The Denver Zoo's tamandua, Winnie, is expecting! The zoo highlighted the upcoming birth by showing off Winnie getting her ultrasound, with complimentary snacks for the mom-to-be! 95% of the comments on social media are some variation of women asking, "Why didn't I get snacks during mine?" - a fair question, to be sure. And don't mom and dad look so proud of themselves, too?
Malayan, or Large, Flying Fox
Pteropus vampyrus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Man Killed by Lion After Breaking Into Zoo Enclosure
A 19-year old Brazilian man with a deep love of animals and a history of mental issues was killed this week after he deliberately climbed into the lion exhibit at the Arruda Camara Zoo Botanical Park. During public hours, in front of a crowd that begged him to stop, Gerson de Melo Machado climbed a fence, then lowered himself into the exhibit, where a lion was watching and waiting. The video of the incident is out there, but I've opted not to share it here.
It's difficult to say if this was a suicide, or if the young man was expecting a different outcome. He previously had been caught trying to smuggle himself onto a plane to Africa so that he could be among animals.
My deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Machado, as well as all of the zoo goers and staff who had to witness this tragedy. The zoo has confirmed that the lion, which, of course, was behaving as one would expect of a lion, is safe and unharmed, and euthanasia was never considered.
Building a zoo exhibit that keeps animals in is, in all reality, not that difficult. Building one that prevents casual, accidental entry by humans is also feasible, though mistakes do happen, especially when barriers are reduced to improve accessibility of the exhibit and viewing of animals; think a child getting dropped by mistake into an open-moated enclosure. But building an exhibit that prevents any possible access by a very determined person who wants to get in/access the animal no matter what? That's a lot trickier, probably only possible if every exhibit is completely enclosed in glass or acrylic.
The zoo remains temporarily closed while a security review is carried out.
The older I get - and especially the longer I worked in zoos as a keeper - the more that I came to hate rainy days. I don't like being cold and wet, and the rain, especially the heavy storms, made such a mess, and literally made everything harder and worse. Well, almost everything.
If there's one thing I came to appreciate about rain, it was the cleaning powers. Yes, I know I also just said that the rain makes a mess, and it does, especially when drains clog up and things start to flood. But one thing rain does especially well is clean things that are hard to reach and hard to scrub off. I'm especially thinking of perching in some of our larger bird exhibits.
Every once in a while, a fit of ambition would hit me, and I'd laboriously haul a ladder from aviary to aviary, haul in a big bucket of warm soapy water and a scrub brush, and then spend the day either trying to bring the bucket up the ladder with me, spilling half of it in the process, or make countless trips up and down. This would be all in the name of scrubbing off the bird droppings... but usually it just ended up looking white and smeary. Now, a good, slow, steady soaking rain, on the other hand, can really clear things off... without me having to do much.
I sometimes wonder if custodial staff feel that way about some of the stains around zoo grounds in the public areas.
Rain also other benefits for the animals, in moderation. It's enriching, changing the environment, creating new mini-water features for animals to bathe in, changing the smell and feel of the exhibit. It can let birds preen their feathers and get themselves clean. Even just forcing the animal to make a decision about whether it wants to be out in the wet or dry under shelter (and the animals should all have the freedom to make that decision) is empowering for them. For that reason, some indoor zoo exhibits, especially rainforest buildings, also give their animals mock rainstorms.
But from an employee perspective, all I can say is, at least it gets some of the tough stains up.
Years ago, when I was much younger, my dad, who has had a decades-long interest in marine biology, found this poem and showed it to me. He was impressed by two things. First, how bad it was as a poem. Second, how wrong the sentiment is.
Eastern Oyster
Crassostrea virginica (Gmelin, 1791)
Happy Thanksgiving! Especially to all of the dedicated animal care staff who are at work today, seeing to the animals. I hope today is quick and uneventful for you, so you can wrap up and get to settle down for a well-earned dinner! And special thoughts to those keepers working far from home.
I saw this video of some polar bears playing with firehose toys, and my wheels started turning. We use firehose for a lot of toys, hammocks, climbing structures, etc for a variety of animals. It's an incredibly tough substance, and, since fire departments are always having to get new hoses and have old ones they're giving away, the supply is fairly steady. Not many people outside of zoos (or fire departments) have that much hands-on experience with the stuff, though. A lot of folks watching the video were surprised at how strong the material is.
Years ago, when I was very young and local TV was still a thing, I remember a commercial for a local carpet company. They went to my local zoo, which at the time still had lots of the old style cages, and placed carpeting in several of the bear and big cat cages. The animals, predictably, made a mess with them - but the company was able to demonstrate that their carpet was able to hold up even against large wild animals, remaining intact and even being cleanable afterwards. If our carpeting can stand up to a bear, the messaging went, surely it's tough enough for your kids and dog!
Maybe there's a market out there somewhere for advertising for "zoo tough" products. Probably not carpeting, mind you, because we're generally not going to put that even in our staff areas. But an unkinkable hose that can be used in any weather? Cable ties that the most determined macaw can't crack open? Work gloves that are flexible enough to let you finger through your 5000 keys in the dead of winter? Truck beds that can handle large pieces of deadfall being hauled around the zoo?
Corporate sponsorships via endorsements - that would be a neat trick to pull off. Because I guarantee, if a product is tough enough to work at the zoo, I'm sure it's more than tough enough for your home.
I spotted this book, quite by chance, on the shelf of the local library and paged through it. It looked fairly intriguing - a series of vignettes about a few dozen modern, human-driven extinctions, from the aurochs in the 1600s to the very-near present. I was especially interested because, in addition to some very well-known species, such as the dodo, great auk, passenger pigeon, and thylacine - it also covered many more obscure species, including a handful of invertebrates. I checked it out.
The writer, Barbara Allen, definitely made an interesting choice when she opted to write each chapter from the perspective of the extinct animal in question, like a ghost reaching back from beyond the veil. Unique perspective. But it didn't really work, and was more of an awkward distraction that anything else. I don't care how good a writer is, I'm not going to be able to suspend my disbelief and take you seriously if you pretend to be a St. Helena's earwig. Also, there were 30-odd chapters, so keeping that melodramatic tone over and over for each animal made them all feel like they were blurring together.
And, yes, I'll be honest, I found the several digs at zoos ("prisons," as she repeatedly calls them) to be grating. How this animal or that animal died of despair. It's like, look, lady, the only reason your book doesn't also have chapters on the Arabian oryx and California condor is because of zoos, so maybe a slightly more even-handed approach to a nuanced topic, okay?
I did enjoy the fine collection of photos and illustrations, and, as I mentioned earlier, appreciated the spotlight being shone on species that are often overlooked, including the most recent - and therefore most avoidable - extinctions. The execution of the book was lacking, though. For those interested in a similar take on this project - minus the first-person perspective - I recommend A Gap in Nature by Tim Flannery, with excellent illustrations by Peter Schouten.
Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds: Stories of Extinction at Good Reads
Triceratops, of course! Just not quite how I expected it...
KJ, a black rhino at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas, is spotting an unexpected third horn, this one from the center of the forehead. If the Asian one-horned rhino may have contributed to the legend of the unicorn (its right there in the Latin name Rhinoceros unicornis), maybe this aberrant African rhino is a 21st-century take on the triceratops?
In seriousness, no one knows quite how this horn would impact the rhino if left to its own devices, so keepers are managing it so it doesn't inconvenience the animal. Right now, it's mostly a curiosity - which I kind of love. It never ceases to amaze me that we still have so many surprises in store for us when we study animals, in the zoo and in the wild.
"He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once."
- Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
Dr. Robert Shumaker isn't having a good month. The President of the Indianapolis Zoo has been dealing with a spree of bad luck at the institution. First of all, two rare tortoises were stolen from the zoo, though they were thankfully recovered. Then, a bottlenose dolphin - who was on birth control - gave birth to a male calf, which then did not survive, putting the staff through an emotional rollercoaster. Then, most recently, a chimp escaped from the zoo's new chimpanzee exhibit. There are few animals which would terrify me more to have on the loose than a chimp - when I first heard the news, the ape was still out of its enclosure, and I was fearing the worst, both for the animal and for the staff. Thankfully, she was recaptured without too much incident.
Speaking of chimps, Shumaker had his hand bitten by a chimp earlier this year, losing a portion of a finger. Maybe he was worried that the word got out and the chimps were out for more.
They say bad things come in threes, so hopefully that wraps up Indy's bad luck. The truth is, though, that I've noticed that when rough things happen to a zoo, they tend to keep piling on for a while. My theory is that the staff, worn out and rattled by disasters, becomes exhausted and more prone to slip up. Or, you start vigilantly guarding yourself against one potential problem that you let your guard down towards others. You become so paranoid about letting an animal escape, for example, that all of your attention zeroes in on shifting and checking locks, that you overlook something else.
Totally been there.
And, that being said, there's also such thing as coincidence and bad luck. Good zoos can have streaks of bad luck, just as bad zoos can have undeserved good luck.
Hopefully, Indianapolis has used up their bad luck and things look ahead for a bright new year.
Yellowtail Snapper
Ocyurus chrysurus (Bloch, 1791)
Continuing the tour of the New York Aquarium, we cross the courtyard that contains the Sea Cliffs/Sea Change exhibit to a huge, shiny new building, home to the Aquarium's new flagship exhibit.
When Super Storm Sandy struck the region in 2012, it inflicted significant damage on the facility and pushed back, by several years, the construction and opening of Ocean Wonders; Sharks! It was worth the wait. Opening in 2018, this building is a fascinating display focused on the most famous fish in the sea, and encourages visitors to appreciate rather than fear these charismatic predators.
Visitors enter through a tunnel that passes through a beautiful coral reef, home to a few species of smaller sharks - wobbegongs, zebra shark, blacktip reef shark - as well as other colorful fish. The exhibit meanders through a combination of animal areas, featuring smaller fish and invertebrate tanks, as well as lots of attractive, innovative, interactive education devices. Visitors can learn about the adaptations of sharks, track the movements of tagged sharks in the wild, and appreciate the diversity of this family. They can also learn about the threats facing sharks, including a display on shark-finning, which I thought did an excellent job addressing an ugly, brutal conservation issue in a sensitive manner. They can also visit a mock diner counter to learn about sustainable seafood choices a la Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program.
The highlight of the building is the main shark tank, styled after Hudson Canyon. Its depths are patrolled by sand tiger, sandbar, and nurse sharks. Large shark tanks tend to be kind of bland at many aquariums, kept open to allow maximum swimming space for species that need to swim constantly. This one I found to be decently furnished, while the curved backdrop makes it look like it goes on forever.
Additional sharks - and sturgeon, and stingray - are seen outside in a large, outdoor tank that seems very out of place, until you learn that it was originally for belugas, and the sharks are kind of filler at this point. There is also a nearby amphitheater for seal and sea lion demonstrations.
An additional building nearby houses Spineless Wonders, the invertebrate gallery. The giant Pacific octopus is the star here, but the display also features Japanese spider crab, flamboyant cuttlefish, and various jellies, crustaceans, and starfish. I especially enjoyed the photo wall and surrounded some of the smaller tanks, which did a great job of highlighting the enormous diversity of invertebrates in the sea and what a vast percentage of ocean life they represent. It's a neat little space with some cool species, but it can feel a bit cramped, especially when a large group enters.
The building then passes into the Playquarium. You don't always see a designated children's zone in an aquarium, and this was a fun space for kids to run around, climb, and play, interspersed with some kelp forest aquariums. There are also touch tanks, a small shorebird exhibit, and a neat little display of eastern oysters, an ecologically and economically important species which has been making a comeback in recent years.
I'm not the connoisseur of aquariums that I am of zoos, but New York Aquarium has since become one of my favorites. It doesn't have the rarities that some other major aquariums have (I'm sorry not to have been when they had walruses, not too many years ago), and much of its collection and exhibitry may seem a bit boilerplate. But what it does have, it does well. The collection is solid, the exhibits are well done for the species present, the indoor/outdoor layout and history give it a unique feel, and the conservation credentials are excellent. I especially admired how the Aquarium is willing to be vocal and direct about threats to wildlife and what needs to be done to fight them, be it climate change for sea mammals or finning for sharks.
It's a very enjoyable aquarium that can be tied into a larger visit to Coney Island, a walk on the beach, or a trip to the WCS Prospect Park Zoo, just a few subway stops away.
When aquarium aficionados talk about US public aquariums, they usually talk about the Big 3 - Monterey Bay, Shedd, and Georgia. All of which, to be sure, are excellent facilities. Still, the US aquarium that I've been most excited to finally see was the New York Aquarium, located in Brooklyn's Coney Island, just steps from the beach. The reason for this interest was history. Aquariums as a rule tend to be much younger than US zoos, but the New York Aquarium is one of the oldest and most storied in the country. Though only its present location since 1957 ("Only"... as if that alone didn't make it much older than many other aquariums), the facility itself dates back to 1896, when it was located in Battery Park. Over that history, it has paved the way for other aquariums to follow in its footsteps. The Aquarium formed a single entity with the Bronx Zoo long before the city's other small zoos joined them under the Wildlife Conservation Society umbrella.
It also doesn't hurt that it's just a real nice aquarium, as well.
Part of the appeal of this facility to me was also how different it is from most aquariums. It's not just one big building - it's actually several buildings, spread across a 14 acre campus. This gives a more pleasant, park-like vibe than one sees at many aquariums. It also makes the facility less claustrophic and allows you to not be trapped with a single screaming school group for the entire course of your visit.
Speaking of claustrophobia, one of the most remarkable sights in the Aquarium for a zoo enthusiast is located right outside the front gate - the original bathysphere, used by WCS Curator and scientist-explorer William Beebe.
Most visitors enter through the Conservation Hall, what I would think of as the main aquarium building. The signature exhibit here is Glover's Reef, a depiction of a reef off the coast of Belize. Many aquariums have tropical reefs, but this was tailored to a specific habitat, reflecting WCS's long-standing commitment to highlighting specific habitats that it works with in the field, where the Society maintains a research station. It's a pleasant, long, well-lit gallery, home to an assortment of attractive species, from colorful parrotfish and butterflyfish to schooling yellowtail snapper to lurking green morays. The signage does a good job of emphasizing the conservation work of the organization and the need to protect coral reef habitats.
The rest of the building is dedicated to smaller tanks highlighting other ecosystems around the world, both marine (including the coral labs which seem ubiquitous in aquariums these days) and freshwater. The latter, for instance, is depicted in part with a gorgeous display of African cichlids, explaining how the unique fish of Africa's Great Lakes have been threatened by invasive species. As with many aquariums, there is also a strong Amazon focus here, with piranhas, pacus, tetra, and catfish. The most modest exhibits, which I actually found the most interesting, were the tiny, plain tanks of little Madagascar freshwater fish - rainbowfish and killifish. These tanks were set up not as immersive displays showing a habitat, but to show how aquariums work to propagate endangered fish under human care in almost lab-like settings. It's the sort of display that would have been behind-the-scenes in the past, not is now being shown front and center more.
Outside, in the central area of the aquarium, are the outdoor habitats for marine mammals and penguins. Formerly known as Sea Cliffs - the habitats are a panorama of rocky exhibits fronted with pools - the area has since been restyled as Sea Change, highlighting how human-caused changes to the oceans are impacting some of the most charismatic animals in the seas. Habitats feature California sea lions (the one species seen as each WCS facility), harbor seals, sea otters, and African penguins. Animals can be seen from the surface or through an underwater gallery, where a few more small aquarium tanks can also be seen. Signage was surprisingly bold and frank about the need to address climate change if we're to save species - looking at it, I couldn't help but wonder if the Aquarium might find itself under attack from certain political factions for its message.
Tomorrow, we'll look into the rest of the campus, including the newest and, in the eyes of many, most spectacular exhibit.
For weeks, I'd been following the story of the thirty beluga whales currently at Marineland of Canada, just across the US-Canada border from Niagara Falls. The whales are in urgent need of a new home, but between the limited facilities capable of taking in even a few of the marine mammals and the legal hurdles to moving cetaceans, ready solutions have been hard to come by. Some voices have even been advocating for the euthanasia of the entire group, just to solve the problem (or at least make it so they don't have to worry about it any longer). A statement on the whales, from AZA and their Canadian counterpart, CAZA:
Today, November 11, is Veteran's Day in the US. Veterans have traditionally been well-represented in zoo workforces, in part due to hiring preferences for them among government-run zoos, especially at the federal level. (Also seen in decent numbers in parts of the government that we interact with - well, when the government is open, anyway - such as USDA inspectors). Many facilities also use this day to thank veterans for their service with free or discounted admission and other recognition events. Thank you to those who have served the country, be they members of our staff or coming through our gates.
The recent discussions about the hybrid status of giraffes have only formalized what many zoo professionals have long suspected about giraffes in American zoos. Namely, that they are mutts. Sure, the consensus earlier had been that they were mixes of different subspecies, rather than different subspecies, but when the authors of the previously shared article claimed that hybrid giraffes were of relatively little conservation value, they weren't really shocking anyone.
Today, accredited zoos scrupulously take steps to avoid hybridization. For example, they may try not to house individuals of closely related species in the same enclosure, or at least not potential mates. Among some zoos and private collectors and hobbyists, however, hybridization can occur deliberately.
Sometimes it's more aesthetics. The green tree python and the carpet python, for example, can produce hybrid snakes of striking beauty when crossbred. Likewise, a scarlet macaw and a blue-and-gold macaw result in a bird called the Catalina macaw by hobbyists. Perhaps the best example among zoos are the various cat hybrids, such as ligers, which have enormous size and a striking appearance - to say nothing of health problems.
Other hybrids are produced with more pragmatic goals in mind (similar to how a horse and donkey are crossed to produce a mule). Falconers prize the gyrfalcon for its size and beauty, but that arctic-dwelling falcon is susceptible to diseases in the temperate zone. By crossbreeding it with another falcon, falconers can fly a bird that has the size and strength of the gyrfalcon and the hardiness of its more southerly relative.
And, of course, sometimes hybrids just happen through carelessness. I've worked with hybrid antelope (gemsbok/scimitar-horned oryx), felids (bobcat/Eurasian lynx), and primates (gibbon cross). I've seen several crossed waterfowl and parrots, the romantic liaisons of lone males and females without suitable companions of their own species. And more years it has been known that polar and brown bears will readily hybridize in zoos, something which is now seen in the wild with increasing frequency as well.
Despite the lack of conservation value of hybrids, I doubt that hybrid giraffes will disappear from zoos any time soon. Giraffes are among the most popular of zoo animals in accredited and unaccredited facilities alike. The AZA has begun transitioning to purebred individuals of one species, the Masai giraffe, a transition that was started before the four giraffes were recognized as full species. Still, the Masais represent only a small portion of the North American zoo giraffe population, and their numbers, while growing, aren't enough to fill the demands of zoos for exhibition purposes. Until their population grows large enough, it's likely that hybrids will still be produced to fill those spaces.
Bornean Eared (File-Eared) Frog
Polypedates otilophus (Boulenger, 1893)
When I was younger, it seemed like zoo animals were immortal. The animals never died; or, at least, when they did die, their deaths were never acknowledged. You just went to the zoo one day, and the exhibit was empty, or someone else was in there instead. Did that favorite animal get transferred to another zoo? Was it resting behind-the-scenes in retirement? Who knew?
It was an era in which zoos were becoming more responsive to criticisms from animal rights groups, and as such were loath to discuss the reality - every animal, whether wild or captive, eventually dies.
It hit me as a shock when I became a keeper... because my animals did, in fact, die.
In recent years, zoos have become more open about the passing of animals, trusting the public to believe that the zoo has done its best, and allowing the public to mourn with staff when animals are lost. Some zoos even have erected memorials to animals that are especially beloved, sometimes with life-sized statues. It can, I'll admit, make it a little harder when you're a bird or herp keeper. You care deeply about your charges, but they seem to fly under the public radar (and your zoo's social media) when they go, no matter how much those individuals meant to you.
So I was happy to see that the St. Louis Zoo is celebrating Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) this year with an ofrenda to commemorate their animals (as well as staff pets). Death is a part of life - the last part, to be specific - for our animals, and it is unavoidable, no matter how excellent their care is. Dealing with death is part of caring for animals, at home, on the farm, or at the zoo. We can't change that. What we can change is how we celebrate and remember that animals that were part of our lives, either permanently, through statues and plaques, or with a holiday dedicated to their memory.
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
Mexican (Emerald) Alligator Lizard
Abronia graminea (Cope, 1864)
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.
