Winter Wonderland, Zoo-Style

As a zookeeper in upstate-New York, one of the most common questions I get asked is, "do you get many visitors in the winter?" The Binghamton Zoo is actually closed all winter for two reasons: the hill the zoo is built on is icy and treacherous, and many of the animals are not visible to the public in the winter. After saying this, the response I get (without fail) is, "it must be so nice to have the whole winter off!"

August the arctic fox. He is almost smiling!
(Photo courtesy of the Binghamton Zoo)

What? No. The visitors aren't at the zoo, but the animals still are! Many of the animals can handle the frigid Binghamton winters, like the Amur tigers and leopard, the arctic fox, river otters, and the snowy owls. These animals are outside all winter long and are actually much happier than they are in the summer.

Ronde, the African penguin, enjoys
enrichment in the snow before he
waddles hurriedly back inside

The warm-weather animals get pampered, like the Andean bears, the lemurs, the wallabies, and the African black-footed penguins. Yes, you read that right. Not all penguins like the snow and ice. Animals like these remain indoors most of the winter in heated buildings, so they are not visible to the public. Some of these animals even get additional heat lamps and big beds of hay to keep them extra warm. On warm(er) winter days, we will let the Andean bears or African penguins venture outside for a couple hours, but most of the time, they see the snow and high-tail it back inside.

One of the Amur "kitties" enjoys the snow!
(Photo courtesy of the Binghamton Zoo)

During the winter, my job doesn't change. I still clean up after the animals, prep diets, help with vet rounds, maintain exhibits, and design enrichment. Year-round, I am a baby-sitter, doctor, mediator, psychologist, chef, and janitor for all the animals in the zoo. I just shovel a lot more snow in the winter.

Goodbye, Zhin-Li

Zhin-Li frolics around his exhibit with his mother Mei-Li on a rainy day. 

Zhin is the slightly smaller panda with the lighter tail tip...at one point in the video, 

he comes to check out my shoe then gets scared and runs away!

Zhin-Li, Binghamton Zoo's baby red panda, is leaving the zoo this winter. Zhin-Li is now six months old and fully weaned; he eats a separate diet of leaf-eater biscuits, bamboo, and apples, just like his mom, and he easily motors all around his exhibit. He still prefers to hang out with his mother, Mei-Li, but is spending more and more time exploring on his own. We are still not planning to introduce him to Xiao-Li, his father, because male red pandas rarely interact with their young in the wild.

Red pandas in the wild are typically solitary, and fully weaned around six months of age, but the cubs tend to stay with the mother until the following summer when more cubs are born. However, the Binghamton Zoo does not have enough room to house an adolescent Zhin-Li, adults Mei-Li and Xiao-Li, and more cubs. Sending Zhin-Li to another zoo allows us to reintroduce Mei and Xiao and hopefully breed them again this spring.

Red pandas are part of a green species survival program (SSP) through AZA-accredited zoos. This means that the captive red panda population is sustainable over time and has a total size greater than 50 individuals. Additionally, the population has a growth rate that is able to maintain 90% of its genetic diversity for over 100 years. As a result, it is important that we breed Mei-Li and Xiao-Li at least one more time to increase their representation in the captive red panda gene pool. And when Zhin-Li is old enough (anywhere between 18 months and three years), he will be bred to a female to propagate his own genes in the population.

So for the time being, our stuffed animal-sized baby will move to the Erie Zoo in Pennsylvania to start a new adventure as an adult panda. Good luck, Zhin-Li!

Bernard the Bear

Bernard checking out his new exhibit

This week, the Binghamton Zoo proudly unveiled its newest animal: an Andean bear named Bernard. Bernard is 22 years old and originally comes from the Buffalo Zoo. He was transferred to the Binghamton Zoo as a companion for our 24 year-old Andean bear, Chica. Bernard weighs 258 pounds and Chica weighs 180 pounds. Andean bears generally live into their late twenties or early thirties in captivity; because these bears are on the older side, they probably will not breed. So we are hoping that Bernard and Chica will keep each other company.

Andean bears, also called spectacled bears, typically live in high-alititude cloud forests in the Andes Mountains in South America. They are the only South American bear and are actually one of the smallest species of bear. These bears are typically very shy and are hardly ever seen in the wild. Andean bears get the nickname "spectacled bears" because of the tan and black markings around their eyes that resemble glasses. These markings are like a human's fingerprints: each bear's markings are unique.

Bernard continuing to explore

Like many people, Andean bears are omnivores, but choose to be vegetarians: they eat fruit, berries, orchids, and bromeliads (like pineapple). Their jaws are so strong that they actually eat the spiky leaves on top of the pineapple as well as the delicious fruit that we eat. These bears are light-weight and have long, curved claws, so they are excellent climbers. They will actually make a nest of broken branches high up in a tree of ripe fruit and not leave until they have eaten all the fruit in the tree. In a pinch, these bears will also eat rodents, birds, insects, and small cows. At the zoo, we feed the bears blueberries, pears, apples, bananas, cooked yams and carrots, grapes, and biscuits specially made for omnivores.

Because these bears are so reclusive, it is hard to gauge how many are left in the wild. Most biologists estimate that there are fewer than 3,000 left in the wild, which classifies them as "vulnerable to extinction." These bears only have 1-2 cubs each year, and only during years when fruit is plentiful, so they do not repopulate quickly. Andean bears are in such a precarious position due to habitat destruction and poaching. Logging companies and expanding towns destroy their forest habitats, and poachers kill them to sell their body parts. Farmers even kill them as agricultural pests because these bears eat crops and livestock.

As a result, Andean bears are part of a monitored breeding program in zoos across the country to preserve genetic diversity and hopefully breed bears to release into the wild. These bears are very difficult to breed in captivity and are called "soul-mate bears" because they will only breed with the "perfect" bear. In fact, only one spectacled bear in the U.S. has given birth to cubs in the last six years. Billie Jean, at the National Zoo, gave birth to two cubs in 2010 and two more cubs this year. Before that, Billie Jean herself is the last surviving Andean bear born in the U.S. Even though the Binghamton Zoo is not planning to breed Chica and Bernard, housing both of these bears gives others zoos room to breed younger bears.

We can't just throw Chica and Bernard together and hope for the best. I am one of two keepers working on introducing the bears. Right now, they have separate indoor dens and get separate time outside in the exhibit. If Chica is out in the exhibit, we will let Bernard into her den to sniff around and play with her toys. This way, the bears get used to each others' scents. Eventually, we will let the bears see each other through a "howdy door." This big mesh door is pinned in place between dens and will let the bears see, smell, hear, and touch each other, but will not let them actually be together. If all goes well, we will then put the bears together. Generally, elderly Andean bears are not put together in zoos, so we are doing this as part of a behavioral study that may set a precedent for other zoos.

Stay tuned to see how Bernard and Chica get along!

Stereotyping

No, this isn't going to be a "soapbox speech" about racial or gender judgments. This blog is actually about stereotypic animal behavior. What in the world is that, you ask? Stereotypies are repetitive, ritualistic, often invariant behaviors that appear to have no function. Humans with autism, schizoprenia, and other disorders can exhibit stereotypies, such as body rocking or marching in place. Animals, especially captive animals, also demonstrate stereotypies, including pacing, rocking, swimming in circles, excessive sleeping, self-mutilation, and mouthing cage bars.

A video from Born Free Foundation's archives displays

 multiple animals' over-grooming stereotypies

The cause, development, and significance of animal stereotypies are not yet well understood. However, there is a large amount of evidence to suggest that stereotypies result from stress or deprivation in an animal's life, and the stereotypy is that animal's way of coping. Stereotypies are often caused by artificial environments (like a zoo or stable) that do not allow an animal to experience its full range of normal behaviors. Normal animal behaviors are typically governed by negative feedback loops. For example, if a zebra is hungry, it will begin foraging for food. If the zebra eats, this alters the internal cues and reduces the zebra's motivation to forage.  A scientist named Odberg said in 1978, that "there is one common factor to all conditions in which stereotypies develop: frustration. In all situations some tendency is being thwarted, some goal cannot be reached, some homeostasis is disrupted." As a result, stereotypies often indicate poor animal welfare.

In other words, some highly motivated behaviors (consummatory behaviors), like mating, may be impossible for solitary animals, regardless of how much "mate-search" behavior (appetitive behavior) is performed. No matter how many times a solitary, captive male okapi raises his hoof in a courtship display, he will never find a female okapi to mate with. Or sometimes the consummatory behavior, like feeding, may be performed without the appetitive behavior. For example, if a captive zebra is fed in a trough, it doesn't have to utilize any foraging and grazing behaviors, so those behaviors are vented in frustration-related stress as stereotypies without a function.

But why are these behaviors so persistent, even if they harm the animal? Why are the behaviors so unvarying? For example, pacing animals often place their feet in exactly the same spot and turn at exactly the same moment on each pass. Well, the answer is a complicated neurobiological lesson. External stimuli (like temperature) combine with internal stimuli (like hormone levels) and memory, which are processed by the brain's "executive systems" to select learned and instinctual behaviors. Stereotypies can be adaptive if they serve as a coping mechanism, maladaptive if they are normally adaptive responses occurring inappropriately in an abnormal environment, or pathological if they are caused by a nervous system dysfunction. Coping is any behavioral attempt to control a situation, whether successful or unsuccessful. Coping is often a learned response: the effects of performing a behavior often reinforce that behavior, leading to stereotypies. So stereotypies often reinforce themselves by changing chemical pathways in the brain.

Bamboo the Asian elephant carries a boat bumper at
Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, WA.
Photo courtesy of Pattie Beaven, elephant keeper,
at Woodland Park Zoo.

Environmental enrichment can be a way to mitigate captive animal stereotypies. Larger and more stimulating enclosures allow for more movement and foraging, while object, scent, or food enrichment allows animals to experience new stimuli on a daily basis as they would in the wild. If an animal is investigating a new object or playing with enrichment, it will be too busy to stereotype. For example, about 40% of elephants in zoos display stereotypies, like rocking and weaving. If a captive elephant is presented with a tire or boat bumper that it can toss, stomp, and carry, that elephant has an outlet for natural behaviors, and spends less time stereotyping. Housing social animals with other animals of their species or in a mixed-species exhibit can also be beneficial. For example, housing primates together encourages grooming, mating, courtship, fighting, and playing, and discourages frustration-based stereotypies like rocking.

Snowball (left) and Misty at the Calgary Zoo in 1993

In some extreme cases, medications can be used to eliminate stereotypies. Snowball, a polar bear at the Calgary Zoo, started demonstrating stereotypies when she was 2 years old. Her keepers tried enrichment programs, diet variation, and enclosure redesign, without success. The keepers reasoned that Snowball's stereotypies had become so ingrained, that they actually altered the composition of her brain causing a neurological disorder. Snowball was given experimental doses of Prozac, which eliminated her stereotypies.

Stereotypies are a touchy subject. Entire books have been written on animal stereotyping, and this blog post is just a brief overview. PETA and other animal welfare organizations use stereotypies as justification for shutting down zoos and releasing captive animals. However, zoos have positive conservation and education roles in society. As a zookeeper, stereotypies are not insurmountable barriers to animal captivity, but rather challenging obstacles to providing the animals in my care with fulfilling lives. I approach each day as a keeper thinking, "how can I make my animals' lives better today?"

Raptor Handling 101

Harris's hawk on glove at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science

"Raptor" comes from the Latin word "rapere," meaning to snatch or grasp. Raptors, or birds of prey, have three distinct characteristics: forward-facing eyes with binocular vision, a sharp, hooked beak, and strong, grasping talons. Raptors are handled using operant conditioning, a type of learning that increases or decreases the probability of a behavior recurring based on the subsequent consequences. Positive reinforcement is an example of operant conditioning most commonly used with raptors; this same type of training is used when you call your dog and praise him for coming when called. I learned how to handle raptors at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, an avian rehabilitation facility where we conducted multiple flight-shows each day for public education programs. I also took an avian husbandry, handling, and propogation class at Cornell University, and I continue to handle raptors at the Binghamton Zoo.

In this photo with a rough-legged
hawk,  the anklets, jesses, leash,
and glove are visible.

Falconry has existed for over 4,000 years and is the source for most of the handling and husbandry techniques used for raptors today. Falconers use a variety of equipment, but most handlers in zoos and rehabilitation centers use the same standard equipment: anklets and jesses around the bird's ankles, a glove to protect the handler, and a leash that secures the jesses to the glove. Flighted birds also wear telemetry (radio transmitters). Gloves typically go on the handler's left arm, and the bird stands on the forearm held at a right angle from the body. The handler's gloved hand makes a loose fist with the thumb on top. The jesses (leather straps) have small slits cut into the ends, which are clipped to the leash. The jesses and leash are then wrapped around the gloved ring and pinkie fingers of the left hand, and the remaining leash is clipped to a ring on the glove or tied with a falconers' knot. Handlers holding a bird always have the right of way. People should pass on the right side (the arm without a bird) and should stay 2-3 feet away from the bird.

With a red-tailed hawk

One of the main problems when handling a raptor is bating. Bating is a bird's attempt to fly from a glove or perch to which it is tethered. It's never pretty. During the bate, the handler is responsible for keeping the bird from hitting anything with its wings or feet and preventing injury to the bird or other people. Birds can often get back on the glove by themselves, but sometimes the handler has to put her ungloved hand on the bird's back and reposition the bird on the glove. The handler should then move the bird away from whatever loud noise, frightening object, or stressful situation caused the bird to bate. Birds can also easily become too hot if they are on a glove and unable to seek shelter. Handlers should watch out for panting or droopy wings. Another danger of handling raptors is being 'footed' or bitten. A frightened or aggressive raptor will strike out with its talons or beak to defend itself, so the handler should be confident and competent to prevent injury.

Flying HaHa, the Harris's hawk, to
catch a fake rabbit lure

Handlers must build a relationship with a bird (or any animal) in order to train it. A Harris's hawk (HaHa) at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science definitely put me to the test. Harris's hawks are actually highly social raptors (an unusual characteristic), and they hunt in packs like wolves. Because HaHa was the only Harris's hawk at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, the handlers were his pack. Naturally, HaHa wanted to be alpha bird over any new handlers, so he made me 'run the gauntlet' to assert my dominance and become a new handler. I was bitten and footed more times than I can count, but I sucked it up and kept working with him. Finally, I gained his respect and he began training for me. And I knew I was part of the pack when a new handler started and HaHa began picking on her instead!

With a snowy owl

Raptors take time and motivation (food!) to become acclimatized and desensitized to standing on glove. Generally, a glove is first placed over a perch in the bird's enclosure, and the bird's food is placed on the glove, so the bird begins to associate the glove with positive experiences. Then a handler is present in the enclosure while the bird is eating. Eventually the handler wears the glove and holds it in the same place as the stationary glove perch. The handler slowly begins to move around the enclosure with the bird standing on the glove. For flight programs, two handlers wear gloves and the bird first has to step between gloves. Then the handlers slowly get farther away from each other so the bird has to make short flights between them. Every time the bird does something correctly, it receives a food reward. Every time the handler tries something new and the bird responds correctly, it receives a jackpot (a much bigger reward). I won't go into nitty-gritty details about training in this blog, but be on the lookout for a detailed blog on operant conditioning coming soon!

Working with raptors has been an incredibly enjoyable and challenging experience for me. They are such intelligent animals, and I think they have trained me more than I have trained them.

Panda Cub Update

Photo courtesy of Binghamton Zoo guest, PJ Harmer

Zhin-Li is now exploring his outdoor exhibit and becoming more independent. He is still trying to nurse in addition to eating solid foods, but Mei-Li keeps batting him away and leaving him alone for longer and longer periods of time. In the wild, this cub would already know how to fend for himself! He is still a little unsteady on the propping in his exhibit, but he is figuring out how to climb slowly but surely. Except for the occasional mishap!

What's Round, Orange, and Fun All Over?

Photos and video courtesy of the Binghamton Zoo

PUMPKINS!

Binghamton Zoo's tigers, Terney and Koosaka, celebrated Halloween early this year. On Monday, the keepers gave them each a forty-pound pumpkin. The tigers rolled on them, bit them, scratched them, and kicked them. They chased each other around the yard and stole each other's pumpkins. Terney even dumped hers in the pool! Then Terney decided she wanted the pumpkin out of the pool, so she sunk her teeth in, and effortlessly pulled it out. A forty-pound pumpkin. That took two keepers to carry. This just reinforces why we don't go in the exhibit with these girls!

There aren't many toys that can withstand being batted around by a tiger. No wonder Terney and Koosaka love pumpkins so much!

Who is a Zoo Curator?

A zoo curator is the head of the animal care department, also called a collection manager. In a large zoo, the keepers report to a senior keeper, who is supervised by a collection manager, who reports to an assistant curator, who assists a curator. All of the positions are based on seniority. In a large zoo (like the San Diego Zoo), there are often many curators: their management areas can be divided by the physical location of the exhibits in the zoo, by the geographic location where the animals are found in the wild, or by the taxa of the animals in the exhibits. In a large zoo, these curators then report to a general curator, then a director of animal care, then the director of the zoo facility. At the Binghamton Zoo, the seven keepers report to Curator Dave Orndorff, who is assisted by an animal care manager. Dave reports to the director of the zoo facility, Steve Contento.

Meet Dave Orndorff

Dave weighs Zhin-Li, the baby red
panda at the Binghamton Zoo in 2013

Dave Orndorff has been the curator of the Binghamton Zoo at Ross Park for a year this week. On a daily basis, he oversees the animal care department by facilitating the many needs of the keepers and teaching the keepers advanced animal care strategies. Dave also acts as a liaison between other departments on zoo grounds and with other zoos' animal management programs. Dave manages the animal collection by coordinating animal transfers with other zoos and encouraging propagation (baby animals!) among the animals currently in the Binghamton Zoo's collection. He also organizes vet rounds, facilities operations, and new exhibits, and represents the zoo to the media and donors. As the curator, Dave is instrumental to the overarching goals and direction of the zoo: he is on a long-range planning committee that seeks to uphold the zoo's mission of conservation and education by planning the new animals and exhibits that will be coming to the zoo and by conducting field work and in situ conservation projects.

Dave, age 15, holding a lion cub he hand-raised at his first
job at Lion Country Safari

The career path that led Dave to the Binghamton Zoo was complex and exciting. Dave attributes his success to being in the right place at the right time, and based on his career, I would say he possesses precognition. Dave began as a high school volunteer explorer scout at Lion Country Safari in California in the 1970's. He acted as a nursery keeper, and hand-raised many exotic animals. Lion Country Safari eventually hired Dave, and he left high school every day at 11am to go work full-time caring for animals. In the late '70's, Dave was hired by SeaWorld in Florida. He worked as a keeper, aquarium supervisor, aviculture supervisor, and senior animal care specialist. Dave helped create the original SeaWorld Orlando Park and trained the staff to care for the animals at SeaWorld standards. He was often sent to the Florida Keys to collect sharks and other marine animals for the SeaWorld collections. He spent days at a time on a boat and developed some of the first shark morphometrics (measurements to determine the age and health of a shark). Dave also documented the first Galapagos shark in Florida waters. Additionally, while at SeaWorld, Dave worked with a manatee population monitoring program that rehabilitated and released injured manatees. Dave was the first person at SeaWorld to hand-raise a baby manatee, and that manatee is still alive today at Disney.

Dave swimming with a shark at the SeaWorld Shark Institute in the 1980's

Feeding a captive-bred kagu in New
Caledonia

After his 12-year term at SeaWorld, Dave was hired by the same man who gave him his first job at Lion Country Safari to work at The Zoo in Gulf Breeze, Florida, as the curator of birds. Next, Dave worked as the Senior Tropics Keeper at the Beardsley Park Zoo in Connecticut. For the next 11 years, Dave worked at the San Diego Zoo as the bird department collection manager. While working for the San Diego Zoo, Dave participated in the first international meeting for harpy eagle conservation in Mexico. He also founded a national park in the southern province of New Caledonia for kagu preservation. Dave worked with local biologists and citizens to run the studbook and manage a captive kagu population for release. The national park still exists today. Dave also ran a studbook and captive Guam rail release program through the San Diego Zoo for five years as well as the AZA species survival plan for fishing cats. Additionally, he spent a summer in Kenya and Tanzania tagging and trans-locating elephants.

After exhausting his advancement opportunities at the San Diego Zoo, Dave moved to the Mill Mountain Zoo in Virginia as the general curator and then director for four years. Subsequently, he became the curator of birds at the Tracy Aviary in Utah, followed by the assistant curator at the Gulf Breeze Zoo in Florida. Dave then became the curator of Catoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Maryland, and finally became the Binghamton Zoo's general curator in October 2012.

Dave caring for a takin

After 41 years in the animal care business, Dave has done it all. Not only has he met Jane Goodall and Michael Jackson, but he has traversed the world, from Kenya, to Guam, to Iceland. He has hand-raised 365 penguin chicks, three Asian elephants, and countless big cats. When asked what his favorite aspects of being a curator are, Dave replied that as a curator he has "the opportunity to make a real difference with captive animal management." As a curator, Dave is able to participate in every facet of the animal care business, from keeping work to big-picture decisions. His favorite animal is "whatever he happens to be working with at the time." According to Dave, the only downside of being a curator is the fact that "the longer you are in the business, the farther removed you are from the reason for going into the business in the first place." Dave's curatorial job involves much more paperwork and much less one-on-one time with the animals than he would like. Additionally, every curator's dreams and ambitions are often curtailed by their zoos' budgets. It is difficult, even for innovative curators like Dave, to provide their animals with state-of-the-art facilities without excellent donor support.

According to Dave, a curator's job is whatever he or she wants to make of it. In the future, a curator's role may not change much in small zoos like Binghamton, but it may fluctuate drastically in large zoos. As the economy changes, the curator's job may become more multi-faceted as other positions are cut. That may be good news for Dave, who loves that no two days are the same; he still can't believe that he gets paid to pursue a 41-year hobby.

Dave with hand-raised chimpanzees

What Do Zoo Animals Eat?

Examples of ingredients used for diets at the Binghamton Zoo

Well, that depends. Everyone knows that animals can be herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores, but there are actually many specific feeding strategies. Some animals are frugivores, and eat only fruit, while other are sanguinivores, and only drink blood. Diets for zoo animals are based on research about the natural history of that animal and on detailed records about that animal's weight, coat condition, reproductive success, and fecal composition. However, zoo diet prep is a relatively new discipline.

In the 1940's, one of the major causes of death for captive animals was poor nutrition. In the 1950's, American zoos underwent five major changes that improved quarantine procedures, sanitation, treatment procedures, antibiotics, and feeding techniques. In the 21st century, zoo diets are culminations of research from behaviorists conducting field work, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' (AZA) nutrition advisory group, vets, curators, and keepers.

Examples of pre-processed grain
for zoo animals

You know the grain that is fed to a horse in a barn or the pellets you feed to your rabbit at home? Zoo animals also eat processed foods. Companies make pelleted food specifically designed for the nutritional requirements of exotic animals. This pelleted food is often much more economical than flying in exotic, perishable foods from all parts of the world on a weekly basis.

Prepared diets (clockwise from top): arctic fox,
mousebirds, rock hyrax, hedgehog, and
fennec fox

Diets must take into consideration the weight, fitness level, metabolic rate, and age of every animal that is being fed. For example, we can't feed an overweight, geriatric wolf a high-fat puppy diet. Additionally, we must consider the morphology of each animal. Lemurs can't eat large chunks of meat; they don't have the teeth to tear the meat or the GI tract to digest it. Red pandas actually have a very sensitive GI tract, so they are only fed bamboo, apples, grapes, and processed leaf-eater biscuits. Additionally, we must consider how to present
the diet. Arboreal animals, like golden lion tamarins, would eat fruit and insects high up in the canopy of South American rainforests. At the zoo, they would starve if we scattered their food on the ground, so we have a hanging food dish in a tree for them. Keepers also have to keep in mind whether the animal sticks its head in the dish to eat or uses a paw to hold the food item. How big should the pieces or biscuits be? Should the diet be in a pan or scattered around the exhibit? Is the animal pregnant or lactating? Will the animal eat all the parts of the food you are giving it? For example, if I don't gut the mice I feed to the owls, I come to work the next day to find guts smeared all over the walls of the exhibit. Finally, animals are as picky as people. Every book, website, and husbandry manual in the world might tell you that Chica, our Andean bear, should like strawberries, but because in reality Chica HATES strawberries, she will never eat them, no matter how hard I try. So I have to find something else that has similar nutritional value that she will actually eat.

Diet sheet for Binghamton Zoo's coatimundi

So, how does all of this work at the Binghamton Zoo? Every animal in the zoo has a diet sheet that lists how
many times a day that animal is fed, what it is fed, how big the pieces should be, what type of pan the diet should be in, and any food items the animal is not allowed to have. For example, the coatimundi is fed twice a day, and gets a different diet in the morning than he does at night. He is not allowed to have grapes in his diet because grapes are the special treat reserved for training sessions with the keepers. If he got grapes in his regular diet, he would be less willing to work for them during training sessions. Additionally, parrots cannot have avocado and canids cannot have grapes or raisins because these foods are toxic to those animals.

Diets are also made up of many parts. We don't just throw bones to the tigers every day and call it done. We have six wallabies at the zoo right now, so they get a very large, four-part diet, to ensure that each individual animal gets enough food.

Four parts of the wallaby diet

The diet consists of shredded kale and romaine, wallaby pellets, leaf-eater biscuits, and mixed produce in chunks large enough that the wallabies can hold the pieces to eat. Diets also have to take into account whether or not the animal is being medicated. Some animals, like Sylvia the mouflon, receive a joint supplement every day. She doesn't mind the taste, so the powder is just sprinkled over her grain each morning. However, some of our animals are much more finicky. Chica, our Andean bear, is quite the prima donna. Right now, she is receiving five pills a day to treat a possible uterine infection, but she hates the taste of her medication. The keepers originally tried hiding her meds in sherbet (one of her favorite treats), but she quickly caught on to that. I know that Chica really

Chica's peanut butter smoothie

likes sugar, so the other day I thought of a different way to hide her meds. This gross-looking picture is actually of a peanut butter, apple juice, honey, and cooked yam smoothie that I made Chica. I crushed her pills and stirred them into the smoothie; she slurped it up without ever knowing there were pills inside! Hopefully we can continue using this smoothie idea until the end of her treatment without her catching on...

Diets are made every day at the Binghamton Zoo, and they are one of the most interesting and sensitive parts of my job. The slightest change to a diet can have a big impact on the well-being of an animal. I constantly have to problem-solve to convince an animal to eat the food or medication I put in front of it. The most common question I'm asked is, "what does this animal eat?" When a little kid or an adult looks at an animal that is very different from a human, food is the easiest thing to relate to!

I Bless the Rains Down in Africa

Many of you already know that I studied abroad in Kenya and Tanzania during my junior year at Cornell. Studying wildlife management in East Africa was crucial to my decision to become a zookeeper and the genesis of my obsession with elephants.

I spent nearly four months living and working in East Africa; the first half of the semester was spent in Tanzania and the second half in Kenya. In other words, four months braving sub-Saharan heat, gigantic bugs, malaria, snakes, primitive plumbing, and hungry carnivores. We actually had to watch a power-point presentation the minute we arrived in camp about all the ways we could die and how we should protect ourselves. Talk about a wake-up call after 30 hours of flying! In spite of all of these dangers (or maybe because of them), that semester was some of the best four months of my life.

I studied abroad through the School for Field Studies. Just under 30 people were in my program and we spent the entire semester together. We lived in tents in the same camp, cooked together, cleaned together, took all the same classes, traveled together, and researched together. These 30 people became my family for the semester. The courses we took were actually quite rigorous: wildlife management, wildlife ecology, environmental policy, and Swahili. We had class every day, and our professors lived and worked alongside us.

In addition to classes, the SFS program volunteered for a couple days at a local orphanage and elementary school. We read to the children, played soccer with them, and sat in on some of their classes. In East Africa, secondary school (our high school) is an expensive undertaking and children must be sponsored in order to attend. The sponsor pays for uniforms, books, meals, and sometimes transportation. The Watoto Orphanage in Tanzania helps sponsor children whose parents suffer from HIV/AIDS and would not otherwise be able to attend secondary school. Even though these children have all had hard lives, their friendliness, excitement, and gratitude were overwhelming. We built the Watoto Orphanage children a make-shift swing-set, and the looks on their faces made me realize how lucky and privileged I am.

All of the SFS students also did a one-day home-stay with a Maasai family in Kenya. The Maasai are a nomadic people who live in south-western Kenya and north-eastern Tanzania, and have a total population of about 1 million. Maasai hold land communally and value cattle as the predominant form of wealth and social status. Living with a Maasai woman for a day was an eye-opening experience. She is only in her mid-twenties and she already has three children. Additionally, she is not her husband's only wife. Every day, she cares for her children, cooks the meals, chops firewood, herds the goats and cattle, repairs the acacia thorn livestock fences, cleans her house (made of mud, sticks, and cow dung), and makes clothes and jewelry for the family.

Women are the labor force of the Maasai culture, even though men are superior in social standing. What a difference to my Western sense of feminism! My Maasai Momma never complained and thought she was very lucky. Although the Maasai live in abject poverty by American standards, they do not see themselves in this same light. Everyone I met firmly stood by their nomadic way of life and the Maasai were some of the friendliest, most optimistic people I have ever met.

Not only was I lucky to meet amazing people in Kenya and Tanzania, I was lucky to travel throughout both countries. Our group traveled throughout many national parks, such as Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti, Amboseli, and Tsavo. We actually camped for a week in Serengeti and Tsavo national parks! There is nothing like camping in a national park in Africa and falling asleep to the roaring of a nearby pride of lions, or waking up to see hyena tracks through the middle of the campsite. We had both Maasai guards and park rangers protecting us, so we were never in any danger. Previous years of study abroad students were not always so lucky. One night, one of our Maasai professors (Daniel) told us a story about a previous year camping in Serengeti with the SFS program. Three girls got up from the campfire and went to use the bathroom about 50 yards away. As they were walking, Daniel went to get supplies out of the jeep and turned the headlights on. The headlights illuminated three female lions lying in wait for the three students. Luckily, Daniel turned on the lights when he did! Needless to say, we started taking guards when we went to the bathroom.

Camping in the national parks was one of the best experiences of my life. We went on daily game drives that lasted from early in the morning until evening. Some days we would conduct field work: population studies of of wildebeest herds, diversity samples, warthog behavior logs...But sometimes we drove just to see what was around the next bend or watch the wildebeest migration. I saw every big mammal a tourist could hope to see in East Africa, and added so many birds to my life-list. One of my favorite stories happened during a game drive. My favorite driver, Charles, was the best at spotting animals. We would be a mile away (literally) in the jeep, and he would say, "See that speck in the distance? That's a pride of lions." He was always right. Ours was the first jeep at every major sighting: lions, leopards, elephants. But Charles was never excited about the animals we saw. He found them for us, but he didn't really care about seeing them. One day, we were driving along, and he swerved the car into a ditch and shouted, "Look!" By the excitement in his voice, wee thought it was going to be something absolutely amazing: maybe a lion pride taking down an elephant. It was a small fish swimming in a ditch. Charles is from Lake Victoria in Kenya and missed his home, so fish are his favorite animals. That was probably my favorite wildlife-spot of the trip!

The last, best, and worst part of my program was the directed research project. Every student picked one of three research projects and spent a month gathering data. My project was sampling wildlife biodiversity in six community-run wildlife sanctuaries adjacent to national parks. This meant slogging 20km each day in the blazing sun through grass taller than me with two other students, a park ranger, a translator, and a compass. We carried all of our gear on our backs and spent all day hiking through African bush. We hiked right up next to elephants, zebra, and buffalo. It was absolutely exhausting, but so worth it! When I got back to the States, I turned this directed research into an honors thesis for Cornell.

Living and working in Kenya and Tanzania was incredible. I loved every minute of it, and I can't wait to go back! This trip gave me the travel bug: now my "bucket list" is 27 countries long...better get started!

Just sit right back...

...And you'll hear a tale,

A tale of a fateful trip,

That started from this 

tropic port,

Aboard this tiny ship.





Leroy and Elaine, the two North American river otters at the Binghamton Zoo, go for a sail on the raft that I designed and built for them. Enrichment is a key part in the life of any captive animal and the otters are no exception. Leroy and Elaine were pushing logs together in their pond and trying to sun themselves, but the logs kept drifting apart. I built this raft as a solution, and now they sail on it every morning after breakfast!

Elise Newman, Author

Throughout my life, I have always been interested in writing. My mother, Patricia Newman, is a children's author and has constantly supported and encouraged me. Now that I work in a zoo, I have an never-ending supply of anecdotes and trivia!

I enjoy writing for children, and I believe that educating children about the conservation of animals is vital to the future survival of those species. As a result, I have published articles in two children's magazines. "Listening to Elephants" in the November/December 2012 issue of Ask is about the Cornell Elephant Listening Project's ongoing objective to conserve African forest elephants by listening to their infrasonic communications. It turns out that elephants do most of their talking at frequencies to low for the human ear to hear. Elephant communications give scientists information about population size, group interactions, mating behaviors, and large-scale resource use and migrations. Scientists can also eavesdrop on illegal activities like logging and poaching that negatively impact wild elephant survival. As an analyst for a year at the Elephant Listening Project, I had an inside perspective on using acoustic data to save a species.

"Nature's Superheroes," an article I co-authored with my mother for the January 2013 issue of Appleseeds, is about the best of the best in the bird world. This article uses comic strip-style graphics to depict bird species that are the fastest, smartest, most musical, etc. in the animal kingdom. Most people do not think of birds when they picture nature's most impressive species, but this article proves them wrong.

In addition to these two magazine articles, I am also co-authoring an article for the September/October 2013 issues of Animal Keepers' Forum. This magazine is a professional publication for members of the American Association of Zoo Keepers. My co-author for this article is Pattie Beaven, an elephant keeper at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. The article explains how to use boat bumpers as enrichment objects for bored zoo animals, like elephants, tigers, and red pandas. One of my previous blog posts, It's a Boy!, was also picked up by a local newspaper covering the birth of the baby red panda at the Binghamton Zoo.

As my career continues, I hope to continue writing many more articles for newsletters and magazines about conservation and the cute, clever, or impressive animals keepers worldwide are trying to protect!

Red Panda Cub Update

Zhin-Li is growing like a weed. He is nine weeks old this week, and about the size of a loaf of bread. His eyes are fully open and he totters around his nest box, but he is still nursing and has not tried solid food yet. He has also not yet ventured outside the nest box on his own, but his mother, Mei-Li, moves him between nest boxes regularly. He is getting so heavy that she has trouble picking him up and ends up dragging him! Zhin-Li is becoming more visible on the camera outside of the exhibit as he investigates the entrance to the nest box more and more. And he is getting increasingly feisty! When keepers open the nest box to check on him or weigh him, he barks angrily and aggressively in a corner. Unfortunately for him, an aggressive red panda cub is about as scary as a stuffed animal, so he gets weighed anyways.

Photos courtesy of Saasha Caldera. Video courtesy of Binghamton Zoo.

Friday, August 23

Photo courtesy of Sentry Alarms webcam system
at the Binghamton Zoo.

So the beauty and challenge of working in a zoo is that things are constantly changing. I posted the above update about the red panda cub on Thursday, August 22, and on Friday, August 23, Zhin-Li tried his first solid food and left the nest box on his own. We are never positive about what the animals will do! Zhin-Li ate some bamboo leaves that a keeper put in the entrance to his nest box, and visitors saw him climb out of the box and follow his mom around the den! He has since been seen out of the nest box multiple times, but has not yet ventured outside into the exhibit.

Video courtesy of Keeper Ashley Landry of the Binghamton Zoo.

Penguin Love

The Binghamton Zoo is home to seven African black-footed penguins; six males and one female. This species of penguin is found along rocky beaches in Southern Africa. They are not the emperor penguins typically seen in movies, and they do not like the snow and ice.

Penguins are fascinating for a variety of reasons. Everyone knows that penguins are flightless birds, but did you also know that they have unique molting patterns? Most birds molt once a year: they lose and regrow one feather at a time so that they are always able to fly and are never vulnerable to predators. Penguins, on the other hand, molt all of their feathers at once. Remember when you were little and your adult teeth grew in and forced your baby teeth to fall out? Penguin molting is very similar. New feathers grow in under the old feathers, causing the penguins to look fluffy and disheveled. Then the old feathers fall out in a downy explosion! While the penguins are molting, they are not waterproof and cannot swim. In the wild, this means they also cannot fish; penguins bulk up before molting to compensate for not eating during the week-long molting process.

African black-footed penguins also have interesting social structures. The penguins within a colony form a hierarchy: the dominant penguins eat first and get first choice of nests and mates. African black-footed penguins are very territorial and make a "jackass" call to defend their territories, especially when they are first introduced to new colony members.

Many zoo-goers race to the penguin exhibit when they enter the Binghamton Zoo. Every day, I hear adults and children exclaim that penguins are their favorite animals, and I have to explain that penguins do not make good pets because they are not as cute and cuddly as they look. With one exception. Ronde, a three-year old male penguin at the Binghamton Zoo, has bonded more with the keepers than with the other penguins. Ronde was partially hand-raised and is at the bottom of the penguin hierarchy, so he seeks companionship with the keepers. Ronde builds stone nests for me during breeding season and offers me fish. He will even lure me towards his nest and crouch into a mating position! He loves being touched and will often climb into my lap when I'm not looking. Ideally, when we introduce more females into the colony, Ronde will choose a penguin mate and forget about his human love interests. But until then, cuddling with Ronde is one of the best parts of my job.

Safety is No Joke

Photo Courtesy of M.J. Grippin Photography

When I tell people that I am a zookeeper, many of them are immediately worried about my safety. From wide-eyed concern to jokes like "don't get eaten!" I respond to safety concerns from the public, my family, and friends every day.

Zookeeping is a high-risk job. Zookeepers contend with freezing rains, sunburn, dehydration, heavy lifting, poison ivy, chemical exposure, and insect swarms, not to mention zoonotic diseases, animal bites and kicks, and dangerous animal escapes. Sounds fun, doesn't it? We do it because we love it and are passionate about the animals we care for. Zoos also have safety protocols in place to protect their keepers as much as possible, and we are all highly trained to do our jobs.

However, accidents do happen. Many of you remember Dianna Hanson, the keeper that was mauled to death by an African lion at the Cat Haven Sanctuary in California earlier this year. Authorities are still unsure what enabled the lion to escape and reach the 24-year old keeper, but there are many safety measures in place to prevent such a tragedy at other zoos.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) regularly check zoos to ensure that both animal and keeper safety measures are up to code. When working with potentially dangerous animals, keepers use safety equipment, such as gloves, boots, masks, nets, catch poles, crates, tranquilizer guns, and radios. Keepers run drills to prepare for everything from severe storms to animal escapes. Dangerous animals are also shifted into additional holding areas for cleaning and feeding so that the keepers are never in an exhibit or den with a dangerous animal.

Inside the tiger dens. Notice the steel guillotine door
leading into the exhibit and the multiple locks on the keeper door. 

The Binghamton Zoo houses lots of dangerous animals, such as tigers, leopards, wolves, bears, and cougars. However, the top safety concern is often our two female Amur tigers. As a tiger keeper, I am asked daily by the public if I am afraid to work with them. Although they are intimidating, I feel competent and prepared to work with our girls. In order to work unsupervised with the tigers, I had to complete 50 supervised hours caring for them with a veteran keeper and then shift them properly with the curator's supervision. Additionally, every time I shift the girls between their exhibit and dens, I call on the radio to inform the staff, and I call again when the cats are secure. Finally, I am always separated from the cats by a barrier and many locks. To even get into the tiger building, I go through a door with two locks. Then another solid door with three locks separates the hallway from the exhibit yard. A chain link door with a padlock separates the hallway from a second hallway in front of the dens. Both dens have heavy-duty doors with three locks, and a hefty guillotine door with a sliding lock separates the dens from each other. If the cats are outside on exhibit and I need to clean in the dens, I close two solid metal guillotine doors (with automatic locks) that separate the dens from the yard. All of these precautions keep me safe. Although our tigers, Koosaka and Terney, seem to be afraid of their own shadows and have a good relationship with me, I never want to test that relationship.

Zookeeping is not 100% safe and it never will be. Working with animals is an inherently dangerous profession. However, we do everything we can to ensure both the animals' safety and our own.

Red Panda Story Covered by Media

My most recent blog post, "It's a Boy!", about the birth of baby red panda Zhin-Li at the Binghamton Zoo, was duplicated in the Press & Sun-Bulletin on July 31.

Additionally, on Friday, July 26, the day after the press release at the Binghamton Zoo, Zhin-Li made the front page of the Press & Sun-Bulletin:

Finally, and most exciting of all, Zhin-Li's birth was covered by USA TODAY!