Goodbye Pittsburgh Zoo, Hello National Aviary

Wednesday was my last day as a gorilla keeper intern, though I will continue to volunteer one day a week until January 2nd. January 2nd is the day I begin my new internship at the National Aviary. It will not be a general husbandry internship as before. No, it will be a husbandry internship in the aviary's veterinary hospital.

Taking care of the aviary's sick and injured birds will not just entail cleaning after and feeding them; it will require physical therapy, close observation, extensive handling, and veterinary assistance. I am very pleased to have been selected for the internship within the veterinary hospital instead of out in the aviary's healthy population for this very reason. Also, everyone at the Pittsburgh Zoo tells me that my supervisor at the aviary, Dr. Pilar Fish, is a really great woman that will make my internship enjoyable and instructive.

One thing that I found fascinating when boning up on bird veterinary care is the mending of broken beaks.

Chips and breaks to the beak are a common injury in birds. In the wild, a damaged beak can mean that a bird will be unable to eat or hunt, but a quick response from the medical team means that in short order the injured bird is not only eating comfortably, but also looking good in front of his friends.

Beak repairs are made using a specialized process that incorporates the same dental acrylics used for human teeth. Many aviaries go a step further by mixing pigments with the acrylic to match the color of the beak so that the repaired area is not obvious. If the damage is too severe to be corrected with acrylic, then bridges or even prosthetic beaks are made.

The Mystery of the Sick Sparrows

One great thing about the gorillas’ outdoor exhibit at the Pittsburgh Zoo is that it attracts loads of birds. The babbling stream, the clean pool, and extensive lawn are what bring them. Mostly it’s sparrows, but I have also seen starlings, robins, blue jays, indigo buntings, grackles, cardinals, mourning doves, red-winged blackbirds, and the occasional peregrine falcon flyby.



One morning, after letting the gorillas into their outdoor exhibit, I noticed a ragged looking sparrow hopping around the yard looking unable to fly. I assumed that one of the gorillas had injured it and it was suffering from a broken wing. This assumption has precedent: about ten years ago Mimbo, Mrithi’s father (five years dead, R.I.P.) caught a peafowl that had strayed into their exhibit and had broken its wing. After conferring with Roseann, we decided to leave it be and hope for the best. The next day we found it dead in the moat. That was the end of that, or so we thought.



A few days later we saw another sparrow, ragged and damaged. The following day we found another dead bird. Were the gorillas maiming the birds for sport? No; it soon became obvious that the malady had nothing to do with gorillas at all. We began to notice sickly sparrows all around the zoo; hopping around but unable to fly. I had a real mystery on my hands: The Mystery of the Sick Sparrows.



I mentioned my concerns to one of the veterinarians. She said that she heard that West Nile Virus was experiencing a surge in the Pittsburgh area.



West Nile Virus was first identified in Uganda in 1937 and in the U.S. in 1999. Since its introduction to America it has spread quickly. How does it spread? In a word: mosquitoes. Mosquitoes carry the highest amounts of virus in the early fall, which is why the rate of the disease increases in late August to early September. The risk of disease decreases as the weather becomes colder and mosquitoes die off. Although many people are bitten by mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus, most do not know they've been exposed. Few people develop severe disease or even notice any symptoms at all. In fact, approximately 90% of West Nile Virus infections in humans are without any symptoms at all.



Let’s not put all the blame on the infamous mosquito though; birds hold their share of the blame. Though mosquitoes spread the disease, birds make it all possible. The birds are amplifying hosts, developing sufficient viral levels to transmit the infection to other biting mosquitoes which go on to infect other birds.



By now, with the cold weather settling in around Pittsburgh, I have seen many less sick birds. By the beginning of October I estimated that the West Nile Virus had infected about 20% of the sparrows around the zoo; now it is probably less than 1%.



Case closed.

Stink Bugs and Coprophagia

So, life goes on as a zookeeper-in-training. It is difficult to come up with something to write about every week. I learn new things every day but it is hard to write a cohesive essay about them without it feeling disjointed.



I’ve learned that colobus monkey’s burps smell singular and peculiarly foul. I have learned that a hose coils much easier when the pressure is released. I have learned that I have no problem hosing mice out of the gorilla enclosures. How can an animal lover happily spray a mouse around the cement floor, you ask? My answer is that if I was charged to clean the zoo’s mouse enclosure I would be sure to hose any skulking gorillas away with identical zest.



Speaking of spraying the gorillas: I have learned that our 12 year old female gorilla, Kiazi despises getting splashed with water. Despite this, she stands in the pool while we toss lunch down from the roof. Inevitably she gets splashed when a kiwi or an apple lands next to her. She shields her face in annoyance and glares at us as if to say, “Watch it, I’m standing here!”



I’ve learned through my research on palm oil that it is particularly difficult to find a good margarine without palm oil. I have also learned that one can make their own margarine with olive oil, milk, and soy lecithin in a blender. Add seasonings to taste.



I’ve learned that zoo animals can develop strange aberrant behaviors such as regurgitating and re-eating. I’ve seen Kiazi eat the same grape about four times; it was too good to eat but once. Another one is called coprophagia, and it means the consumption of feces. I’ve learned that a gorilla named Betty that used to live at the Pittsburgh Zoo would combine these two aberrant behaviors to form one really gross behavior. Super-coprophagalistic-expialadocious!



At any rate, writing about the zoo every week is unrealistic for me. However, I find the world of animals fascinating enough to research, and subsequently write about, every day. Today I decided to find out about stink bugs. Pittsburgh has been inundated with them this year and I have found them on my person more than once in the last few weeks; one flew in my mouth recently. When I was a kid, I called them apple bugs; I don’t know why. Perhaps it is because they are known to eat apples. Or maybe I just made the name up because they were an apple red and green color.



The variety that has taken over Pittsburgh is brown and is called the brown marmorated stink bug. Native to eastern Asia, they were accidentally introduced to Pennsylvania about 12 years ago and have been the bane of fruit farmers ever since.



Wondering why they were called stink bugs I asked a friend at the zoo who seemed to be somewhat knowledgeable on the subject. “Because they smell terrible when you squish them,” was the answer. To the question, “What do they smell like?“ I got the answer, “Like a stink bug.“ I fully intend to squash one to experience the stink bug aroma but I haven’t yet been able to bring myself to smash such a cute little bug. After some additional research I discovered that they can also release their vile smell purposefully through holes in their abdomen when they are frightened. The smell is actually a chemical called trans-2-decenal and trans-2-Octenal.



I caught one the other day and found a small dot on its head that I thought could be a mite hitching a ride. I picked at it for a short while but was unable to break it free. One would think that this disturbing encounter would be enough to set its off its stink but I smelled nothing.



2010 has seen a marked increase in the brown marmorated stink bug and has wreaked havoc on fruit plantations across the state. Stink bugs typically have four generations per growing season in their natural east Asian habitat, but in the U.S. they usually have just one. This year, due to the unusually early and warm spring and summer, they have been allowed to produce a second generation and this extra generation means that the state is seeing more bugs in more places than in previous seasons. Adults are living longer, depositing eggs longer and maturing more generations to lay even more eggs.



When stink bugs eat an apple they pierce the fruit’s outer surface and suck out juices while injecting saliva. The suction and saliva create a dimpling in the fruit’s surface, and rotting and corking in the flesh underneath. The fruit is fine to eat but is rendered completely disfigured and unfit to sell.



Fear not Pittsburghers, the scourge is soon to end; outside at least. Towards the end of fall they begin to search for places to hibernate. Often that place happens to be in our homes, though this can be fun towards the middle of winter. I love it when a confused bug wakes up in my house, clumsily bumping around the light fixtures. The cats love it too.

Job Interview and Botany

Well, I had my first interview the other day with Wild Things Animal Rentals Inc. in Salinas, California, the hometown of John Steinbeck. This job would be really great to have for many reasons. First, Wild Things features an incredible selection of animals including my favorites, tapirs and capybaras. In fact, the animals at this company are so wonderful that all the pictures in today’s web log feature a specimen found in their facilities. Second, they provide animals for movies, television, commercials, and music videos throughout the U.S. This is cool because besides animal keeping, movie making as a career was another dream I had as a child. Third, the location is pretty great; right off the coast of Monterrey Bay and just south of Santa Cruz and San Francisco. It is a beautiful area with a nice mild climate.



Despite being kind of nervous and rambling a bit, I think the interview went pretty well. Now I just need to hope that, though I am just one of many applicants and have only one month of exotic animal experience, my passion and confidence in my abilities was evident through the receiver.



I am sure to be giving more interviews in the future; I send out at least one resume each day. Yesterday I applied to a zoo in Columbia, South Carolina, and today I applied to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Nobody is advertising for a keeper with one month of exotic animal experience but I am applying anyway.



Yesterday at the Pittsburgh Zoo the zoo horticulturist taught a class about the zoo's various trees and shrubs to a selection of interns and keepers. We learned what plants are okay to feed the animals and which ones to avoid. Being from Alaska I was the only one present unable to identify poison ivy; until yesterday I ran the risk of ignorantly trudging through a thicket of the stuff.



While I did learn a lot about toxic and non-toxic plants during the lecture, I also was able to confirm a depressing fact. As much as I would love to be an avid botanist, plants bore the hell out of me. I wish I was the type of person that could get excited about shrubbery. If I could react the same way to a flower or a tree as I do to a squirrel or toad, the world would be a veritable wonderland.

Zoo Ethics and Philosophy

The keeping of animals in captivity can be a controversial issue. Some say that all creatures have a right to freedom and that zoos are exploiting animals for entertainment and profit. Some feel that many zoo animals appear listless and depressed.



The rebuttal that many zoo aficionados spout is that animals are safer in the zoo; their enclosure is free of predators, hunters, poison ivy, and such. I can’t take that tack when defending zoos; I would rather be beset with perils than imprisoned for the rest of my life. Nevertheless, I feel that zoos are important for our society; more important now than ever before.



Zoos not only advance our knowledge on the biology of animals (an essential ingredient for protecting them), but they educate the visitors as well. A good zoo makes it a priority to educate its visitors. Sure, I don’t expect every dolt that walks through the zoo entrance to walk out an expert on biodiversity and conservation. The real power that a zoo holds is its power to help people care, if even for a little bit; and caring is half the battle. I believe that nothing can help the dwindling populations of the polar bear, gorilla, or orangutan if no one ever made an emotional connection with one at the zoo.



Why is the conservation of the elephants important? Besides the emotional attachment we harbor for these large beasts, what do they contribute to us and the ecosystem? Well, they do plow the dirt a little which helps plants, and their poop provides habitat for certain species of beetle, but it is true that their extinction wouldn’t have a huge impact on the ecosystem. Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this but I am going to let you in on a little secret: conservationist use elephants and other interesting or cute creatures to garner support for the protection of whole habitats; habitats that contain many creatures that are essential players in the local ecosystem; creatures like slugs, spiders, brown snakes, and warty toads. The interesting species are called umbrella species and they are vital to conservation efforts.



If there is one thing that has surprised me through this zoo internship is that I really enjoy talking to the visitors. I often spend my breaks among the zoo guests, answering questions about the gorillas and talking about important conservation issues. At first I would approach the idiot families and explain that the gorillas were not all male and that they were great apes, not monkeys. I wanted to stamp out ignorance one doofus at a time, but I soon learned that that was much like trying to stomp the cockroaches downstairs into extinction; impossible! Slowly I came more to enjoy telling the children from obviously smart families all about the gorillas. The information is genuinely appreciated and really seems to stick.



At some point zookeepers have to ask themselves why they do it. There seems to be about as many reasons as there are keepers. One guy I work with is apparently a keeper because it is his only marketable skill; he grew up keeping animals in the family’s business and just never stopped. Unfortunately for him, his career lacks the passion that marks the difference between a good keeper and a great keeper. One keeper is driven by her passion for training the animals. She trains them to push their bodies against the bars to facilitate medical procedures; she trains them to enter adjacent enclosures without a fuss; she would train them to clean up after themselves so that she could spend more time training them if she could.



Roseann is not an adherent to the training school of zookeepery. She believes that training is stressful to the animals and that zookeeping should be done with intuition, with an emphasis on fostering natural behaviors. I can see the wisdom in this but to be dead set against training seems unrealistic; isn’t the absence of training a form of training?



Anyway, Roseann is a zookeeper in part because she thinks that animal education is important. From hearing her talk, I get the idea that she is tenuously clinging to the idea that hopefully she is making a difference somehow. However she justifies herself, I think that the gorillas are very lucky to have her. I would like to model my zookeeping self partly after her.



Besides education, zoos have the role of ark or “seed bank”. While the people of the world are fastidiously endeavoring to wipe out the orangutan in the wild, zoos are carefully keeping the orang genetic stock fresh. Someone once asked me, “What is the point in keeping animals for eventual release into the wild if their habitat no longer exists?” This is a good question but it is also a pessimistic one. Maybe I am naively optimistic to feel that we can one day get a handle on our deforestation and designate a spot for these displaced creatures.



Watching after the gorillas nurtures philosophical thought and the parts of the days that I am alone, raking their yard and enclosures, gives me abundant time to mull over some of these thoughts.



To the people that tell me, “Those gorillas sure look sad,” I ask, “What does a happy gorilla look like?” They never quite know. I’m not so sure either.

Palm Oil and Gorilla Family Trees

As part of my zoo internship it is expected, but not required, that I complete a research project to be presented to other interns and keepers at the end of my term. At first I was at a complete loss as to what I could present that wouldn't seem generic or boring. Slowly though, research projects began to emerge naturally and I have taken on two research projects that I probably would have embarked on anyway.

The first is something that I have been passionate about for a few years and have really been able to sink my teeth into: The Palm Oil Crisis. Not familiar with this crisis? That may be because you are American; we can't seem to keep up with the rest of the world when it comes to ecological awareness. Let me enlighten you:

What is palm oil?



Palm oil is the most widely produced edible oil.

It is obtained from the fruit of the African oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis).

The majority of all palm oil is grown and produced in Borneo and Sumatra.

You probably use palm every day in food, cosmetics, and bath products.

On food labels it is often called palm kernel oil, palmitate and palmitic acid.

What is wrong with palm oil?



Supply and demand is driving palm oil production to an all time high.

Each year millions of acres of rainforests in Borneo and Sumatra are cut down to plant more oil palm.

Research indicates that the current rate of rainforest habitat destruction will drive orangutans to extinction in 10 to 15 years.

What does the destruction of rainforests nearly 10,000 miles away have to do with me?



It is our consumption of palm oil that drives the destruction of the rainforest.

What can I do?



Read labels! Don’t buy anything that doesn’t use sustainable palm oil.

If it doesn’t say sustainable palm oil then it isn’t!

The preceding text is something I wrote up for a new sign that I want to have printed and displayed at the Pittsburgh Zoo. Also I am working on designing a docent program and smart phone application for the zoo to raise awareness of the palm oil crisis.

People are now saying to not completely boycott palm oil; just the non-sustainable kind. The problem with this approach is that there really isn't any sustainable palm oil on the market to speak of. Many corporations have talked big about using the stuff but have fallen short on actually doing anything. With sustainable oil costing an extra ten percent, it takes you, the consumer to make buying choices that influence the corporations to make the switch.

Europe is far far ahead of the U.S. in palm oil awareness. They have corporations lunging for sustainable or alternative oils in droves. This is simply because the masses demand it.

In America, we have the occasional company mention that they are aiming for sustainable palm oil use by the year 2015. 2015?! Many scientists are pegging the extinction of the wild orangutan in 10 years! 2015 is 40% of that window! U.S. companies could make the switch in less than a year if their costumers told them to do so. The problem is that we don't, and at this rate, we won't. Getting people to care is the easy part; getting people to care for more than five minutes is nearly impossible!

This problem with attention span is one that I hope to harness with a smart phone zoo app that will ask visitors to sign a petition to require better palm oil labeling when they pass the Palm Oil Crisis sign. At the push of a button a visitor can help make a difference before they completely forget about the issue. Hopefully the act of signing the petition will help them remember the issue the next time they go grocery shopping.

My second project is of a lighter note. Gorilla family trees! This sounds more fun than it is. It consists of pouring through the gorilla studbook and constructing a family tree for each of the seven gorillas that live at the Pittsburgh Zoo.



Knowing that he would probably be the most challenging, I began with Harry. I now see why the gorilla SSP has forbidden Harry to reproduce: his family is enormous. I began the tree construction about a week ago and I am still plugging away at it. I found that Kiazi is both Harry's half niece (on his father's side) and his half cousin (on his mother's side). Construction of this monstrosity is exhausting. I can hardly wait to make Mrithi's tree since he is second generation wild-caught.



These are both imposingly huge projects and will certainly keep me busy through the length of my internship and perhaps beyond.

Gorilla Halloween and Job Hunting

It is quickly becoming apparent that the lack of degree is going to make securing a zoo job difficult. Though I feel like I have more knowledge, maturity, and passion than any zoo applicant fresh out of college, a paper certifying that I was given an education is foremost in most zoo's hiring requirements. Applications sent to The San Fransisco Zoo and The San Diego Zoo were rejected out of hand due to lack of degree and paid experience. Paid experience is another one. I could have 20 years of volunteer experience and it wouldn't be considered applicable as a consideration for employment in some zoos.



The Phoenix Zoo and The Bronx Zoo also both have applications of mine but I have not yet heard back from them. I don't expect to.



It is looking more and more like I will have to work for a roadside attraction, a sanctuary, or an animal education organization for a few years before I will have the experience necessary for zoo work. This means that we will probably heading south after Pittsburgh; Texas, Florida, Georgia, or Tennessee where these establishments are rampant and rather endemic.



Heather is all for the south (or certain areas of the south) and I am not uninterested but there is a sharp difference in zoos on the southern side of the Mason-Dixon line that is not apparent to the naked eye. Northern Zoos are much more likely to have unions, health care, and living wages (not to mention hospitable temperatures), while Dixie zoos are known for their minimum wage keeper positions. It is also a fact that zoos tend to treat their animals in much the same way as they treat their employees: if the keepers are offered a low wage, the animals are likely to be receiving rotten vegetables; if a keeper is offered a great benefits package, the animals are likely to get the veterinary care that they require. It would be frustrating to work at a zoo in which the animals were given sub-par care.

The ace up my sleeve is Roseann, my wonderful supervisor and teacher. She is a well respected keeper with nearly 30 years of experience and zoo contacts from all over the U.S. A good reference from her will hold a lot of weight in some quarters.

On a different note, fun goings-on are ever afoot at The Pittsburgh Zoo. For some reason Halloween is a major zoo holiday and the preparations are now well underway. The zoo is in the process of making a commercial for their Halloween festivities and the gorillas and I were happy to contribute. The other day I made a scarecrow with gorilla treats hidden throughout and today it was erected in their yard. Though it was my day off I was sitting front row when the action began.

Giving fun things for the animals to do is called enrichment, and providing enrichment is an important aspect of zoo keeping. Today was especially enriching for our gorillas because they were also given bedsheets and fig tree branches. The cherry on top was the fact that a peacock flew in to their enclosure right before they were let out. The gorillas didn't know what to run after first!

Here is a series of pictures documenting their fun.

First Roseann and Jon erected my masterpiece.



On with its head full of peanuts.



Even though the girls found it first, Mrithi demanded full privileges.



Mrithi picked it apart while the girls watched from a safe distance.



Anju was able to snag the straw hat.



Buggy enjoyed the show!



The girls find the sheets and fig tree limbs.



The girls patiently await their turn with the scarecrow (Anju has already ruined her hat).



"Alright, I'm done," grunts Mrithi as he saunters off to confiscate a bedsheet from someone.



Slim pickings for Ibo and Anju.



I knew that silly Ibo would end up with the head! Happy Halloween Ibo.