Prospect Park Zoo - Fleece Festival

This weekend was the Fleece Festival at the Zoo. We shear our sheep and alpacas and give the wool away to the Lefferts Historic House next door, where they make things out of it. It seems like a good excuse to talk about the domesticated animals we have at the Zoo, since domesticated animals have their benefits and drawbacks.

The domesticated/farm animals live at the Barn, and there we have sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, a miniature horse, alpacas, sebastopol geese, and most recently a cow.

Most of these are animals we are all familiar with. Their benefits are obvious: they provide us with meat, dairy, eggs, and materials for clothing. Clearly these are animals whose importance we don't have to stress very often, because everybody knows them.

They can serve the purpose of talking to people about the conditions under which the farm animals in this country are living, which many are unaware of. One visitor described it as "21st century slavery," which isn't too far off if you're familiar with feedlots and commercial chicken houses. The animals in the Barn do a lot of good for showing people that they should be more appreciative of the cows and chickens that their meat comes from.

The drawbacks of mass producing so many of the same species is a loss of biodiversity, which I feel obligated to point out as well. These animals take up a lot of space, and farmers want to grow as many as they can to make more money. Imagine if we humans kept expanding as a species, eventually needing so much space to raise cattle that all other habitats are cut down to make feedlots. The only remaining species besides us would be the ones that we raise to eat, there wouldn't be any wild species left. What kind of world would that be?

Prospect Park Zoo - River Otters

The North American river otters at the zoo gave birth to three pups in the middle of February, and they just started putting them on exhibit. This is a pretty big deal, because this is the first time in almost sixty years that North American river otters have been born at a zoo. I was assigned to watch them for four out of the ten hours I was there this weekend, so it was a pretty cool chance to study their behaviors.

Before putting the pups on exhibit, the keepers separated the father. They have no idea how he will react to them, and there's a chance they will eventually be moved somewhere else because of it.

The keepers also lowered the water level in the exhibit until the pool was almost empty, so that the pups can learn how to swim without the possibility of drowning. Apparently river otters are not natural swimmers, but they pick it up quick. In the wild the parents have to push the pups into the water and swim with them so that they learn, and that is exactly what Dixie (the mother) did to her pups. Well, she didn't push them in so much as lead them to the water and drag them in, but it's the same idea. Either way they are successfully learning how to swim, and the water level will be raised back to normal soon.

The keepers put dead fish at the bottom of the water to encourage natural diving behavior, and I was able to see one of the pups dive to get one of them for the first time.

Dixie also seemed to be teaching them how to dry off by rubbing themselves on the grass and dirt, and possibly how to hide in the higher grasses when there are large crowds of people around. They could have just been playing, the four of them did that a lot.

I also got to hear the peacock cry in the park's Aviary. I've never heard it before, and it's a very distinctive call, to say the least. Here's a link to one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie8TrwY1nHA&noredirect=1

Prospect Park Zoo - Wild Australia

The Wild Australia Exhibit officially completely opened on Thursday. In my opinion, that exhibit is one of the most important ones we have at the zoo in terms of conservation.

First we have the dingoes, which I've mentioned before. There have already been plenty of people thinking they are regular dogs or foxes, but once you tell them what they actually are they're very interested in learning about them.









Then there are the yellow-footed rock wallabies, which are classified as "near threatened." The rock wallaby population isn't in serious trouble, and they are actually increasing in number since a large part of their habitat was purchased by an Australian NPO called the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife. We have 5 or 6 of them at the zoo, but they aren't part of any breeding program that I know of.









We also have a grey kangaroo and 5 emus, but those species aren't threatened. We did just get 3 baby emus, which we are beginning to introduce to the exhibit with the adults. Something interesting about the adults as well: the animal department originally believed both adults to be female, but found out that one is a male (it's possible they caught them mating, but that could just be a rumor). We could have some emu eggs of our own pretty soon.

Last but not least are the Cape Barren Geese. I never knew this before working at the zoo, but they nearly went extinct in the 1950s. Thanks to conservation efforts they were saved from extinction, and now are classified as "least concern." The pair we have (Petruchio and Ethel) are very fun to be around. Petruchio likes to follow the docents around and honks very loud when we're out of his field of vision. It's pretty fascinating to see how much personality non-human animals can have.

Prospect Park Zoo- Training and First Days

I finished my training at the Prospect Park Zoo a few weeks ago, and last weekend I began working there.

 There are a few ecologically interesting things I learned about the Zoo and the Wildlife Conservation Society, of which the Zoo is a member. Most of the things they taught us I knew already (the different kinds of ecosystems and how animals have adapted to survive there, identifying animals by their scientific names, etc.), but the efforts of the WCS was entirely new.

First of all, the Wildlife Conservation Society is active in 65 countries. Their goal is not only to preserve wild species, but wild places as well.

Every species under the scope of the WCS has a studbook: a comprehensive list of animals and their genetic and breeding histories. Every time the WCS is looking for animals to breed, they check the studbook to find a genetically viable candidate. This is especially important when increasing the population in the red and yellow zone (endangered or threatened species).

Two of the endangered species at the Zoo that are worth mentioning are the Golden Lion Tamarins and the Dingoes. Golden Lion Tamarins can only be found in southeastern Brazil, and due to destruction of habitat and illegal poaching they were very endangered. Thanks to the efforts of the WCS, a new population has been successfully reintroduced, and they have been downgraded in conservation status. My first day of actual work at the Zoo I noticed that our Tamarins had children, which is always a good thing for endangered species.

We recently acquired four dingos from a dingo sanctuary in Australia, and there are so many misconceptions about them that we had to have an extra training session about them. Dingos are one of the top predator species in Australia, and are very often hunted and killed because farmers believe them to be a danger to their livestock. And, of course, there's the whole "dingo ate my baby" thing. We learned that that actually happened once, but it was because a child had wandered into dingo territory and dingos will eat anything they can find. It's very exciting that we have two pairs at the Zoo, and even more exciting that in a year or so when they mature they have the potential to breed.

We are also building a new amphibian exhibit that will emphasize how threatened a lot of amphibian species are, more on that as it unfolds


-MORGAN PARLO

Welcome

Hello, Everyone:

This is Professor Cheng, your instructor for the course. For this semester you will need to blog about your intern/volunteer experiences every two weeks. Please keep in mind that your blogs are graded based on the amount of effort that you put in. I will provide comments throughout the semester.

Have fun!

Joshua Cheng