History and Horrors

Most zoos I know have a horror story.

I don't mean a ghost story - though plenty have those as well.  I mean an actual terrible thing that happened there, a piece of dirty laundry that is generally kept from the public (unless it manages to happen in a public manner, in which case you're stuck with it), but is breathlessly told to each new hire, with details especially sought out from those who were actually there.  Less Dracula, more Harambe.

Sometimes it's the story of a keeper fatality - they happen rarely, especially these days, but many zoos have been around for a long time, so a decent number have chalked up one over the course of their history (especially zoos that used to manage elephants free contact).  Even rarer are visitor fatalities - but when they do happen, they tend to seize international attention, especially when they happen in public, such as the African wild dog incident at Pittsburgh and the tiger incident at San Francisco, versus visitors who sneak in at night and meet their ending there.

There are also horror stories of animal fatalities and animal escapes, the later sometimes taking on the air of mystery stories if the animal never reappears.  For Philadelphia Zoo staff, for example, the memory of the primate house fire that wiped out their apes, monkeys, and lemurs is a story that never fails to chill the blood.

Many stories dance on the line of tragicomedy, where it could easily go either way for the keepers on the flip of a coin - an outrageous anecdote that they are retelling and laughing about until they retire, or something that will traumatize them deeply for the rest of their days.

Recounting these stories among staff isn't just a way to terrorize new keepers.  It's a way to build an institutional culture, while also imparting lessons and experience to help prepare the next generation of keepers.  But, yeah, a big part of it is about scaring the new keepers...

Happy Halloween

Slogging through the Shutdown

Early this year, when DOGE was plowing full-steam ahead with Elon Musk's plan to slash the federal government, I remember turning to a colleague and saying, "I have a feeling that we're all about to get a sudden reminder about what it is the federal government actually does."  Sure enough, in the months since, delayed services, reduced responses, halted communications, and slashed efficiency have been the legacy of DOGE.  

None of which, of course, has been helped by the government shutdown, now slogging into its fifth week with no signs of stopping.  While the temporary closure of the National Zoo (resulting in its keepers working without pay as they strive to keep the facility running and animals cared for) might be the most public-facing evidence of the impact on zoos, there have been many others, not as visible to the public but still very significant.  

Your vets are worried about avian influenza during fall migration?  They rely in part on USDA for coordination.  Your registrar submitted permits to move animals across international lines?  What is already a long, time-consuming process just froze in its tracks.  Conservation team working with FWS to reintroduce a species?  Good luck with that.

Zoos, like pretty much every aspect of society, work best when we have a functioning, open government.  Hopefully we get there again soon...

Giraffe on the Table

 

Species Fact Profile: Mexican Alligator Lizard (Abronia graminea)

                                          Mexican (Emerald) Alligator Lizard

                                               Abronia graminea (Cope, 1864)

Range: Southern Mexico (Sierra Madre do Oaxaca)

Habitat: Pine-Oak Cloud Forest, 1,300-2,800 meters elevation

Diet: Insects and other arthropods

Social Grouping: Unknown

Reproduction: Breeding season takes place in summer or fall, with parturition in the spring.  Females give live birth of litters of up to 12 young after a gestation period of 6-8 months.  Young are independent at birth.  Sexually mature at 2-3 years old.

Lifespan: 10 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Endangered, CITES Appendix II

• Body length about 10 centimeters head and body, with an additional 16 centimeters or tail, weighing about 20 grams.  Flattened, triangular head, prehensile tail can be regrown if lost
• Adult males usually bright green to dark teal blue, females may be more variable.  Both sexes paler, nearly white, on the underside.  Often have yellow skin around the eyes, blue highlights around the snout.  Juveniles tend to be duller than adults
• Highly arboreal, rarely come down from the canopy (about 40 meters above the ground), using its prehensile tail to assist with climbing
• Primary threat is degradation of habitat due to deforestation and fires.  Intolerant of disturbed habitat.  Also threatened by collection for the pet trade

What a Re-Molting Development...

When your a spider, Halloween is kind of your signature holiday, so it makes sense that you'd want to look your best for it by freshening up your exoskeleton.

Run, Lola, Run

"I'm a zookeeper - if you see me running, try to keep up." - Unknown

After years of working in zoos, I've become a connoisseur of the different kind of events that the zoo can host, which I mainly classify as to how much of an impact they will have on the animals (and, by extension, me).  Beer festivals tend to have loud music which, depending on its location in the zoo, can have either a negligible or major impact - the trick is to place the speakers in a place/aim them in a direction where they do no harm.  Holiday lights seem to have surprisingly little impact.  Halloween events can be hit or miss - animals seem indifferent to most costumed attendees, but may startle or balk at others, especially those that are large, elaborate, or have moving parts.

One event that can be especially annoying?  Races.

Races require lots of outdoor space and good paths, so zoos, especially those located in city parks, are prime locations for them.  They are short in duration, but the impact on the animals can be startling.

It makes sense when you realize that most animals really do not run for fun.  They run to chase things, or if they are being chased.  Also, in the eyes of many zoo animals, we are predators.  So when the animals see a massive wall of humans running in one direction, they can either assume they are being chased, or that there is something scary enough coming that all of the humans are terrified enough to stampede away, and as such, they should be afraid too.

I've worked in one zoo that was free admission and located in a city park, so we got lots of early morning joggers.  One or two never seemed to bother the animals.  But when a big group came through, you could track their progress from the other end of the zoo based on which animals were alarm calling at any given point.

Races tend to be short and infrequent enough that you can't easily habituate the animals to them the way you could other stressors.  We try to plan things out by setting race routes to avoid animals that will be especially sensitive or irritable about racing.  For those animals that still react - well, I try to rationalize it that, while briefly alarming, the joggers are encouraging vigilance behavior, alarm calling, and other natural behaviors in the animals, so as long as no one is too stressed, it does no real harm.

Party Season

I find October to be one of the best months to be at the zoo, either as a staff member or as a visitor, and it's this time of year that I usually try to make an annual trip to see a new zoo.  A word of warning if you do so, however - it's always good to check ahead.  I can't imagine anything more frustrating that planning a zoo or aquarium visit, only to find that a Halloween event is taking over, and you can't get in... or, if you do get in, much of the place is closed off for festivities.

At my own zoo, as with all others, we rely on special events to help raise money for the zoo to support our mission.  Some of those events aren't necessarily to my taste - though none, at least are antithetical to our institutional values.  They bring in audiences that we might not otherwise receive.  Still, on some level, I'm always a little frustrated when we have an event which interferes with animal care in any capacity, or detracts from the serious side of the zoo.  Looking at the increasing amount of real estate on campus that gets swallowed by the event space instead of exhibits or breeding facilities, or at the number of people we add to our event staff instead of keepers, I sometimes grumble that I feel like we're less of a zoo, more an event venue that happens to have penguins.

Events place a demand on keepers, as well.  They have to diligently patrol to make sure that the animals aren't being stressed by the event, whether that takes the form of telling DJs to turn the music down/set up somewhere else or warily tracking super drunk guests at a beer festival to make sure they don't do anything foolish.  There are usually requests to do special enrichment or training demos, or maybe BTS tours for VIPs who are there for the event.  There may be extended hours, so staff have to worry about coverage.  They may get roped into event support, such as doing errands, directing vendors, etc.  And, of course, something always seems to go wrong that day.

Which isn't to say that the events aren't important in supporting the zoo.  Sometimes I think it would help if the direct positive contribution that they make was made a little more obvious to animal care staff: "We raised X amount of money, and this is what we're doing with it to support the zoo/conservation programs/whatever," rather than feeling like we do events solely to cover the costs of the events department.  And as always, there should be a clear understanding that events can't compromise the one central pillar of the zoo - the animals and their wellbeing.

There's lots of places where a party or festival can be held in a given town.  What makes the zoo special and unique are the animals.  They are what define us, and they come first.

 

When Wildlife Visits the Zoo

And I consider the deer and raccoons and foxes that we have on grounds to be exciting... in a situation like this, I imagine one of the most challenging questions in those first few moments would be determining if it was your bear which had escaped, or a wild one wondering in.

Oregon Zoo Pumpkin Smash

 

Zoo History: Wildlife Conservation Society

New York City has seldom been accused of modesty, and its residents often like to boast that it's the greatest city in the world.  Certainly it has one of the world's great zoos in the Bronx.  The Bronx Zoo, however, was predated by the Central Park Zoo by several decades, which made the Manhattan facility one of the oldest zoos in the country.  In the 1930s, zoos cropped up in Brooklyn's Prospect Park (though a menagerie has existed in Brooklyn since the 1890's), as well as Staten Island.  In 1968, Queens joined the other four boroughs in opening its zoo in the aftermath of the World's Fair.

Since its founding in the late nineteenth century, the Bronx (New York Zoological Society, to give it its proper name) was determined to be something different from the other zoos which were cropping up around the country.  While standards of animal care and housing were far different from what they are today, the zoo had an early focus on conservation, education, and scientific research.  The Central Park Zoo, at the time, was little more than a dirty, cramped menagerie, featuring many of the same large species as the Bronx - gorillas, elephants, lions, hippos - in tiny quarters.  Whereas the Bronx Zoo was built on an enormous campus with lots of room to build, the other boroughs has zoos that tried to cram as much as they could into smaller footprints.

Eventually, the dichotomy between the zoos became too obvious for the public to ignore.  In the 1960s and 70s, the Bronx was increasingly a progressive facility building newer, bigger, and better habitats.  The other boroughs (and especially Central Park) looked increasingly worse in contrast.  Calls arose for the other zoos to be shut down.  How many zoos did New Yorkers need, anyway?

Apparently, all of them - because the zoos of the other boroughs did not shut down.  Instead, they simple came under new management.  

A deal was struck with the city.  The city would help renovate the Central Park, Prospect Park, and Queens Zoos, one by one - and then turn over management of the facilities to the Bronx; Staten Island Zoo remains independent, managed by the Staten Island Zoological Society.  The New York Zoological Society was not only operating the Bronx Zoo, but also the New York Aquarium, so there was precedent for managing more than one campus.  In 1993, the year the Prospect Park Zoo, the last of the three smaller zoos, was came under the umbrella, the New York Zoological Society was rebranded as the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The reopened smaller zoos lack many of the larger animals that they previously housed - changing standards recognized the fact that there was no room for so many big animals in such small spaces.  Instead, they serve as satellite campuses for the flagship Bronx, while still managing to house and display a variety of smaller animals in larger, more natural habitats.  Their shared name under the WCS banner reflects the organization's new priority of promoting the protection and study of endangered species around the globe, with a mission that extends far beyond their gates.

The San Diego Zoo and Safari Park have a similar organizational arrangement, as does the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium with The Wilds.  I would love to see similar cooperative organizations appear between other geographically close zoos.  I feel it could result in more efficient cooperation, better planned collections, and more integrated operations, both in the zoo and in field projects abroad.

Zoo Review: WCS Prospect Park Zoo

Often overshadowed by the massive Bronx Zoo, or from the famously-located Central Park Zoo, the smaller zoos of the Big Apple often slip under the public radar.  Today, we'll look at the Prospect Park Zoo located in Brooklyn, New York.   Like the Central Park and Queens Zoo, the facility, reimagined after coming under management of WCS, lacks many large animals.  Whereas Central Park is themed around climatic zones and Queens is focused on animals of the Americas, Prospect Park is loosely themed around animal lifestyles.

Visitors coming in off the Flatbush Avenue entrance will find themselves in the central courtyard of the zoo which, like its WCS sibling facilities, is dominated by a pool of California sea lions.  The sea lions are the largest wild animals at the zoo, and the feeding and training demonstrations that take place here are among the most popular memories made at the zoo.  The courtyard is surrounded by buildings which, historically, held a variety of large animals.  Some of those buildings still stand as animal houses.  Others have administrative or educational functions.

The meandering Discovery Trail loops off of the courtyard and holds most of the outdoor exhibits.  Emphasis is placed on smaller animals which can be observed outdoors year round, such as red panda, North American porcupine, and North American river otter.  Emus and dingoes hint at a previous attempt to establish an Australian theme for the area, since abandoned, while a former prairie dog exhibit, complete with pop up bubbles, houses southern pudu.  Birds are represented on the trail both on an open waterfowl pond, which attracts wild birds as well as zoo residents, as well as a small walk-through aviary.

A variety of reptiles, amphibians, fish, birds, and small mammals can be seen in two buildings off of the central courtyard, Animal Lifestyles and Hall of Animals.  I feel like the theming of these buildings was a little weak, despite occasional attempts to group animals together under umbrellas, such as nocturnal, or different habitat types, or social groups.  Still, the buildings present an interesting cross-section of animals in attractive exhibits.  Occupants include small primates, mongooses, hornbills, dart frogs, bats, and lizards and snakes.  The largest habitat is the outdoor rocky yard for a troop of hamadryas baboons, viewed from inside the Animal Lifestyles building in a hallway decorated with mural scenes of life in a baboon troop.

Outside is a barnyard area, which also features a small pond patrolled by trumpeter swans.

Prospect Park might not be the most exciting facility for many visitors, especially when one considers that the Big Apple contains one of the world's largest and most celebrate zoos just a few miles away.  It could be said to be more of a children's zoo, both in terms of its design and collection.  Still, I found it to be a peaceful, pleasant, enjoyable facility, and would probably have found it even better-suited to my needs if I was looking at it as a parent rather than as a zoo enthusiast.  It has some handsome old architecture, including some elegant friezes, and a collection of animals that is diverse, interesting, and much better-suited to the limitations of the buildings than big cats, apes, and bears of yore were.

Overall, a fun, pleasant little zoo - and if you're looking for something a bit... bigger, well, the Bronx isn't that far away.

WCS Prospect Park Zoo

Who You Gonna Call? The Wildlife Confiscations Network!

For decades, zoos and aquariums have played an important role in providing care for confiscated or rescued animals.  Sometimes that care has been lifelong.  Sometimes it's been a case of stabilizing animals before they can be rehomed to other facilities.  Whatever the case, these rescue efforts have typically been patchwork, driven independently by individual zoos and aquariums working on there own.

Recently, that has changed.

The new Wildlife Confiscations Network, coordinated by Amanda Fischer, seeks to bring together zoos and related facilities in an organized manner so that they can quickly and effectively respond to confiscation emergencies.  Such situations are by their nature unpredictable - you can go months or years at a time without your facility needing to respond, and then suddenly, middle of the night, get a call that your help is needed. 

I enjoyed reading this new article in Smithsonian Magazine, which introduces Fischer's network and helps the general public understand the scope of the problem, and how zoos and aquariums are working with government agencies to address it, all while providing the best possible care for the animals victimized by these crimes.

"When a smuggler stuffed a monkey in a duffel bag and threw it out of their car window at the Texas-Mexico border, law enforcement called Mandy Fischer.  When a baby jaguar turned up in a dog crate, law enforcement called Fischer.  And when a man attempted to stuff 60 lizards and snakes under his clothes near San Ysidro in San Diego, they called Fischer once again.  In each case, they had the same question: Now that we've saved these animals, what do we do with them?"

Read the rest of the article here.

End of an Era, Start of a New

Miami Seaquarium Closing

After a storied and controversial history spanning decades, the Miami Seaquarium, as we know it, has closed its door for the final time.  Plans call for a new aquarium on the site, one which will lack marine mammals.  To be honest, after the storm its weathered for the last few years, I'm amazed that it made it this long - and this is from someone who has been a supporter of SeaWorld.  As much as I hate to see the end of what once was such a legendary facility, looking at its recent track record and failure to modernize and adhere to changing standards of animal care, I'd have to say that it's for the best.

Can We Talk For a Second?

"If I could talk to the animals, just imagine in 0

Chattin' with a chimp in chimpanzee

Imagine talking to a tiger, chatting with a cheetah

What a neat achievement it would be!"

- Bobby Darin

If you asked a random person to, off the top of their head, give you one fast fact about parrots, it would almost certainly be that they can talk.  Since ancient times, the ability of these birds to mimic human speech has been commented on extensively.  How much they understand what they're saying has been subject to some debate, but the fact that they can mimic human speech in itself is remarkable.  Largely it's been considered so impressive because so few other animals can.

Or so it would seem.

It's also been appreciated that some other birds can mimic human speech - Edgar Alan Poe's Raven comes to mind... but ducks?  And yet, surely enough, an Australian musk duck named Old Ripper has been documented as mimicking human speech.

And what about mammals?  You'd think if any mammal was going to talk, it would be a primate... but efforts by scientists years ago to teach apes to speak gave very poor, very limited results.  Imagine the surprise of keepers at the New England Aquarium, however, when a young harbor seal that was turned over to their care proved itself capable of a few words and phrases of speech!  Hoover, who had been found abandoned on the coast of Maine and was raised by a local animal lover, was able to say a few words, including his name, becoming a local legend.  What's even more surprising is that, having sired several pups at the Aquarium, none of which seemed to have inherited his talent, one of his grandpups has also been able to speak... in a very gruff, raspy sort of way.

I guess it skips a generation.

This... Is... Jeopardy!

 "Also a verb meaning to graze among books, it's plant matter for creatures like giraffes; the Lincoln Park Zoo has it fresh & frozen."

What is... Browse?

If you got that correct, congratulations!  You would have scored last night on Jeopardy!  There was a special category titled "Feeding Time at the Zoo" with Topeka Zoo, Zoo Atlanta, Jacksonville Zoo, and the Smithsonian National Zoo also all being mentioned in clues.  I always appreciate it when zoos make cameo appearances in mainstream culture.  It cements us as part of the cultural landscape, while also sneaking a little bit of education about who we are, what we do, and how we care for animals in along the way.

Of course, what Ken Jennings really needs to do is host an entire episode of Jeopardy! devoted solely to zoos, with zoo staff competing. 

Species Fact Profile: Red-Bellied Short-Necked Turtle (Emydura subglobosa)

                                Red-Bellied Short-Necked (Jardine River) Turtle

                                               Emydura subglobosa (Krefft, 1876)

Range: Coastal Australia, New Guinea

Habitat: Slow-Moving Rivers, Wetlands, Ponds

Diet: Algae, Aquatic Invertebrates, Fish

Social Grouping: Semi-Social

Reproduction: Breeding takes place year round, peaking in spring and fall.  Males court females with stroking, head-bobbing, squirting water from the nose.  Female digs nest cavity in sand or soil, laying 2-5 clutches of 7 eggs each per year.  No parental care.  Hatchlings mature at 7-12 years old (size dependent)

Lifespan: 15-20 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern 

• Body length 13-25 centimeters, weigh about 500 grams.  Females larger than males.  Males also differ from females in having longer tails.
• Olive green head with a yellow, cream-colored stripe running between the nose and eye, widening behind the eyes.  Yellow whiskers of the same color on the chin.  Limbs, tail, and plastron are marked with red (growing duller with age).  Carapace is grayish-brown, unpatterned
• Highly aquatic, rarely leaves the water except to bask, or when females are going to lay eggs
• Side-necked turtles, can't completely draw head into shell, but will tuck it in as best as they can.  Will defend themselves from predators, such as goannas, corvids, and crocodilians, with bites.  May release an unpleasant odor when handled.
• Genus name from the Greek for a freshwater turtle, species name means "imperfectly globe-shaped"

Copy That

Today is International Zookeeper Day, selected because... it's 10-4.  Which I never understood.  I mean, why zookeepers? Lots of jobs use radios and radio jargon, many of them which I associate much more with radios than zookeepers.

Also, it's interesting that you rarely hear other ten-codes besides 10-4, which, weirdly, has exactly as many syllables as "OK" so isn't saving anyone any time in using it.  Sometimes I'll hear people use 10-20, "What's your 20?" as in "Where are you?" but other than that, none of the others.  Which got me curious - what do the others mean, and would any of them be applicable to our work?

Jane's Way

The last few days, I've seen countless tributes rolling in for Dr. Goodall, from worldwide conservation organizations to everyday citizens alike.  Many of them shared how she touched their lives and inspired them to do better for the planet and for our fellow creatures.  One tribute, shared by M. Sanjayan, the former CEO of Conservation International, particularly caught my eye.  Mr. Sanjayan dug a little deeper into what made Jane Goodall such an effective communicator for conservation.  He summed up three bullet items as describing "Jane's way:"

1.) Speak unapologetically from the heart and tell stories.  She was a great storyteller

2.) Avoid pointing fingers.  Jane knew we all contribute to the problem, and wasn't interested in finding enemies.

3.) Remain relentlessly optimistic.  Reasons for hope is how she called it.

Jane Goodall, 1934-2025

Yesterday, the conservation community lost one of its leading lights with the passing of Dr. Jane Goodall at age 91.  Goodall was, of course, best known for her groundbreaking research on chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe Forest Reserve, research which completely upended everything we thought we knew about our closest living relatives.  As her career advanced, however, she transitioned into an advocacy role, not only for chimps, but for animals - wild, captive, and domestic - across the globe.  (I recommend Dale Peterson's Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man, as an excellent biography of her; she and Peterson had collaborated on other works together).

Over the course of her storied career, Dr. Goodall became closely involved in the zoo community.  Her work allowed zoos to greatly improve the way that chimps and other apes are managed in human care, and she frequently made a point of visiting zoos in her travels and offering praise and support where she felt it was due (she was also opposed to the keeping of certain species in captivity, especially cetaceans, a view which I know several other keepers to share - but she also speculated that, given the choice, many wild chimps might prefer a better zoo to the vanishing wild).  While I've never met her - only attended one of her speeches in a large audience, hence the mediocre photo above - many primate keepers I've known have had that privilege, and all found her to be one of the kindest and most genuine humans they've ever known. 

Today is a hard day for many folks around the world, mourning the loss of a hero.  It's also a hard day for the world's wildlife, even if they don't know it, as they've lost one of their most vocal champions.