Paul Donn (pictured above), a 13-year-old male, stations himself next to the chute system that he will go through to get to the Gorilla Tropics habitat. Like pawns in a chess game ready to make their next move, each gorilla begins to position itself between the bedrooms and hallways, although it’s still too early to release them into the exhibit. They are habituated to eating breakfast in their own designated area. I begin handing out gorilla biscuits, enhanced with watermelon flavoring, making sure each has gotten their share. It will take them some time to finish their breakfast. This allows me time to clean their enclosure and prepare their daily diets.

Shortly before the Zoo opens its door to the public, each gorilla goes through a short Operant Conditioning Training Course. We separate each gorilla in a chute transfer system that allows the keepers to get a closer look at each animal and run through the training course. Training five basic behaviors allows us to see or treat any body part, if needed, on a daily basis.

Through several visual and verbal cues, the session begins. First, we begin with a back presentation that allows manipulation of the upper and lower back. Second, we ask for an open mouth, which gives us a great view of teeth, gums, or anything unusual going on in the mouth. The third, and one of the most important, behavior is a voluntary shoulder presentation for future vaccinations or blood draws. Next, we check each foot for cuts and scrapes. Lastly, a chest presentation allows manipulation of the entire chest area and gives veterinarians a chance to listen to the heart.

Once each gorilla has gotten a passing grade on these behaviors, he or she is released on exhibit to enjoy a treat scatter and the fresh browse we provide daily. And that’s how the gorillas’ day begins!

Juan Fernandez is a senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

We encountered a lot of rain during the trip, but somehow managed to meet all our tracking goals, finding each koala every day and on each night of tracking. I am presently addressing some basic questions of koala ecology; the main goal of the night tracking is to examine whether basic ranging patterns vary between season and between sex. We also hope to gain some further insights into how koalas respond to the spatial arrangement of the koalas around them. Since they do most of their activity at night, this is a good time to watch them.

The Earthwatch Institute sponsors four field expeditions a year, which either I or my colleague Dr. Alistair Melzer run (we take it in turns), so we have the opportunity to collect data in February, May, July, and October. October is the peak of the koala breeding season at St. Bees Island, so hopefully this year a few of us from CRES will be able to get some good recordings of the males bellowing and we will be able to monitor the movement of the bellowers and other koalas. This ties in neatly with work carried out in the koala barn at the San Diego Zoo (see Jennifer Tobey’s blog, Motorcycles and Koalas), but we figure the logistics are going to be a bit harder in the wild!

Also on this trip I took the opportunity to trial some new data collection methods using bluetooth-linked GPS units and handheld computers, which made monitoring the movement of the koalas very easy indeed. I also used this technology to see just how far the average volunteer moved each day - boy, they work hard!

The koalas at St. Bees Island live in a national park where there is no development and they have few threats or predators. Despite this, they have not become overcrowded and we have yet to see any serious defoliation or other signs to suggets they are “out of balance” with their environment. I am looking at the similarities (such as introduction) and differences (such as population dynamics) between this population and the southern Australian island populations in the hope that some answers can be found to the problems the managers of the southern groups have.

For this trip, though, my team caught several koalas for collar changes (all the koalas we study are radio-collared), caught several “cleanskins” (koalas that we have never seen before), and found some koalas that had been tagged as juveniles last year and were now big enough to be fitted with radio collars. When we caught “Yellow,” an adult female, we also caught her young, “Esmeralda.” Esmeralda (pictured above) was named by Karin, a German volunteer in the group; it is customary for the first volunteer on the spot to have naming rights for the new koalas (and it saves me thinking up names!). My goal is to have all of the adult koalas in one area of the study site collared and monitored by the time October arrives, so that there are no “known-unknowns” lurking in the bush when we start our bellow study!

Dr. Bill Ellis is a Conservation Research Postdoctoral Fellow for CRES. Here’s more information about his koala project.

Here’s Bill’s previous blog, Island Koalas.

Sometimes Satu (pictured above) starts getting impatient and wants to go next. How can I tell? He starts banging his door. To me that means he will not be next. When Satu throws a tantrum, I make sure not to let him out. That is a behavior we do not want to reinforce. If he is sitting quietly, he is verbally rewarded for being good and the door to his bedroom goes up. He’s sitting quietly now so we’ll let him out next.

Satu walks down the back hallway, stopping before he gets to Clyde’s bedroom. There is a hall slider by Clyde’s bedroom and Satu makes sure it is open before standing in front of it. Once it is open, he vocalizes and squeezes up against the wall, quickly going by. Why? It’s a Satu thing. Again, you’ll have to ask Satu why he does the things he does. What is Clyde doing while Satu is doing all of this? He’s at the front of his bedroom with me, soliciting a back rub, to which I oblige.

Satu continues down the hallway and arrives at the chute. I ask him to station in the chute, which means he should be sitting in the middle with each hand on a ring and facing forward. Satu is very smart and has quickly caught onto this behavior. His only concern is with the chute door; he does not want to be closed in. It makes him nervous and he will actually sit stationed with his right foot outside the chute so the door cannot be closed. If I move towards the chute door, he runs out. So our latest sessions consist of Satu stationing in the chute, presenting different body parts and being rewarded for not moving when I move towards the chute door. The plan is to move towards the chute door little by little, then eventually start touching the door handle, until he is comfortable enough for me to close it. We move slowly and it’s all about trust. He’s a good boy and I know we’ll eventually be able to close the door. Meanwhile, he is rewarded for completing his morning exercises. The session only takes a few minutes, and then he is released into the exhibit.

The siamangs are still quiet and it’s around 8:45 a.m. Who should we let out next?

Yvette Kemp is a senior mammal keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

This bird arrived on February 17 at the Phoenix Zoo. From the day he arrived he had been so weak that he couldn’t stand and, after two surgeries, he was so weak and pale that I didn’t expect him to survive. We got his blood work back and contacted San Diego to get some blood for his blood transfusion and he received his “elixir of life” March 2. I learned RULE 1: Don’t give up on condors because they are really tough.

While this was all going on we were experimenting with different diets and different medications to get his crop moving. We finally came up with a diet that gave him enough calories and protein to sustain him with 4 feedings a day, which meant catching him from a small 4-by 3-foot cage 4 to 5 times a day. On March 19, with fingers crossed, he had his third surgery and we removed his proventriculous tube (drum roll and fingers crossed).

We checked him daily, giving him subcutaneous fluids, antibiotics and adjusted or replaced his crop support bandage as needed. On April 1 he got his first piece of chunk meat and over the next month he got stronger and harder to grab as we started him on whole prey items. On May 5 we put him in a large outdoor cage and he has been sunning and eating his rabbits ever since.

If all of the blood work from today’s blood sample looks good he will probably go up to the Grand Canyon to get his flight muscles exercised and put on more weight. I am hoping that the hospital staff will be able to go up and see him released.

What I didn’t tell you was on March 26 we received another condor, #122, which came in with crop stasis and lead poisoning–not quite as sick as Harry. We have learned so much from Harry that we have been far more successful with #122, who is now getting to be a handful to catch and hold.

It has been exhausting work but it has been an honor to work with such wonderful animals and with such a dedicated and hard working staff both here, with your folks at the San Diego Zoo, and with the field biologists (for if it weren’t for them I don’t think these birds could have survived in the wild). I should note that I have been here since September and everything I know about condor medicine I have learned from Dr. Kathy Orr ,who has been working with the Arizona condors since their arrival almost nine years ago. She has saved a bunch of them and now she can add two more to her count.

I look forward to sending Harry back to the Grand Canyon because he is a pain to handle now! We will keep you and his fans posted.

Valerie Stoddard is the senior administrative assistant at the Wild Animal Park’s Harter Veterinary Medical Center.

Here’s Valerie’s previous blog about Harry.
Here’s information about the California Condor Recovery Program.

There is construction near the exhibit, adding, among other things, a third outdoor exhibit yard, but it was cool and surprisingly quiet in the panda area. This is one of the advantages of a larger viewing area, with more shade, cover, and space to move around. After having heard about this area for so many years, I was pleased to see it for myself. A different situation than San Diego’s, yes, but one of the great things about having pandas in many facilities, in many reasearch programs, is that there are so many talented people observing and studying these animals under a variety of conditions. All the better to learn about them!

I had arrived before Narrators’ hours but was approached by no less than four people - regulars, employees, and FONZ (Friends of the National Zoo) volunteers - all anxious to point out and identify the pandas for me as they passed by. Having seen this happening at our own Zoo, it gave the whole thing a comfortable, familiar feeling, and I had a thoroughly enjoyable morning at this wonderful biopark.

Ellie Rosenbaum is a panda narrator/educator at the San Diego Zoo.

Watch the San Diego Zoo’s pandas on Panda Cam!

The first is called BE WiSE, which stands for “Better Education for Women in Science and Engineering.” The program recruits girls in 7th and 8th grades who have an interest in science and/or engineering. A series of overnights are offered, where girls meet with other participants from all over the county and attend special speaker events (I was a presenter myself at the May 12 overnight, held at the Cuyamaca College Water Conservation Garden, and spoke about monarch butterfly migration). There is an application process but the program is free to participants. More information can be found here.

The other program is the Zoo’s own Zoo Corps, offered to girls and boys between the ages of 13 and 16. This is a volunteer education program where students are trained to use education kits and spend time out in the San Diego Zoo educating the public about topics such as the bushmeat trade, backyard butterfly habitats, and responsible consumerism. Volunteers earn community service credit for the hours spent participating and are often given opportunities to participate in larger Zoo programs as well. Each participant must submit an application and go through a group interview process. If selected, teens are required to participate one weekend day per month, and each program runs for six months. Any student with an interest in conservation, education, or public speaking is encouraged to apply. Call the Zoo Corps Information Hotline at (619) 744-3363 for more information.

I hope you—or any young people that you know with an interest in the natural world—will take advantage of these wonderful opportunities! Thanks for your interest in Girls In Science!

Cindy Spiva-Evans is an educator at the San Diego Zoo.

Girls In Science is a program for Roosevelt Middle School girls which creates science-based experiences with professional women at the San Diego Zoo. The program is funded through the generosity of the Wells Fargo Foundation.

Virtually all of the scientists we met with were women, but we tossed a couple of males into the mix just for variety’s sake. One of them, Michael Puzzo, is a field biologist who tracks mountain lions throughout Southern California. He joined us at our end-of-the-year campout at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park this past weekend, and brought with him all of the tools he and his team use to track, capture, tag, and release mountain lions. We also met up with Bob Cisneros, a hospital keeper here at the Zoo who volunteers time at the California Wolf Center in Julian. Bob did a presentation for our group about the endangered Mexican gray wolf and we got to wander down to the enclosures to see one of the Center’s wolf packs up close.

The campout was a great end to a wonderful year. We hiked, we sang, we ate s’mores, and we giggled into the night. The weather was fabulous and the company was great!

Special thanks to Wells Fargo, without whose support this program couldn’t exist. Thanks, too, to “Kathy-with-a-K” Myers, our programmer, and Camping Pros, who make our overnights so easy!

See you all next fall!

Cindy Spiva-Evans is an educator at the San Diego Zoo.

Girls In Science is a program for Roosevelt Middle School girls which creates science-based experiences with professional women at the San Diego Zoo. The program is funded through the generosity of the Wells Fargo Foundation.

The purpose of koala bellows is not clearly understood. Could this be for mate attraction, males calling females to their location, or could it be males warning other males that they are nearby? This is a question we are trying to answer with our koala colony at the San Diego Zoo and in our field project in Australia.

We start by examining the structure of the male bellows to see if they reveal the identity of the caller. For example, when a male koala bellows is it really saying to other koalas “Hi, my name is Tickera and I am 19 inches tall, 15.8 pounds, and 10 years old”? How do we figure this out? Is there a koala interpreter on staff? Actually, what I use is a computer program that visually shows me the profile of a call. These profiles are called sonograms (see picture of Tickera’s bellows sonogram above) and from them I can measure the duration of the call, the frequencies, and amplitude. I can then compare all of these measures between the different calls of each male in our colony. Any differences or similarities can then be linked to age or weight or size or outside factors like time of year.

We have learned that male bellows are longer in the non-breeding (fall) compared to the breeding season (spring). The number of bellows is about four times more frequent in the breeding season. This means that if you happen to wander past the koalas this time of year, you are more likely to hear a bellow live and in person. We think that the frequency of the calls varies between individuals, but are still examining this, as well as figuring out the “bellow identity” for each male to see how different they are.

Jennifer Tobey is a Research Fellow in the Behavioral Biology Division of CRES.

Read Jennifer’s previous blog, Smelly Koalas.

With just over 50 birds in existence, it is essential to preserve as much genetic diversity as possible within the captive flock. One way to do this is to ensure that every ‘alala has the opportunity to contribute to the gene pool, with greatest value assigned to birds whose genes are least represented.

Unfortunately, neither Kauila (pictured above) nor Kinohi have ever bred. It would be fair to say that both males have shown little talent for wooing their prospective mates. Yet their genes have great value - not just now, but also in the future. So it was a natural progression to seek the expertise of Dr. Barbara Durrant, Head of Reproductive Physiology and Endocrinology at CRES.

Under Dr. Durrant’s guidance, staff at the Maui Bird Conservation Center have been trained in the fine art of massage. Staff are stroking the abdomen and cloaca of Kauila and Kinohi in an attempt to obtain sperm samples. It is hoped that their sperm can be used for artificial insemination of females whose reproductive cycle makes them suitable recipients and whose genes make an appropriate pairing. In the meantime, it is hoped that the ‘alala sperm can be banked in the Frozen Zoo, to be thawed out when needed.

That is the goal. The first of many challenges is to actually acquire the sperm sample, and this requires practice, for both bird and staff! But for the moment, Kauila and Kinohi don’t seem to mind all the attention.

Richard Switzer is a Research Fellow for the Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program

Is this constant process of gestation, birth, and cub rearing hard on the panda dam? Perhaps. In the human, having multiple births too closely spaced is correlated with increased rates of premature birth. It is hypothesized that this is due to the inability of the maternal body to replenish nutrients in between pregnancies if time is too short. We do not yet know, however, if this is the case for the panda.

It can be said, however, that year after year the female pandas are able to give birth and rear their young. Wolong has a nearly 100% survival rate among its cubs born in the last few years. And in 2000, one female, named “Number 1,” gave birth to three cubs, despite having had cubs several years in a row. All of this suggests that the females are physiologically able to cope with the demands of such a captive breeding program.

Perhaps one advantage of a yearly breeding cycle is that it helps the female replenish herself. At the six-month mark, when her dependent young are removed, the cubs are getting quite large and developing quickly. At this point, the young are not yet feeding on bamboo, and rely exclusively on their mothers to meet their nutritional needs. The lactational drain produced by such a cub must be quite significant. However, once the cub is removed, this drain is gone and for a period of months the panda female is free to rest and feed without the constraints of caring for offspring. This may be all she needs to recharge her batteries for the next go-around. One of the blog readers hypothesized that the energetic demands of lactation may be more significant than those of gestation and birth, and for the panda this may very well be true.

What of the cubs once they are removed? Are they harmed by this regime? You may know that the cubs are placed in a communal housing arrangement in which they are able to interact with other cubs of the same age. This experience certainly helps to allow for the social contact needed by the cubs in the early months of life. Although we have not yet completed any studies to quantify the difference between a mother-raised and a peer-raised cub, we can say this: the peer-raised cubs have grown up to breed and mother their own offspring competently. That is a significant statement about their skill set and their mental wellbeing.

The net effect of a yearly breeding cycle is that the population of captive pandas in China has skyrocketed. In the early 90s, the population of Wolong was not sustainable: deaths outnumbered births. Now, they add large numbers of cubs every year (with 17 born in 2005!). As the captive population serves as a buffer for the wild one, an insurance policy against extinction, there are many good things to be said about such a birth rate. However, unless significant numbers of animals are reintroduced to the wild or are located in other facilities worldwide, it is unlikely that the infrastructure of these captive facilities can tolerate such a population growth endlessly. There may yet come a day in which the managers of panda populations within China feel it is in the best interest of the bears to slow the birth rate by returning to a biennial birth schedule. This change will not likely come before Su Lin is added to the breeding population in China, but perhaps her offspring will be subject to a birth schedule that more closely mirrors that of their wild brethren.

Suzanne Hall is the senior research laboratory technician for the San Diego Zoo’s Office of Giant Panda Conservation.