it even harder for me to take this company seriously.

Even if this was a real "de-extinction," I'd consider this a foolish endeavor.  If we actually had this technology, it would best be used with species that recently went extinct due to human causes, and which could have a chance to be re-wilded.  Dire wolves went extinct thousands of years ago.  Their niche is gone, taken over by other species.  Even if something genetically identical to one were brought back (which this in no way even approaches), we'd have no place for it to go, as well as no idea if it would even be behaviorally competent or ecologically viable.  Instead of conservation work, these people have essentially created a designer carnivore, of as much ecological use as a white tiger.  

What's worse, some tech and political figures (including US Vice President J.D. Vance's patron, Peter Thiel) are hailing this as the future of conservation.  Who cares if species go extinct?  We can clone them back later!  Or at least something that vaguely looks like what we think they should be.

Colossal has been one of the companies vocally claiming that they are going to bring back the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger).  With this being the example of the work they've produced so far, I'm not holding my breath for what come out of the lab.

Experts dispute claim dire wolf brought back from extinction

A Grudge with Gibbons

As I've said, I’ve never really been much of a primate person. I love carnivores. I love hoofstock. I love obscure little beasties, such as rodents and bats and that weird clade that we used to lump together as insectivores. But I’ve never especially liked working with primates. And I think that I can trace that antipathy towards our closest relatives back to my earliest experiences with gibbons – the very first primates I ever worked with.

Looking back, it surprises me a little – I associate gibbons strongly with my first day in the zoo field, as a young volunteer keeper aide, barely out of middle school. It was a beautiful summer morning, and I was walking the zoo grounds on my way to volunteer orientation. Everything was quiet, as the zoo hadn’t opened yet and no visitors were present – quiet, that is, until a series of powerful whoops, reaching a crescendo that made the very air vibrate, broke the silence. Gibbons are most prone to call in the early morning, and it was a treat to have that special moment to myself on that first day. I took it as a good omen.

Reality was a little more disappointing.

The male white-cheeked gibbon taught me several important lessons over our years together, first and foremost being, “Even if you haven’t done anything to deserve it, some animals are still going to take a dislike to you. Sometimes a strong, very personal dislike.” And boy did he dislike me. This originally just manifested itself as following me along the mesh, chattering angrily as I walked by. Things gradually got uglier. One day, as I was walking by down the narrow keeper corridor between the row of cages, he shot a long, thin arm out through the mesh and grabbed a hank of my (fairly short) hair, and with a hard jerk slammed my head against the side of the cage. I was still seeing stars, but thankfully stumbled backwards, falling against another cage (I don’t remember who was in that one, probably one of our smaller felids), so at least falling out of his range before he could try again.

After that, I always walked very cautiously past the gibbons, and always made sure I knew where he was. I never underestimated his reach again. Strangely, his mate never showed any hostility towards me, and over the years as they presented the zoo with two offspring, the kids seemed friendly, playful, and curious – not that I tried getting too cozy with them, lest I provoke their father’s protective ire. I especially enjoyed watching the coats of the infants change color as they matured, confirming their sexes.

I had similar experiences at another (this time unaccredited) zoo working with their gibbons, both lone males (so maybe it was a male thing…). One in particular, an individual named Pugs, scared the hell out of me – I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such constant, apoplectic rage from an animal on a daily basis. It was all the more concerning because their enclosures were, as best as I could figure out, made of two-by-fours, chicken wire, zipties, and spit, so every time a gibbon slammed on the side of the exhibit, the entire cage looked like it was about to fall apart (the two males were housed separately in adjacent exhibits). Everything was made of wood of poor quality, so cleaning every day was a cause of worry for me – should I try using water to scrub the abundant, liquidy gibbon poop off of everything? Or would the water just make the damned cage rot even faster? After leaving that zoo, I didn't return again for over 10 years, and when I did (as a visitor), I was glad to see those wretched cages were gone.



Strangely, my experiences working with the largest of the gibbons, siamangs, was the complete opposite. They were some of the gentlest, most serene primates I’ve ever worked with. Their movements, while graceful, were still so much slower and more deliberate than the other gibbons, which seemed to throw themselves around with mad abandon. Even when they called, it was done almost lazily, like they were going through the motions. And they actually seemed, if not pleased, than at least ok with seeing me every day – particularly when, after feeding them, I’d give each of them a small marshmallow as their daily treat, which they’d carefully pluck from my palm with leathery hands. Another interesting thing about siamangs – they’ve always struck me as the most terrestrial of the gibbons, and I saw ours on the ground as often as I did on a perch or hanging from the mesh.

 

 

 

As stressful as our gibbons were to work with, I must admit that they were a treat to behold.  Their vocalizations are crowd-stoppers, some of the most iconic sounds of any zoo (I actually lived on grounds at one zoo, and grew to really resent the early morning wake-up calls from the gibbons, especially on my rare days off).  Their acrobatic leaping and swinging through the branches in truly something to behold, especially in an exhibit that really gives them space to build up momentum, like an aerial ballet.

Species Fact Profile: Northern White-Cheeked Gibbon (Nomascus leucogenys)

 Northern White-Cheeked Gibbon

                                                        Nomascus leucogenys (Ogilby, 1840)

Range: Southeast Asia (Laos, Vietnam) – believed to have been extirpated from southern China (Yunnan)

Habitat: Primary Evergreen Subtropical Rainforest, up to 1600 meters elevation (historically occurred at lower elevations, may be shifting habitat usage due to habitat loss)

Diet: Fruits, Leaves, Flowers, Eggs, Small Animals

Social Grouping: Breeding pair with offspring

Reproduction: Monogamous, generally for life.  Can breed year round.   Single infant born after seven month gestation period.  Infant clings to the mother for the first two years (having the same color fur as the mother at this point allows it to blend in with her fur), being weaned at the end of this period.  Both parents care for the infant.  Sexually mature at 6-7 years old.  Independent at 3-8 years old.  Have offspring every 2-3 years

Lifespan: 50 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Critically Endangered, CITES Appendix I

• Both sexes measure 45-63 centimeters long, weigh an average of 5.7 kilograms, but up to 7.5 kilograms (males perhaps being slightly larger).  Arms are 1.2 – 1.4 times as long as the legs.  Long fingers with opposable thumbs and big toes
• Coloration variable based on age and sex.  All are born with cream-colored fur.  At 2 years old, the fur changes to black and the animal develops the namesake white cheeks.  Upon reaching sexual maturity, females change back to the cream/tan color, losing much of the white on their cheeks, while males remain black.  Males have an upright tuft of fur on top of their heads.   Females often have a dark patch on the back of the head or nape of their neck.  Faces and the palms of the hands and soles of the feet are bare and black
• Genitalia of the adult male and adult female are fairly similar, making sexing on animals before they achieve their adult coloration difficult
• Highly arboreal, usually found in the canopy and rarely coming to the forest floor.  Travel through the trees by brachiating, swinging between branches using their long arms.  Fingers loosely hook around branches, enabling them to quickly make a hand-over-hand motion.  When on the ground, usually walk on their hind legs, holding their arms up or out for balance.  May reach speeds of up to 55 kilometers per hour and swing across trees up to 15 meters apart
• Live in small family units (up to 6, usually 3-4) of a breeding pair and their offspring.  Females are dominant to males; adult female is leader of the group, followed by female offspring, male offspring, and the adult male at the bottom.  Sleep in groups at night, holding onto one another
• Highly vocal, using calls to demarcate territories and as part of mating rituals.  Female usually initiates the call, making a series of 15—30 notes with an increasing pitch, followed by the male calling with rapidly changing frequency modulation.  Each cycle lasts for 20 seconds, can be repeated for several minutes.  In zoos, noted that pairs that call together frequently mate the most often.  Juveniles in a group sometimes join in when defending territory.  Pairs are the most vocal at dawn
• Home ranges of 0.3-0.4 square kilometers (75-100 acres), about three-quarters of which will be defended.  Males will only rarely physically fight one another over territory.  Aggression is communicated by gaping and showing canine teeth.  Typically, do not travel far, especially in the rainy season when fruit is plentiful.  May have to travel further in the dry season to find food.
• Important seed dispersers.  Forage throughout the day, feeding higher in the trees in the morning, moving to the lower layers in the afternoon.  AThe proportion of different foods in the diet changes based on seasonal availability, with fruit being preferred, but leaves making up the bulk of the diet during the dry season
• Until 1989, considered to be a subspecies of N. concolor (crested, or southern white-cheeked gibbon), which has a range immediately to the south of this species.  The two are most easily distinguished by the tuft of fur resembling a mohawk on N. leucogenys.  To differentiate the two, N. leucogenys is sometimes referred to as the northern white-cheeked gibbon
• Experiments in captivity have determined that they are capable of self-recognition
• Primary threat is habitat loss due to deforestation, both for timber and for agriculture (especially for palm oil plantations).  Also persecuted both by direct hunting (have been a source of meat for traditional communities, as well as playing a role in traditional medicines), as well as for the capture of infants for sale on the pet trade
• Depicted in Chinese poetry, artwork, and literature, especially during the Song Dynasty.  Admired for their grace and nobility, in contrast to macaques, which were seen as greedy.  Toaists believed that gibbons could live for hundreds of years and even turn into humans.  Although gibbons never naturally occurred in Japan, there is a popular Zen motif of a gibbon grasping at the reflection of the moon on the water.

Zookeeper's Journal: We joke about the smells, but it's often the sounds that I remember the most about the different zoos I worked at - and few sounds are more evocative than the ear-shattering whoops of the white-cheeked gibbon.  On my very first day in the zoo field, as a brand new volunteer at my city's zoo, what I remember the best were the gibbons.  I don’t remember seeing them that day, actually.  Instead, I remember sitting in the volunteer office, waiting for instructions, when suddenly the air was pierced by the cries of the pair of white-cheeked gibbons in the valley below.    Gibbons call most often in the early morning, before the zoo is open for the day - which means that staff and volunteers (and irate neighbors) are much more likely to experience it than visitors are.  It really may have been that call which told me that I was there, that I’d begun my zoo career.  When I did eventually make my way down to the gibbons later that week, I remember their songs, coupled with their easy, graceful movements as they swung around the enclosure.

Joel Sartore and the Chimp Incident

If you ever get a chance to hear PhotoArk photographer Joel Sartore speak, you should jump on it.  He's a great storyteller, and years of traveling the world to photograph animals has given him lots of material.  There are two primate stories that he especially likes to tell (I mean, three if you count the Peruvian photo shoot that left him with his hair full of monkey poop).  One is of the "Chimp Incident" at the Sunset Zoo, when the super-smart primates felt the need to remind him of how uncooperative they can be.

    

The second was of Kanzi, the bonobo... the only animal to take a photo of the world famous animal photographer!  Kanzi seems to have done a pretty good job, too

Pithecophobia

 Years ago, on my first trip to Africa, I was spending my first night out in the bush, when I awoke with a start.  I became aware that there was an animal outside my tent, shuffling around.  Fascination turned to fear, seconds later, when whatever it was let out an ear-piercing shriek and started smacking into the side of my tent.  I was pretty sure for a few seconds there that my first night on safari would also be my last.

The late night visitor, surprisingly, ended up being a pint-sized bat-eared fox.  Talking around the breakfast table the next morning, my companions - all who were safe and snug in their tents during this - had expressed their fears that there was a lion or a hyena in the camp, which could have done much more damage.  I guess I agreed.  I hadn't quite realized it at the time, but what had really scared me more than anything that night, what I really, really was afraid I'd see when the side of the tent tore open, was a baboon.  And that I was glad that I wasn't in a part of that country that had chimpanzees.

A lot of people are famously afraid of clowns.  The same can be said about skeletons, and zombie horror is a popular genre.  I think I heard it explained to me somewhere that we're afraid of these things because they are sort-of, but not quite, human in our eyes.  They are close enough to be like us, but our brain perceives something different and, therefore wrong and worrying about them.  With that in mind, I'm surprised that the fear of apes and monkeys, pithecophobia, isn't more of a thing.

There's something that I find very unnerving about a lot of non-human primates, and the more closely related they are to humans, they more off-putting I can find them.  They're the animals that I've probably enjoyed working with the least; the one day that I spent filling in for the chimp keepers, in the cavernous depths of their holding building, echoing with shrieks and the rattling of doors, was one of the creepiest experiences of my life.  Years later, when I watched Silence of the Lambs for the first time, that scene in which Clarice Starling first walks down the hallway of the insane asylum, past the various psychopaths as she made her way to Hannibal Lecter, reminded me of that day.

I find zookeepers very divided on the subject of chimps, which, being the most human-like of the primates, are also the most violent and mercurial.  Some of them absolutely adore them, finding their closeness to us fascinating and incredibly, and delighting in their intelligence and behavioral complexity, their dynamic social lives.  Others are horrified and disgusted by them - their grossness, their loudness, their brutality, to each other and to other animals.  One registrar I spoke with likened reading the daily report of the chimp keepers to a catalog of injuries that they inflicted upon each other, seemingly on a whim.  A former keeper who visited me at one zoo where I worked literally put her hands over her eyes as she walked past our chimps, asking me to guide her by and let her know when she had passed them.  I know of no other zoo animal that is so polarizing among keepers as to how they feel about it.

When most animals defecate on you, or threaten you, or display a sexual fixation on you, it can feel unpleasant enough, but you brush it off, usually.  When it's an ape, or a large monkey, however... well, it feels creepier, and a lot more personal.  It becomes harder to think of it as animal expressing that hostility and/or lust (they two have a weird habit of going together with primates), and more like a strange, wild person.

I'll throw myself on the back of an alligator, or wrangle an anaconda.  I'll go in with wolves and cheetahs.  I'll walk a thin catwalk above a shark tank.  But ask me to work chimps again?  Sorry, I think I have to wash my hair that day... and not just because the damn monkeys pooped in it again.

The Dangers of Finger Food

Last week, the President and CEO of the Indianapolis Zoo, Dr. Rob Shumaker, was treated after having his finger bitten by a chimpanzee at the facility.  According to an anonymous post on Reddit (the veracity of which cannot be confirmed), the bite occurred after he was feeding the ape "inappropriate foods" after hours.  Also according to the poster, this bite which was not the first after-hours ape-inflicted injury that Shumaker has experienced.  He's apparently had his hand hurt by an orangutan in the past.

Zookeepers getting bitten or grabbed through fencing is, whether we like to admit it or not, something that happens, though we try to be careful.  Shortly after this made the news, there was a report of an orangutan biting a keeper at Woodland Park Zoo and a jaguar scratching a keeper at Brevard Zoo.  I myself have had my hand grabbed and (thankfully, lightly) clawed and mouthed by a clouded leopard.  I was trying to palm some meat against the mesh, keeping my hand flat and outside the fencing.  Which would have been a great plan - if the leopard hadn't been able to reach her paws out and grab me.  Looking back, it was not an ideal plan.  It was made worse because it was happening in front of our director, to whom I was trying to demonstrate how our new clouded leopard was really coming out of her shell.

A more successful hand-feeding attempt with said clouded leopard

Accidents are something to be avoided, but not always successfully, and you learn from mistakes.

What separates the Indianapolis incident from the others, however, is that Dr. Shumaker isn't the caretaker of the chimps and, if the Redditor is to be believed, shouldn't have been doing what he's doing.  Now, at a smaller facility the director may be more involved in day to day animal care.  But at a larger zoo (and if your title is "CEO," it's probably a larger one), that's probably not the case, and even if the President/CEO is a former animal person, they probably don't know those individual animals as well as the keepers do, and the animals probably don't know them.  

In these cases, the boss at the top is the decision maker and steward of the animals.  That shouldn't let them fool themselves into thinking that the animals are their pets, and that they should pop in whenever they want to feed some nibblies.

I hope Dr. Shumaker learned a lesson from this embarrassing (and, I assume, painful) experience.  Though if it is not, in fact, the first time that this has happened, maybe not...

Satire: De-Wokifying the National Zoo

What's so woke about the zoo?

"What's woke about the zoo?

Zoos have important lessons to teach, as they do to millions of children who pass through them each year.

Zoos teach us that, where there is no diversity in a species, a single virus or invasive predator can wipe it from existence.

Zoos show us that, where there is no equity or balance in a habitat, the whole ecosystem can be at risk of collapse.

Zoos put us on notice that, when we humans make no room for inclusion, we erase the natural world from the earth.

Zoos demonstrate that diversity, equity and inclusion are not just things that happen on college campuses or in your company's HR department, but are vital things from the natural world.

At the zoo, you can't look the other way, even when an animal is off-exhibit."