Educator Event 11/07

The Zoo holds an annual event for teachers and educators to promote conservation in the classroom and provide educational resources. The night also gives teachers a much deserved evening of fun and appreciation. It includes a bus tour, education booths with giveaways and great resources, a special show at Hunte Amphitheater, and a giant dinner at the Zoo’s party area with games and door prizes. And it’s all for only $6.50! Tonight I got to be a guest.

This year, keepers got on the bus with us at different points, telling us stories about the animals they work with. The first told us that Jabba and his girlfriend, the hippos, were back together. They're kept separate after she gives birth, as males can be aggressive toward the young. The young hippo has since gone to another zoo, and she is currently on Depo Provera and PVP. Her previous birth control resulted in a baby hippo, which is tough to find a home for. The new baby okapi, Sukari, or “sugar” in Swahili, is on solids and browse now in addition to nursing. The keepers are desensitizing her to having her hooves lifted in preparation for trims later on. A male tiger brought in recently from a zoo in Omaha has just been released from quarantine and can be seen on exhibit! Finally, we passed the spot-nosed otters and swamp guenons. The Zoo strives for multi-species habitats as much as possible; things aren’t compartmentalized in the wild!

We were joined by a second keeper, who works mainly with the pandas. Mei Sheng, who left on 11/5 for China, had arrived safely and was preparing for the second, much shorter leg of his trip. The new baby is starting to teethe now. Following tradition, she'll have a naming ceremony at the Hunte Amphitheater November 26, the day she turns 100 days old.

Further up, we were joined by a third keeper. The lion-tailed macaques were born in another zoo that had concrete exhibits. When they first arrived, they were afraid of the grass, having never seen any. For awhile, they stayed at the top of the exhibit. They soon discovered the water misters, used for irrigation. With their nimble fingers they unscrewed the tops and happily squirted guests until the keepers found out. The misters are now macaque-proof! Up Bear Canyon, we saw Ralph, a Bornean sun bear. His favorite activity is rubbing things all over his head. The keepers placed a burlap sack over a high tree branch, and he was having a ball with it. Herman and Sweet Otter, cape otters, are giving everyone hopes of baby otters in the near future. Next door are Mweezi and Tengo, fifteen-year-old lion sisters. They have a toy like half of a huge plastic ball, which they drag into the cave every night to sleep with. They also have a few small logs that they drag around and lick and cuddle like cubs. Then there was Tommy and Houdini, the spectacled bears. Houdini is recognizable by her mostly-bare bear behind. She has allergies that caused her to lose a lot of fur, but she’s on helpful antibiotics. Houdini got her name from escaping as a cub. She ended up a few “doors” down in a sea lion enclosure. Both animals were so shocked to see each other that keepers were able to retrieve her fairly easily. Each night, she gathers up most, if not all, of the bedding to make a giant bed for herself, leaving none for Tommy. On chilly nights, she has been known to begrudgingly let him snuggle up with her.

On Elephant Mesa, we were joined by one last keeper. All three elephant girls were out and about; they have new hay feeders which have been occupying them for hours on end. Devi, the Asian with the crooked tail, is 31 years old. Tembo, the African with tusks, is 37, and Sumithi, the second Asian, is 41! Currently on about a third of an acre, they will have two-and-a-half acres in the new Elephant Odyssey, now being built. Some Indian and Asian elephants will be joining them from the Wild Animal Park, and Tembo will probably go there to live with the other Africans. Keepers have been crate training them in preparation. Gram the rhino’s old enclosure and the previous guanaco exhibit will be merged to form the new giraffe enclosure, which will give them more space as well.

We continued with our driver, a member of the education department. She told us Disney animators spent a lot of time at the Zoo doing sketches for “The Lion King”. I learned that clipspringers, small deer-like animals, are able to leap and land with all four feet at once on an area about three inches wide. I also learned that the Zoo and Wild Animal Park go through 45 tons of bananas and 10 tons of meat in a year! Just in animal care alone, it takes $125 million annually to run both parks. We passed several awesome animals, including the striped hyenas (which I am in love with), and Skyy, Stoli, and Naya, the Siberian lynxes. We saw the caracals, which are excellent bird hunters; they can jump ten feet straight up to catch a bird in flight.

We disembarked at Canyon Café; we snacked and had hot drinks as we visited displays setup by the Zoo and some of its partners, showcasing a wide variety of fun educational resources. I learned that balsa wood is a terrific sustainable resource; it can grow 90 feet in a five year period! Some Zoo educators were there with a few animal ambassadors, including Ligarto, the American alligator, and a sugar glider, which is actually a type of possum. Then we headed to Hunte Amphitheater for a special night show.

Sven Olof, Karoo the cheetah’s golden retriever buddy, opened the show by coming out and putting some bottles and cans in a recycle bin set on stage. He was followed up by Keenai, the three-year-old Arctic white wolf. The audience howled, and he howled in response, which is always a big hit. I’ve included a video of him on my “Amazing Animals” page. Next came Murphy, the eighteen-month-old African red river hog. When the music started, he broke into a choreographed dance with one of the trainers, which was funny. As a smart pig, the extra activities give him additional enrichment. Long ago, Germans believed that rubbing the nose of a pig was good luck; this eventually gave rise to the piggy bank. Then came Karoo, the cheetah. When Sven came out to join her, he was dressed in a cheetah-print cape and cheetah ears, which was cute and silly. Cheetahs are of course the fastest land mammal and can get up to 45mph within two seconds!

We saw two more of the 36 species of cats before show’s end. First, Jabari and Chuma, African servals, came out and demonstrated their amazing jumping abilities. They have extremely sensitive hearing, which helps them to hunt. To them, the wing beat of a bird makes a sound equivalent to a drum roll to us. They were followed by Kalot and Kaya, two gorgeous clouded leopard sisters. Not used to being on stage at night, they both made the most of being able to sniff around as much as possible. One of the sisters kept returning to what must have been a particularly interesting fern, after which she was carried back each time by one of the trainers. They’re both in season at the moment, so they’re extremely friendly and amorous. We were told that the trainers are treated like furniture by the cats, who climb all over them to rub and scent mark. A piece of browse was placed on the stage, and the second sister rolled in it and rubbed against it as if it was telling her sweet things. They were definitely the stars of the show.

Finally, we all got back onto the buses and were taken to the Zoo’s big party area for a giant buffet dinner. We sat in a huge, heated pavilion tent and ate yummy dinner and dessert. Soon someone came to the front and hosted a trivia game show for door prizes, which everyone got caught up in. The highlight was the drawing for the $900 gift basket which included one of Janey the orangutan’s original paintings. Several people took advantage of some special gift shop discount shopping, and then the night was over. It was another great year!