Zoo News Digest 1st - 11th January 2014 (ZooNews 886)
Dear Colleagues,
As expected the press is mostly full of stories about zoos counting their animals. It is the same every January, in fact the stories and text could be used again from the previous year. The big puzzle is why it has a constant appeal to the press. I'm not knocking it. Stocktaking is essential and any time the zoos get in the press can only be a good thing. This said I have not included a single link to this subject.
Then there is the cold. Okay it has been exceptionally cold for some this winter so there is a round of tales of how animals are being kept warm. On the other hand other parts of the world have been experiencing extremely hot weather and so their press is putting out their shower and popsicle features. Again, I haven't bothered to include these either.
What I have put together in Zoo News Digest, as in other editions, is news which will be of interest to those working in zoos around the world. The sort of thing that would be talked about in zoo offices and staff rooms everywhere. If you are hot or cold I do hope conditions improve for you soon and you are not affected by floods or drought and that 2014 is that we see more bad zoos close down, that common sense dawns on the Animal Rights groups, that no more Rhinos or elephants are poached...I could go on. Take care.
As expected the press is mostly full of stories about zoos counting their animals. It is the same every January, in fact the stories and text could be used again from the previous year. The big puzzle is why it has a constant appeal to the press. I'm not knocking it. Stocktaking is essential and any time the zoos get in the press can only be a good thing. This said I have not included a single link to this subject.
Then there is the cold. Okay it has been exceptionally cold for some this winter so there is a round of tales of how animals are being kept warm. On the other hand other parts of the world have been experiencing extremely hot weather and so their press is putting out their shower and popsicle features. Again, I haven't bothered to include these either.
What I have put together in Zoo News Digest, as in other editions, is news which will be of interest to those working in zoos around the world. The sort of thing that would be talked about in zoo offices and staff rooms everywhere. If you are hot or cold I do hope conditions improve for you soon and you are not affected by floods or drought and that 2014 is that we see more bad zoos close down, that common sense dawns on the Animal Rights groups, that no more Rhinos or elephants are poached...I could go on. Take care.
Peter Dickinson
10 Cheshire View
Appleyards Lane
Handbridge
Chester
UK
CH4 7DD
Bear in mind it is NOT where I live. My mail will be forwarded to me to wherever I am from there. My contact phone number remains the same:
00971 (0)50 4787 122
00971 (0)50 4787 122
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Birds Can Smell, and One Scientist is Leading the
Charge to Prove It
For more than a
century nearly everyone believed birds sense of smell was poorly developed or
nonexistent. They were wrong.
Gabrielle Nevitt's
supply list for her first Antarctic research cruise in 1991 contained some
decidedly odd items. The huge kites and vats of fishy smelling liquid wouldn't
be a problem, the macho National Science Foundation contractor told her. Then
she asked for hundreds of boxes of super-absorbent tampons. "He just kind
of stammered," recalls Nevitt a petite brunette who was then a 31-year-old
zoology post-doc at Cornell University. "Then he said, 'Uh, I don't think
I can get those for you, ma'am.' " So Nevitt lugged them onboard herself
and set to work. She was hoping to lure albatrosses and petrels from the open
sea with the scent of dinner, like a street-food vendor might entice passersby
with a hot pretzel. She dipped the tampons in pungent compounds found in marine
fish and small crustaceans called krill, and painstakingly attached the briny
bait to parachute-like kites that she let fly off the rear deck. Then she
waited.
It was an outlandish
experiment, and not just because of the tampons. For more than a century nearly
everyone believed that the sense of smell was poorly developed or nonexistent
in most birds. So no one had ever fully investigated to what extent tube-nosed
procellariiformes--petrels, albatrosses, and shearwaters--use their olfactory
anatomy to pinpoint prey in the vast, featureless ocean. The long-lived birds
spend nearly their entire existence at sea, soaring for hundreds to thousands
of miles in search of ever-shifting schools of krill, fish, and squid. On the
day Nevitt ran her experiment, dozens of them swooped in so close that she
feared they would tangle in the line and drown. So she grounded the kites and
improvised, releasing vegetable oil into the water, some of it laced with the
fishy compounds. Albatrosses and petrels flocked to the stinky slicks. She was
ecstatic. But she still had no idea how they used olfactory cues to home in on
their ephemeral quarry. "I was really passionate about figuring this out,
so I wasn't giving up," says Nevitt. "I knew I'd be back again soon
on another cruise."
Nevitt is 53 now and
a professor at the University of California-Davis. She is a woman obsessed with
smell. As head of a sensory ecology lab, she's spent the past two decades
picking apart how seabirds' ability to detect scents is key to their survival. Nevitt
had the good fortune to arrive in the field on the heels of a handful of
pioneering bird olfaction studies. Yet changing long-held beliefs takes time,
and the scientific community is no exception. Dozens of Nevitt's grant
proposals have been rejected because of the birds-can't-smell fallacy. A
program officer once called to say her application was the worst he'd ever
seen. "Your idea that birds can smell is ridiculous,"he said.
"This will never be funded, so stop wasting your time." She ignored
him, and her perseverance and inventive methods have inspired others who share
her fascination.
"Gaby's been
very influential," says Julie Hagelin, a wildlife biologist with the
Alaska Department of Fish and Game who has conducted several studies on the
role of odor in bird behavior. "Her work propelled me forward and helped
me develop several ideas." Nevitt, Hagelin, and other avian olfaction
trailblazers have pushed past criticism, failure, and even bodily injury in
their quest to disprove one of biology's most pervasive myths. "In
science," says Nevitt, "we rediscover the obvious sometimes."
Nevitt could blame
John James Audubon, of all people, for the incredulity she's endured. In the
1820s the famous naturalist set out to prove that turkey vultures use their
superior eyesight, rather than their nostrils, to find carrion. He stuffed a
deerskin with grass and added clay eyes, sewed up the imposter, and placed it
in a meadow with its legs in the air. He watched as a vulture swooped down on
it. The duped bird ripped out the eyes and tore apart stitches, flying after
failing to find any meat. Audubon later placed a dead hog, its carcass reeking
of decay in the July heat, in a ravine and covered it with brush. This time
vultures circled but didn't descend. The results were "fully
conclusive," he wrote. Vultures did not scavenge by smell.
Audubon's ego
would've taken a hit had he lived to see Kenneth Stager put his findings to the
test. In 1960 Stager, an ornithologist at the Los Angeles County Natural
History Museum, showed that turkey vultures prefer fresher carcasses--typically
no more than four days old--to putrid ones like Audubon
'Be Different or Die' Does Not Drive Evolution, Bird
Study Finds
A new study has
found that species living together are not forced to evolve differently to
avoid competing with each other, challenging a theory that has held since
Darwin's Origin of Species.
By focusing on
ovenbirds, one of the most diverse bird families in the world, the Oxford
University-led team conducted the most in-depth analysis yet of the processes
causing species differences to evolve.
They found that
although bird species occurring together were consistently more different than
species living apart, this was simply an artefact of species being old by the
time they meet. In fact, once variation in the age of species was accounted
for, coexisting species were actually more similar than species evolving
separately, opposite to Darwin's view which remains widely-held today.
"It's not so
much a case of Darwin being wrong, as there is no shortage of evidence for
competition driving divergent evolution in some very young lineages," said
Dr Joe Tobias of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, who led the study. "But
we found no evidence that this process explains differences across a much
larger sample of species.
"The reason
seems to be linked to the way new species originate in animals, which almost
always requires a period of geographic separation. By using genetic techniques
to establish the age of lineages, we found that most ovenbird species only meet
their closest relatives several million years after they separated from a
common ancestor. This gives them plenty of time to develop differences by
evolving separately."
The study, published
in Nature, compared the beaks, legs and songs of over 90% of ovenbird species.
To tackle the huge challenge of sequencing genes and taking measurements,
Oxford University scientists were joined by colleagues at Lund University
(Sweden), Louisiana State University, Tulane University (New Orleans) and the
American Museum of Natural History (New York).
Although species
living together had beaks and legs that were no more different than those of
species living apart, the most surprising discovery was that they had songs
that were more similar. This challenges s
Thousands protest State Government shark policy
Thousands of Western
Australians gathered at Cottesloe Beach on Saturday morning to protest the
State Government's controversial shark mitigation program.
The crowd, estimated
to be over 4000 strong, braved the windy conditions to condemn the program,
which will see baited drum lines placed one kilometre off-shore at Ocean Reef
and Mullaloo, Trigg and Scarborough, Floreat and City Beach, Cottesloe and North
Cottesloe and Port and Leighton beaches.
It goes against all
available science
Shark fishermen will
patrol WA waters and kill any shark bigger than three metres spotted in the
designated zones, while any sharks hooked on the drum lines will be killed and
disposed of off-shore.
Reconstructing the New World monkey family tree
When monkeys landed
in South America 37 or more million years ago, the long-isolated continent
already teemed with a menagerie of 30-foot snakes, giant armadillos and
strange, hoofed mammals. Over time, the monkeys forged their own niches across
the New World, evolved new forms and spread as far north as the Caribbean and
as far south as Patagonia.
Duke University
evolutionary anthropologist Richard Kay applied decades' worth of data on
geology, ancient climates and evolutionary relationships to uncover several
patterns in primate migration and evolution in the Americas. The analysis
appears online this week in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
Today, more than 150
species of monkeys inhabit the New World, ranging in size from the pygmy
marmoset, which weighs little more than a bar of soap, to the muriqui, a
long-limbed monkey that tips the scales at 25 pounds.
"We know from
molecular studies that the monkeys have their closest relatives in Africa and
Asia—but that doesn't explain how they got to South America, just that they
did," said Kay, a professor in the evolutionary anthropology department
and division of earth and ocean sciences at Duke.
South America split
from Africa long before monkeys evolved, and the scarcity of monkey ancestors
in the North American fossil record ma
Cause of Polar Bear Knut's Death Found
The culprit of the
sudden death of famed polar bear tot Knut has been found, says an international
team of scientists. An exhaustive analysis shows a viral form of encephalitis,
or brain swelling, led to the seizures and untimely death.
"After a
detailed necropsy and histology that took several intense days to perform, the
results clearly suggested that the underlying cause of Knut's seizures was a
result of encephalitis, most likely of viral origin," Claudia Szentiks, of
the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Berlin (IZW), said in a
statement.
Born in captivity at
the Berlin Zoo on Dec. 5, 2006,
Dog virus killing tigers, red pandas and lions
Endangered tigers,
red pandas and lions in the country are succumbing to infection caused by
canine distemper virus (CDV), a disease common in domestic dogs.
The scientists at
Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) in Bareilly found the presence of
CDV in the blood samples of dead animals.
"Since last one
year we have found many blood samples of dead tigers, red pandas and lions, who
were positive for CDV. The disease has been found in Dudhwa Tiger Reserve,
Patna Zoo and many areas of West Bengal and Darjeeling," said AK Sharma, principal
scientist and in charge of Centre for Wildlife, IVRI.
CDV affects
different systems of the body including nervous and respiratory system in these
animals. It breaks down the immunity system and causes various secondary
bacterial infections which leads to their death.
"As this
disease damage the brain, it badly affect their decision making power. Due to
this, the animals go beyond their natural habitat and enter human settlements.
It leaves them an easy prey for poachers," Sharma said.
The source of CDV
among tigers, lions and red pandas is the direct contact like licking. Even
these animals are eating dogs infected with the virus. The disease is also
spreading through infected material such as drinking water from same source. Sh
Shocking Truth About Piranhas Revealed!
In the languid news
week after Christmas, hungry media outlets swarmed over a report of piranhas
attacking swimmers on a river in Argentina. “Massive Piranha Attack” cried The
New York Post. “70 Christmas Day Bathers Are Savaged” added The Daily Mail, promising
“the truth about the fish with a bite more powerful than a T. rex.” ABC News
called it a “Christmas Day feeding frenzy.” In fact, the injuries ranged from
minor cuts to at least one missing finger part — not exactly as newsworthy as,
say, the 800,000 Americans who require medical treatment for dog bites each
year.
Piranhas have always
been among our favorite subjects for sheer, sputtering nonsense. Theodore
Roosevelt, on a 1913 expedition in South America, called piranhas “the most
ferocious fish in the world.” More recently, multiple “Piranha” movies have
ridden this hysteria to the bank.
This is an awful lot
of hype for piranhas to live up to, and predictably, they disappoint. To test
the colorful mythology of the ferocious piranha, I once climbed into a tank of
hungry red-bellied piranhas at the Dallas World Aquarium. (They fled to the opposite
corner.) In the Peruvian Amazon, I stood waist-deep in the Rio Napo while
catching and releasing piranhas on a hook-and-line. (The nibbles were strictly
of the usual kind.) In the flooded grasslands of Venezuela, I drove around
tossing a chicken carcass into various bodies of water to time how long it took
for the flesh-maddened swarms to strip it to feathers. (There was enough
chicken left at the end of the day to feed a family of four.)
The point of this
exercise, recounted in my book “Swimming With Piranhas at Feeding Time,” was
that piranhas do that swarming, blood-crazed, flesh-ripping thing only in a
couple of rare circumstances, both involving a highly concentrated food source:
They will swarm around bird rookeries, where the fledglings leaving the nest
often tumble straight down into the water. And they’ll do it around docks where
fishermen clean their catch and heave the guts into the water.
Otherwise, you can
swim without fear.
I didn’t worry about
piranhas, for instance, when the only place to bathe, on a recent trip deep
into the backcountry of Suriname, was the river running past our camp.
Then one day,
sitting in a canoe, I watched the fish biologist on our expedition, Jan H. Mol
of the University of Suriname, pull a 12-inch-long black piranha out of the
same water where we took our daily baths. As this extremely toothy creature
wriggled in his hands, Mr. Mol started talking, in his somewhat ponderous way,
about a paper he had published on piranha-bite incidents, complete with color
photos of amputated toes.
Like me, Mr. Mol
believes the piranha threat is wildly exaggerated. He has spent more than 20
years wading in South American rivers and hauling up every imaginable fish
without ever being injured by free-swimming piranhas. “Free-swimming” is,
however, the operative phrase there: If you get careless while trying to
untangle one from a net, or you let one flop around the bottom of the boat,
things can get painful.
As he spoke, Mr. Mol
was using the soft pad of his index finger to hold down the piranha’s sharply
serrated lower jaw and give me a better view. It was a formidable mouthful. But
that index finger rather spoiled the effect of another recent study, in the
journal Nature, which found that the black piranha’s bite is more powerful,
pound for pound, than that of a great white shark or a killer whale. Yes, yes,
that article also mentioned T. rex, but “pound for pound” (or as the authors
put it, “removing the effects of body size”) turns out to be another of those
pesky
4th Southeast Asian Animal Enrichment & Training Workshop
Work on Safari Park
completed
Sri Lanka’s first
safari park at Ridiyagama in Hambantota will be declared open in April this
year.
The construction
work at the first Safari Park started in 2008 under the direction of The
National Zoological Department. The park covers a land extent of about 500
acres and it contains a public entertainment zone extending to about 69 acres.
Four of the park's
six zones will be reserved for carnivorous animals while the remaining two
zones will be set apart for the herbivores. Two zones of the carnivore section
will be exclusively reserved for the dangerous animals such as lions, tigers,
and leopards.
The officials of the
National Zoological Department the road network within the safari park is
currently being constructed and will be completed before the opening in April.
The Safari Park has been constructed at a cost of Rs. 1.6 billion.
Secretary of the
Ministry of Botanical Gardens and Public Enterta
Noah's Ark Zoo Farm wins 'green' award
NOAH'S Ark Zoo Farm
at Wraxall near Bristol has won an award for being "green".
The 100-acre family
park has been given a gold award in recognition of its green innovation and
environmentally sustainable efforts, the only zoo in the south west of England
to achieve the award.
Noah's Ark has
invested significantly in renewable energy and waste management systems to
further advance the zoo's sustainable operation.
It has received the
award under the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS).
It now joins only
three other zoos in Britain to achieve the top accolade.
Anthony Bush, owner
of Noah's Ark, said: "As a team we've been working hard to develop in an
environmentally and socially sustainable way, considering local wildlife and
the communities in our area.
"I have a
commitment to cr
Zoo goes to Hyd lab to DNA-test tortoises
38 star tortoises
await rehabilitation, as the Rajiv Gandhi Zoological Park initiates special
tests to ensure they are sent back into their original habitat after rescue
The Rajiv Gandhi
Zoological Park and Research Centre’s administration has come out of its
‘shell’ with a unique decision. In an effort to rehabilitate a
highly-endangered species — the beautiful Indian Star Tortoises housed in the
Katraj Rescue Centre within the park — the zoo will now subject the specimens
to DNA testing at the Hyderabad-based Laboratory for Conservation of Endangered
Species (LaCONES), to determine the exact location of their origin.
The decision has
been taken by authorities to ensure that the frequently-smuggled species is
rehabilitated into their original habitat after being rescued.
Over the last decade
or so, the smuggling of this species has been observed to be on the rise, given
that it is not only a popular exotic pet but also a delicacy in some countries
Malaysia and Indonesia. It’s occurrence has become so rare in the wild that the
Centre is one of the few repositories in the country housing specimens legally.
Park director Suresh
Mahadev Jagtap told Mirror, “Star tortoises, endemic to India and Sri Lanka,
are classified as a Schedule 1 species under our Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
We have around 38 of
them currently housed at our rescue centre. If they are not rehabilitated into
their original environment, they might not survive. We have made this decision
to ensure their survival.”
Zoo authorities plan
on contacting LaCONES, a joint venture of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular
Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad, the Department of Biotechnology, Government of
India, and the Central Zoo Authority. LaCONES has been conducting DNA tests on
star tortoises since 2004 to aid the preservation of the species.
Dr Ajay Gaur, senior
scientist at LaCONES, said, “The DNA-based identification of these tortoises is
important, because if they are not released in
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Animal Keepers, Trainers and Wildlife Professionals of the Middle East
‘Zoo of Death’ Claims New Victim
A wildebeest was
found dead in its cage over the weekend at the Surabaya Zoo, which has been a
subject of much criticism from the local and international public for its poor
treatment of the animals in its care, an official at the zoo confirmed on
Monday.
“The wildebeest is
thought to have died on Sunday evening,” Surabaya Zoo spokesman Agus Supangkat
said.
He said signs of the
wildebeest’s deteriorating health had been noticed for a few days prior to its
death and that its keeper had reported its illness to the zoo’s medical team,
which then moved the animal to conduct tests and a medical evaluation.
Despite the
evaluation and medications, the wildebeest’s health worsened.
According to Agus,
an autopsy showed the animal died of an intestinal condition.
“The autopsy showed
that the animal had been suffering from gas that had accumulated inside its
intestines, which caused bloating,” Agus said.
The issue raised
speculation that poor maintenance and upkeep of the animals had contributed to
the latest death.
But Agus denied
allegations that officials had not been feeding the animal appropriately,
citing the medical team’s autopsy results, which showed the wildebeest still
had food in his stomach at the time of death.
He added that poor
weather conditions may have been a contributing factor.
“The weather could
have been one of the main factors that had caused the wildebeest’s bloating and
its subsequent death, because, as we all know, Surabaya has seen torrential
downpours in the last few days,” he said.
It was not the first
time Surabaya Zoo officials had blamed the weather as a cause of death of
animals in its care.
In October, an
orangutan named Betty was found dead after suffering from pneumonia, an illness
zoo officials were quick to blame on the city’s heat.
The death of the
wildebeest reduces the zoo’s colle
African Lion Strangled in Surabaya Zoo
Only two days after
a wildebeest was found dead in its cage, an African lion was also found dead at
the Surabaya Zoo, which has been globally slammed on for its poor treatment for
the animals in its care.
The 18-month-old
male African Lion named Michael was found dead after its head got stuck between
steel cables in his cage.
“Michael was found
dead on Tuesday morning when the zoo keeper was checking his cage,” Surabaya
Zoo spokesman Agus Supangkat said.
Each of the zoo’s
lions spends its days in two different cages. Every morning the lions would be
taken to a display cage where zoo visitors could watch them, then in the
afternoon they would be moved to another cage where they slept, Agus explained.
He said the zoo used
steel cables to secure the cage so zookeepers did not have to manually open or
close the cage door with their hands — a safety precaution, which prevents them
from being attacked by the animals.
“We are still
investigating how the steel cables could entrap the African lion’s head,” Agus
said.
He declined to
confirm that Michael’s needless death was caused by zookeepers’ negligence.
“Michael was
relatively young, he was only one-and-half-years old; it could be that he was
playing around and somehow his head got stuck,” he said.
With Michael’s death
there are only four African lions left at the zoo. The young lion had been
rescued by East Java Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) before he
was sent to the Surabaya zoo in March last year.
Surabaya Police have
meanwhile started an investigation into the lion’s death.
Surabaya Police
detectives chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Farman said a team has visited the zoo to
gather evidence but the lion’s corpse had been removed.
Farhan would not say
whether police believe the zoo w
Everything you need to know about ivory poaching
A ban was imposed in
1989 banning the international trade in ivory to reverse a rapid decline in the
population of African elephants. But to no avail. Illegal hunting and killing
of elephants remains a sad reality in Africa despite the ban. Here we examine
how the beasts continue to be slaughtered to satisfy global demand for ivory.
Rare crocodiles 'discovered' in Copenhagen Zoo
Two crocodiles have
lived with false identities for over 30 years
New crocodiles have
been 'found' at the Copenhagen Zoo. Well, actually they have been there for
over three decades.
Thanks to DNA
samples, zookeepers have discovered that two crocodiles that have lived at the
zoo in Frederiksberg for 32 years are actually West African crocodiles and not
Nile crocodiles as previously believed.
The zoo had long
wondered why the two crocs were smaller and more docile than the average Nile
crocodile.
Clues from Zurich
So when Flemming
Nielsen, the zoo curator, heard that DNA testing of a croc in Zurich Zoo had
revealed that it was in fact a rare West African croc, also sometimes known as
a desert crocodile, he immediately became suspicious.
“Because of the
information I concluded that the Copenhagen Zoo’s crocodiles were also of this
species,” Nielsen said in a press release. “It would fit with the crocodile in
Zurich because it was also imported at the same time as ours.”
Based on Nielsen’s
premonitions, the Zoo decided to DNA-test the reptiles, the results of which
showed that they were West African crocodiles.
“It’s fantastic and
completely crazy that that my predictions came true. Imagine, that Zoo has one
Online Zoo Nutrition Course
Stimson Center Report Calls for Global Effort to Cut
Poaching and Other Wildlife Crimes That Fund Terrorists
Governments around
the world should work with each other, local residents and the private sector
to reduce poaching and wildlife crimes that are funneling an estimated $19
billion annually to terrorists and other criminals, a Stimson Center report
issued today recommends.
The report – based
on projects Stimson is running in East Africa – says that "wildlife crime
is no longer only a challenge to conservation, biodiversity and development.
Poaching is – just as the illegal trade in arms, drugs and counterfeit goods – a
serious threat to national and international security and economic developm
Audubon and San Diego Zoo begin animal breeding center
in Algiers
The Audubon Nature
Institute and San Diego Zoo Global are moving forward on a partnership that
could help rebuild threatened species for generations to come, breaking ground
Wednesday (Jan. 8) on an Algiers facility to house larger groups of roaming
animals in an environment that the entities hope will help create more
sustainable populations.
The so-called
Alliance for Sustainable Wildlife, which will house more than two dozen
endangered and threatened species, is expected to be completed in 2017, said
Joel Hamilton, Audubon’s vice president and general curator.
The partnership's
1,000-acre breeding site, which will be one of the largest of its kind in the
nation, is based on the model that certain animals will more easily breed, and
will breed with more genetic diversity, when they can roam in large herds or flocks.
While zoos and
aquariums around the nation often work together to help repopulate just one
species, the partnership between Audubon and San Diego marks the first time two
organizations are tackl
DALTON ZOO OWNER HIGHLIGHTS VISION FOR 2014
South Lakes Wild
Animal Park boss David Gill has set out his vision as the Dalton attraction
prepares for major expansion in 2014.
Mr Gill said on the
park's facebook site last night: "2014 is going to be the most exciting
year since 1994 when I first built the zoo from an empty field of grass.
"Three times
larger, new branding and name, new very unique enclosures and experiences... if
you want to feed a Snow Leopard, Jaguar , Lion or Tiger
Texas rhino-hunting auction prompts death threats
The FBI is
investigating death threats made against members of the Dallas hunting club
that intends to auction off a rare permit to kill an endangered black rhino, an
FBI spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Katherine Chaumont
said the agency is reviewing multiple threats against the Dallas Safari Club.
The club on Saturday plans to auction a permit the African country of Namibia
granted for the hunt. The group has said all proceeds will go toward rhino conservation
efforts.
Blackfish Exposed
We recently sat down
with former SeaWorld Trainer Bridgette M. Pirtle to talk about her involvement
with the production of the film BlackFish. We were amazed by what we learned,
and we think you will be too.
Bridgette Pirtle
first visited SeaWorld when she was 3 years old, and immediately became
obsessed with whales. In 2000, Bridgette
was accepted into the killer whale apprentice program at SeaWorld San Antonio
and began working with sea lions, otters and bottlenose dolphins, which lead to
10 years of experience with killer whales and eventually becoming a Sr.
Trainer.
On February 24,
2010, Bridgette and the other trainers were all called in by management and
informed that there had been an incident in Orlando, and that it had resulted
in the death of Sr. Trainer Dawn Brancheau.
Bridgette was devastated by this news. Dawn was her hero, a person whom
she looked up to. In the days and weeks
after this incident, Bridgette’s parents and grandparents would tearfully plead
with her to stop working with whales out of fear that what happened to Dawn
could happen to her. In the end,
Bridgette decided to leave SeaWorld in March 2011.
In September 2012,
Bridgette began to look for ways that she could share her love for the animals
that she worked with at SeaWorld, and this is when she discovered “Voices of
the Orcas,” which is run by four ex-SeaWorld Trainers, Samantha Berg, Carol Ray,
Jeffery Ventre and John Jett. When
Bridgette initially spoke to the trainers, they told her that there was a movie
in production about Dawn and Tilikum and that they were going to tell the
truth.
When I asked
Bridgette what that “truth” was, she explained:
“The truth is that
it wasn’t Dawn’s fault. And that was the
most important thing to me.”
It was after this
call that Bridgette was introduced to Gabriela Cowperthwaite, the director of
Blackfish. Here’s Bridgett’s account of what Gabriela told her the film would
be about:
“I thought she was
making a movie that was going to be more respectable to the memory of Dawn,
more understanding of the unique lives of killer whale trainers, the unique
circumstances under which killer whale training is conducted now, and the loss
that the current trainers felt and currently feel. I thought it would give some sort of closure;
that it would give some sort of answer, create harmony, and it didn’t.”
We then asked
Bridgette what her contributions to the film were. She responded:
“I contributed
footage and insight into the recent context of killer whale training at
SeaWorld. I was invited by the executive producer, Tim Zimmerman, to attend the
film’s premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Although I was asked by the
director if I could provide an interview for the film, I declined due to time
constraints and an uncertainty about the path I was going to tread in this
unknown and foreign territory. I did take part in a few ‘Q&As’ and agreed
to hold off on sharing my own story and experiences until later, once a
distributor had been obtained.”
Why the passenger pigeon became extinct
Imagine that
tomorrow morning you woke up and discovered that the familiar rock
pigeon—scientifically known as Columba livia, popularly known as the rat with
wings—had disappeared. It was gone not simply from your window ledge but from
Piazza San Marco, Trafalgar Square, the Gateway of India arch, and every park,
sidewalk, telephone wire, and rooftop in between. Would you grieve for the loss
of a familiar creature, or rip out the spikes on your air-conditioner and
celebrate? Perhaps your reaction would depend on the cause of the extinction.
If the birds had been carried off in a mass avian rapture, or a pigeon-specific
flu, you might let them pass without guilt, but if they had been hunted to
death by humans you might feel honor-bound to genetically engineer them back to
life.
This thought
experiment occurred to me while reading “A Feathered River Across the Sky: The
Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction” (Bloomsbury), Joel Greenberg’s study
of a bird that really did vanish after near-ubiquity, and that really is the
subject of Frankenpigeon dreams of resurrection. Even before the age of
bioengineering, Ectopistes migratorius could seem as much science-fiction fable
as fact, which is why it is good to have Greenberg’s book, the first major work
in sixty years about the most famous extinct species since the dodo.
The passenger
pigeon—sometimes called “the blue pigeon,” for its color, though the blue was
blended with gray, red, copper, and brown—should not be confused with its
distant cousin, the message-bearing carrier pigeon, which is really just a
domesticated rock pigeon in military dress. Unlike the rock pigeon—domesticated
six thousand years ago, now feral, and brought to these shores by Europeans in
the early seventeenth century—the passenger pigeon was native to North America,
where it roved over a billion acres of the continent searching for bumper crops
of tree nuts. It was here, like the American bison, when Europeans arrived, and
it was here when the peoples we consider indigenous migrated across their land
bridge thousands of years before that. It evolved on the unspoiled continent
and was allied with the big trees that once covered much of the Northeast and
the Midwest.
The passenger pigeon
was also the most numerous bird species in North America, and possibly the
world, do
Elephant Mali to get friends, stay at Manila Zoo
Elephant Mali will stay at the Manila Zoo,
which will be turned into a world-class facility for animals, Manila Mayor
Joseph Estrada said Friday.
Estrada said major
changes and renovations will be done at the zoo starting this year.
He plans the Manila
Zoo to be renovated similar to that of Singapore, where there are rides going
around the facility.
He said the zoo will
retain Mali and add more maintenance for the animals.
Estrada said foreign
donors have agreed to finance the zoo's renovation and upkeep.
He earlier rejected
appeals by international celebrities singer-songwriter Paul McCartney,
Hollywood actress Pamela Anderson, British rock singer Morrissey, American rock
band The Smashing Pumpkins, and Kapamilya stars Kim Chiu, Xian Lim, Gerald
Anderson and Maja Salvador to transfer the Philippines's lone elephant from
Manila's rundown zoo to a Thai sanctuary.
In an interview with
Agence France-Presse, Estrada said sending the country’s lone elephant from the
Manila Zoo “would be embarrassing.”
“It means we are not
capable of tak
SeaWorld's "Blackfish" Controversy Performed
Another Trick
Aquatic amusement
park company SeaWorld was back in hot
water last week after a business journal caught the company inflating the
results of an online poll. The poll question dealt with whether the recent
documentary Blackfish had changed reader opinions about SeaWorld.
In the failed
attempt to alter poll results, SeaWorld pushed itself back into a difficult
public-relations battle that's taken the wind out of share prices. Can SeaWorld
improve its performance? Or should investors instead turn to the amusement park
companies Walt Disney or Cedar Fair ?
SeaWorld's woes stem
from the documentary Blackfish, which tells the story of a SeaWorld orca
responsible for the deaths of three employees. Blackfish debuted at Sundance
early last year, but it gained a much larger audience when it was broadcast on
CNN in October. The film became available on Netflix last month.
Backlash intensified
as Blackfish found more viewers. And that backlash started to hit SeaWorld
where it hurt when a number of musicians began canceling shows at the parks. In
the midst of all the negative press attention, SeaWorld reported a dwindling summer
attendance.
That raised an
important question: Do SeaWorld's problems run deeper than this controversy?
Fanning the fire
SeaWorld naturally
went on the defensive, but one attempt backfired last week. The Orlando
Business Journal had posted an online poll asking readers: "Has CNN's
'Blackfish' documentary changed your perception of SeaWorld?" Results
poured in that indicated 99% of respondents had voted "No," which
seemed an oddly high number to vote in either direction. So the Journal
conducted an investigation and tracked more than 54% of the votes back to a
single IP address. And that IP address belongs to SeaWorld.
The Journal points
out that the tampering wasn't even necessary, since 95% of the non-SeaWorld
respondents had actually voted in favor of the company. But the true results
don't necessarily mean customers don't care about Blackfish. The total number
of votes was 328 at the time the Journal began investigating -- and that counts
SeaWorld's votes. So it's a small sample size.
Online polls aren't
the best evidence that c
Forbes Blogger Resigns Over SeaWorld Dispute
Last week,
journalist James McWilliams posted a brief, stinging, eloquent blog at
Forbes.com about how the low-budget film "Blackfish" is taking on a
multi-billion dollar company, and may be winning. The piece won him few friends
among editors at the website, who told him to alter it to include favorable
information on SeaWorld. He refused, quitting his freelance gig and earning
high marks from whale and dolphin lovers everywhere. Sadly today, too many
reporters just do as they're told, like stenographers. Not this one. As
McWilliams told me in a recent interview: "Forbes.com went right, and I
went left."
Q) What inspired you
to write this piece?
I write almost daily
about animal-related issues, either on my own blog or for various publications,
so I'm constantly seeking relevant topics to cover. In this case, my son, who
is eleven, kept pushing me to watch the documentary "Blackfish." We
viewed it together and, indeed, that kid was onto something. It was a powerful
film. So I decided to post a brief piece at Forbes.com.
Q) How did you
research the blog?
My research involved
exploring the question at the core of the film: do the conditions of captivity
frustrate orcas to the point where they harm their handlers? It strikes me as a
fascinating hypothesis. An overwhelming body of evidence, much of it presented
in the film, indicated that the answer was "yes." This point seemed
worth highlighting for my Forbes readers. But, do note, the post did not
require tremendous investigative work. After all, the point of it was simply to
show how a low
21 officials suspended over poaching claims
THE Ministry of
Natural Resources and Tourism has suspended 21 Wildlife Department staff for
allegedly colluding with poachers to kill elephants.
Deputy Minister
Lazaro Nyalandu told reporters that the suspended employees join their
colleague in Singida Region, Augustino Lori, who was recently suspended over
poaching and corruption allegations.
He said
investigations have shown that there are certain members of the ministry’s
staff who were directly involved in wildlife sabotage acts in collaboration
with criminals, warning that they would be exposed and charged in court.
The suspended staff
include 11 from the Anti-Poaching Unit in Arusha, four from the Rukwa- Lwari
Forest Reserve , one from the Anti-Poaching Unit in Bunda, three from Maswa
Forest Reserve, one from Selous Forest Reserve and one from the
Lukwika-Lumesule- Msanjesi Forest Reserve.
We will have
Isabelline Pandas
I have
little doubt in my mind that we will soon have Isabelline Pandas. The
Dysfunctional Zoos of our planet appear hung up on producing unnatural colours,
hybrids and freaks. So the Isabelline Panda will fairly soon be on its way.
Many of
you will have forgotten QiZai (Little Seven) so let me remind you. QiZai is
presently the only Isabelline Panda in captivity. QiZai is a Qinling panda and
presently lives in the Shaanxi Wild Animal Research Centre in Northwest China
(Louguantai Wild Animal Breeding And Protection Center).
The
Quinling Pandas are a rare subspecies of the Giant Panda and are said to number
only around three hundred in the wild. Although known for several decades the
Quinling Panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis was only recognised as a
subspecies in 2005.
The
Quinling Pandas tend to be smaller than the common Giant Panda and are brownish
and white rather than black and white. The brown colour is not usually as
pronounced as it is in QiZai and is more often in patches rather than all over
the body. QiZai is, as far as anyone is awar
Elephant and Rhino Workshop
Zoo News Stories I would like to see less of in 2014
Arabian tahr making comeback at Al Ain centre
Management of Nature
Conservation centre on track to reintroduce endangered species into the wild
Ten years ago, the
fate of the endangered Arabian tahr — found only in Oman and the UAE — was
bleak.
But hope for the
species was renewed when a dedicated centre in Al Ain stepped in to protect the
goat-like species, with the ultimate goal of reintroducing them back into the
wild.
The Management of
Nature Conservation (MNC) at the foothills of Jebel Hafeet in Al Ain now houses
345 Arabian tahrs, believed to be the world’s biggest Arabian tahr population
in captivity. The centre operates under the Department of the President’s Affairs.
It is a research and breeding facility that is not open to the public.
The centre’s current
Arabian tahr population is a far cry from its starting point of only 10 Arabian
tahrs in 2005. The population sample came from the private collection of
President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
AdTech Ad
Currently, the
Arabian tahr is considered endangered in Oman and “possibly extinct” in the UAE
based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of
Threatened Species.
MNC’s recent
findings after scouting for Arabian tahrs outside Abu Dhabi rendered negative
results. It is believed the remaining UAE Arabian
Dolphins getting high on fish toxin? Or just a load of
puff?
A bite of puffer
fish can paralyze and kill a human, but dolphins have been seen using the spiky
lethal creatures as a chew toy, leading humans to wonder if the sea mammals
were getting a buzz off the neurotoxin found in the fish.
Rob Pilley, a
zoologist and producer on the crew of "Dolphin: Spy in the Pod"
documentary, airing in the U.K. on BBC1, told the British Sunday Times,
"This was a case of young dolphins purposely experimenting with something
we know to be intoxicating ... After chewing the puffer gently and passing it
round, they began acting most peculiarly, hanging around with their noses at
the surface as if fascinated by their own reflection."
Dolphin researchers
say they’ve yet to observe intoxicated dolphins in the wild. But, “it is very
possible that dolphins are doing this,” Jason Bruck, a research fellow at the
University of Chicago, who studies dolphin memories, wrote to NBC News in an email.
After all, “there are examples of elephants getting drunk on fermented fr
FUGU
Zoos, museum mark a horsey new year
Special events whose
theme is this year’s zodiac animal, the horse, are being held at zoos and other
places around the country.
Ueno Zoo in Taito
Ward, Tokyo, is holding an event titled “Eto Ten: Uma Zukushi” (Horse-o-rama: A
zodiac exhibition) through Jan. 26. Visitors can see five indigenous breeds of
horses, including Kisouma, Yonaguniuma and Tokarauma, raised at the zoo.
The exhibition also
features information on the history of horses native to Japan as well as a
photo timeline illustrating the growth of a Kisouma horse born last spring.
Sapporo Maruyama Zoo
in Sapporo is planning a hands-on event at which visitors will get a chance to
brush a miniature pony measuring about one meter long. The event starts at 3
p.m. from Sunday through Jan. 31. Participation is offered on a first-come, first-served
basis with 20 spots for children younger than middle school age.
The Port of Nagoya
Public Aquarium in Nagoya is featuring an exhibit titled “Uma ni Chinanda
Ikimono Tachi” (Marine creatures with a horse connection) through Jan. 19. Sea
creatures such as the black scraper, which has a long face and is in the same
family as the threadsail filefish, are among the critters on show.
An art exhibition
titled “Hakubutsu- kan ni Hatsumode,
Medical Legacy Of Knut The Polar Bear
Keeping wild animals
is an important component of the mission of zoos to educate the public and
preserve endangered species. When animals die, tracking the potential cause
becomes an investigation of pathogens from around the world. This is because
zoo animals are not only potentially exposed to pathogens occurring where the
zoo is located, but also to those pathogens harbored by other zoo animals. In
other words: the diagnostic challenge is enormous.
In the case of Knut,
researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Berlin
(IZW), the Freie Universität Berlin, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute – Insel
Riems, the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, the University
of California at San Francisco and many others combined their efforts to
investigate Knut’s death. Classical pathological, bacteriological, serological,
molecular, histological and electron microscopical methods were combined with
high throughput microarray and next generation sequencing methods to undertake
the most extensive and exhaustive evaluation of the cause of death of any zoo
animal to date. The necropsy was headed at the IZW by Dr Claudia Szentiks of
the Department of Wildlife Diseases.
“After a detailed
necropsy and histology that took several intense days to perform, the results
clearly suggested that the underlying cause of Knut’s seizures was a result of
encephalitis, most likely of viral origin,” says Dr Szentiks.
Encephalitis can be
caused by a large number of viruses, bacteria and parasites, and identifying
novel pathogens in wild animals is a huge and often insurmountable challenge.
In the case of Knut, the team screened gene sequences from plausible causative pathogens
from tens of millions of individual DNA sequences. “The sheer number of
experiments undertaken and the sorting of results by many of the top
diagnostics groups in Germany and beyond was extremely time consuming but also
informative as to what we can and cannot do with current technologies. Many new
directions for improvements and novel developments should come from this,” says
Professor Alex Greenwood, head of the Department of Wildlife Diseases of the
IZW. Although frequently suspected by many to be the likely culprit, the e
Zoo News Stories I would like to see less of in 2014
Op-Ed: Best achievements in cetacean advocacy for 2013
The documentary
Blackfish certainly made it the year of the orca, but there were several other
notable achievements for cetaceans in 2013. These are the accomplishments voted
on by advocates themselves.
As 2013 draws to a
close, the year will end as it began, with killer whales headlining the news.
Last January, in an
event reminiscent of the 1988 grey whale rescue in Point Barrow, Alaska,
northern Quebec boasted a miracle of its own, after a number of orcas became
trapped in ice near Inukjuak.
At risk of death
from ice closure and unable to reach freedom, news of the orcas' plight grabbed
the world's attention. Residents of Inukjuaq swiftly rallied around the marine
mammals as they joined others in seeking out viable solutions to keep the orcas
alive.
Nations came
together, and Kasco Marine, Inc., the Minnesota company featured in the movie
Big Miracle, offered to step in and provide de-icers for the orcas if
necessary. But much to the relief of advocates, on January 10, Mayor Petah
Inukpuk announced that the whales had left the area under their own steam.
After a subsequent
flyover by the townsfolk revealed no sign of the pod, people rejoiced in their
freedom. And in their wake, the orcas gifted locals and ou
2-Headed, 6-Legged Baby Gecko Found In Thailand
(VIDEO)
GEICO may soon have
a new mascot.
This week, a
two-headed, six-legged baby gecko was found in Phuket, Thailand. Apparently,
three men living in an apartment discovered the reptile so soon after its birth
that it still had egg shell on one of its heads. The gecko, according to the
men, was about the size of a baby's finger.
Dr. Sansareeya
Wangkulangkul, a biology professor at Prince of Songkhla University, said this
particular find is quite special.
“This is very
unusual," she said. "House geckos usually live about one year, but
I’m not sure about this one because it’s deformed
Bloemfontein Zoo to breed the rare white lions
The Bloemfontein Zoo
is now part of a programme to breed the rare white lion.
Three white lions
have arrived at the zoo. The two females and one male will form part of the
zoo's special breeding programme to ensure the survival of the rare colour
strain.
Zoo spokesperson,
Qondile Khedama says the city has brought in the str
21 most expensive U.S. zoos
U-T San Diego
surveyed more than 40 public and nonprofit zoos to identify the most expensive
in the U.S. Family admission prices, and membership costs, were based on
tickets for two adults and two children, 8 and 13.
Animal safety
Kind treatment
towards animals is a concept seemingly lost on zoo caretakers. The recent death
of Bubli, a chimpanzee at Safari Park in Karachi, adds to the lengthy record of
zoo animals lost allegedly due to neglect by zookeepers. According to sources, Bubli
was living in a small cage, separated from her male partner, for 17 days. The
zookeepers probably had little idea of the vast psychological and health
factors associated with keeping social animals in isolation, which is supported
by extensive research. However, due to a lack of government concern and laws
regarding animal treatment — not even leveraging so much as a small fine to
animal abusers — zookeepers may not even care.
The cases of animal
neglect in 2013 are many. In June, an Uryal fawn was injured by zookeepers
during transfer to another cage. The only consequence was that the innocent
fawn died from the broken leg injury without any ramifications for the
zookeepers. In another incident, a Nilgai died after falling into a pond in
The Irish Clan Behind Europe's Rhino-Horn Theft
Epidemic
When the phone rang
at about 3 a.m. on April 18, Nigel Monaghan was asleep on the floor in his
office in Dublin, tangled in a sleeping bag. In his job as Keeper of the
National Museum of Ireland’s natural history section, he was overseeing filming
of the latest episode of a children’s TV special, Sleepover Safari. Ten
children, their parents, and a film crew were spending the night in the museum,
known locally as the Dead Zoo, surrounded by Ireland’s foremost collection of
taxidermy.
The call was from
the museum’s central security office. Four stuffed rhino heads—ones Monaghan
had sent away for safekeeping a year earlier—had been stolen from the museum’s
storage facility near the airport. At 10:40 p.m., three masked men forced their
way in, tied up the single guard on duty, and found the shelves where the heads
were kept. The trophies were heavy and awkward. Expertly stuffed and mounted by
big game taxidermists at the turn of the 20th century, they were monstrous
confections of skin and bone, plaster and timber, horsehair and straw. When
Monaghan and his team had come to move the largest—that of a white rhino shot
in Sudan in 1914, with a horn m
Top dogs: Highest zoo CEO pay (from May)
With the Australian
Outback exhibit opening this week at the San Diego Zoo, the U-T decided to
review zoo CEO salaries. Although San Diego's zoo attracts the most visitors in
the U.S., its CEO is not the top paid among more than 40 public or nonprofit institutions
in our survey.
Arrests Made After Break-In At Tuttle Tiger Safari
Park
A couple ended up in
jail after a bizarre crime at an exotic animal park. The two were arrested by
Grady County Sheriff Deputies on New Year's Day for breaking into the Tiger
Safari on the night of Dec. 27.
Tammy Whygle was
spotted in a restricted area of the park by an employee on Wednesday. According
to owner Bill Meadows, Whygle had previously asked to volunteer at the park,
which is why the employee recognized the woman.
Meadows found her
picture and posted it on a Facebook page and within minutes had tips about the
woman.
"That was
probably the only reason we actually caught her," explained Meadows.
He said he passed
those tips along to deputies who showed up within minutes. They arrested
Whygle, who tried hiding in the park. Her boyfriend, Jason Matt
Let Them Eat Carcass
We Americans have a
funny relationship with food. We may not be apex predators, scientifically
speaking, since we augment our meat with grains and plants, but we are
predators all the same. But most of us haven't the slightest idea about the
magical transformation by which cow becomes beef. The modern supermarket
provides us with something called "psychological distance" between
ourselves and our food, allowing us to abstract away the cows, pigs, chickens,
turkeys, fish, and all the other critters at the other end of the meat
industry. Few of us know how to butcher a chicken, feathers and feet and all,
let alone how to ethically, safely slaughter it.
That psychological
distancing has crept into the way we feed our animals as well. Cats, for
example, are obligate carnivores, meaning that they need meat to survive. Their
domestication began because it was handy to keep them around for their natural
rodent-hunting abilities. And yet we'd rather our housecats eat processed food
from a can than go hunting. We might think it's gross and unseemly when the cat
drags in a dead pigeon or lizard, but cats are predators. So why not provision
the housecat with the occasional humanely slaughtered sparrow carcass? Why not
let the dog eat an ethically dispatched squirrel?
Setting aside the
environmental damage our
New rules for animals in captivity
People keeping wild
animals captive in KwaZulu-Natal will, from this month, have to follow a rigid
new set of terms and conditions relating to their licensing. Also regulated is
the size of the animals’ enclosures, their treatment, and their use for commercial
gain.
The Ezemvelo KZN
Wildlife’s Board has announced that it had approved and adopted these new terms
and conditions after a six-year-long public consultation process.
Ezemvelo
spokesperson Musa Mntambo said non-conformity would be illegal.
One of the major
changes to the rules is the
Zoo Is Not a Dirty Word
A small, vocal group
of animal activists in Los Angeles is mounting a campaign to halt construction
on the new elephant exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo, and to send the Zoo's Asian
bull elephant, Billy, to a sanctuary.
As a writer, I know
the power of words, and "sanctuary" is one of those wonderful words
that packs a lot of emotion. Serene, safe, peaceful, idyllic -- all come to
mind. Murmuring the word sanctuary through half-slitted eyes while conjuring
the images the word evokes is enough to make me want to sign up to live in one.
Depending on your
experience, "zoo" is also an emotionally loaded word. My own mental
associations with the word have evolved dramatically over my lifetime.
Childhood visits to the Bronx Zoo and others sparked a lifelong love of animals
and fascination with their behavior. My family still laughs over an incident 30
years ago, when my little sister dropped her spending money into the monkey
moat and then watched as one showy simian plucked the dollar bills from the
water, held them up for all to see, and then promptly ate them.
In my twenties, I
began to question the motives of zoos: Were they jailing animals for our
entertainment who could otherwise be allowed to roam free?
My compassion for
animals and my fascination with monkeys and apes in particular not only
inspired my novels Monkey Love and Monkey Star, but also led me to pursue a
degree in primatology and to work in both zoo and sanctuary settings.
Having worked at
both, I can tell you what zoos and sanctuaries have in common: people who love
the animals and are passionate abou
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