The significance of this birth, other than the obvious of increasing the species’ population by one, is that the dam had given birth 17 months prior to her first calf who, unfortunately, did not thrive in his first days and did not survive. With no positive maternal history, Safarani’s keepers kept close watch on this second 15-month pregnancy should the need to intervene become apparent. Fortunately, all went well and our newest addition is a 57 1/2-pound female that Jama named Sukari, which means “sugar” in Swahili.

In the coming days and weeks we will keep you abreast of Sukari’s growth, introduction to the other okapis, and her interaction with her keepers.

John Michel is a senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

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I watched her as she strolled out to the deepest part of the log like before, yet this day was different. Kinah had a shine to her eye and you could tell the gears were turning in her head. Without a moment’s hesitation, she suddenly leaped from the log as far as she could, landing in a deep pool of water! She began lapping around like a dog in water, but quickly dove under, looking like an expert swimmer! As a new swimmer, I’m sure it fatigued her quickly as she only made a few jumps and laps before crawling back onto shore. Once back on land, she looked totally refreshed and the shine in her eyes was even brighter!

Kecia Spears is a keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

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At this point, there is no way to tell which of those two options we are dealing with. We can, however, compare her behavior to past pregnancies to develop a picture of what a birth window might be if she is indeed pregnant. In both 1999 and 2003, she scored her first significant decrease in bamboo consumption (a “1” on a 3-point scale) about 27 days prior to giving birth. This year, keepers have been scoring her as a “1” for this behavior since July 10. That gives us a predicted birth date of August 6.

Another factor we weigh is changes to Bai Yun’s genitalia. She was noted today to have some swelling of the vulva. In 1999, such swelling started about 31 days before a birth. In 2003, it began about 24 days before birth. Those dates would suggest a birth this year around August 8 or 9. Taken together, these indicators make the second week of August look like a good window to expect Bai Yun to birth in.

There are several other indicators at play that we don’t yet know about: what does her hormone profile look like to date? What are veterinarians seeing in their ultrasounds? What about mammary gland development, which precedes birth? Answers to these questions will help us to develop a better picture of what Bai Yun is experiencing. Knowing when her secondary hormone rise occurred would allow us to predict within a few days of when a birth might occur. And the ultrasound is the only tool that could help us determine with certainty that she is in fact pregnant. Both of these scientific approaches are part of our process for evaluating Bai Yun during a birthing season.

In the meantime, we continue to cross our fingers and hope for the best. Bai Yun and Gao Gao are a proven pair, and we have high expectations for a birth. Yet we all know that pseudopregnancy is a very real phenomenon in pandas, so we will continue to be cautious and patient. Look for more updates as Bai Yun reveals to us more details of what she is experiencing.

Suzanne Hall is the senior research laboratory technician for the Giant Panda Conservation Unit of Applied Animal Ecology/CRES.

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When Kinah first arrived at Ituiri Forest, she would only stray from Bunzi for short periods of time to play with Ota, an adolescent female, and Jaribu, an adolescent male. Being new to the surroundings, Buzni and Kinah were hesitant to separate for too long or too far. It’s evident now how comfortable they are in their new home as this is no longer an issue.

Initially, Kinah had two best friends, Ota and Jaribu. Well, like most adolescent girls, Ota has developed a crush: she is smitten with the handsome Mr. Toad! Mr. Toad has taken a shine to Ota as well. This normally shy girl has developed a lot of confidence, has grown up a bit, and spends less time with little Kinah. Watching this group of primates, it’s interesting to note that their growing pains aren’t all too far removed from our own!

Jaribu, however, has remained a friend, and acts as a good big brother. I often see the two playing nonstop in games of chase or wrestling matches in which Jaribu is playful yet gentle with his little friend. Jaribu, normally the greediest of the bunch, shares with Kinah better than even Bunzi! Whenever I offer Kinah a bite of something to eat, Jaribu is nearby but never takes it from her whereas Bunzi is unabashed about pulling food straight from Kinah‘s mouth! (Not to worry though. I weigh Kinah on a weekly basis and her weight is increasing at a healthy rate, so she’s getting her share. We still have the creep set up on exhibit as well to allow Kinah access to her own private food source.) In fact, just a couple of days ago I gave the monkeys apple slices on exhibit. Everyone grabbed handfuls, but little Kinah was too slow on this particular day. She headed to Bunzi, but Bunzi wouldn’t share. Kinah next headed for Jaribu. He had a couple of pieces of apple. While eating one, he willingly let Kinah take the other. Such a good boy! Kinah couldn’t ask for a better friend!

Kecia Spears is a keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

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Needless to say, a fractured leg in a bird of prey can be very difficult not only physically but also behaviorally. Hawks hold their food in their talons and then rip pieces off it to eat. This is a hard thing to accomplish with just one foot. Kiowa was having a tricky time trying to balance on the fractured leg, hold his food in his good foot, and eat.

As hospital keepers, one of our jobs is to make the healing process as painless as possible. To make things easier for Kiowa, we cut up his mice into bite-sized pieces and fed them to him with very long forceps. At first, Kiowa was not thrilled about this and seemed depressed. He was probably in some pain as well. But with keeper persistence and some pain medication, he started to respond. We learned that if we gave Kiowa a piece of mouse he could hold with his good foot, we could quickly feed him the rest of his meal. Once his belly was mostly full, he could calmly balance himself by holding his wings out (as if he was hiding his food, which most birds of prey do while eating anyway) and slowly eat the last piece of food he was holding onto.

Kiowa’s most recent exam shows that his leg is healing. The keepers have definitely noticed a big difference in his behavior that lets us know he is feeling better. He is sunning himself, moving around more, and even flying in his pen. And when it’s feeding time, Kiowa is at the door, ready for his food and medication.

It’s always hard when an animal arrives ill or with injuries to the hospital, but it’s great when we see how well they are recovering and finally that day when they leave us. We do like to get to know the animals, but we’d rather not see them again. We are looking forward to the day Kiowa leaves and is able to fly in Hunte Amphitheater once more!

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

Watch video of Kiowa during a show at Hunte Amphitheater.

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Jackaroo is a big male koala that can usually be found close to the beach near the ranges of Natasha and Xena (two females). When I went looking for him on this trip, he was nowhere to be found. He had lost his collar (the collars self-release over time) and I wondered what had become of him. We sometimes follow koalas in our program for several years and then they either move away or lose their collars and we are unable to find them. However, we spent quite a bit of time following Jackaroo over the summer - we even recorded his call which you can hear on one of Jen Tobey’s blogs. He is a large male resident at our site, and we are keen to continue following him in the upcoming breeding season. So we were understandably quite eager to find him.

Fortunately, after several days of searching, we found him. My team of Earthwatch volunteers was searching an elevated knoll on the island and spotted a male with ear tags belonging to Jackaroo (each koala has its own colored and numbered tags). We managed to catch him (we waved rags above his head, which encouraged him to descend the tree, then we put him in a bag) and fitted him with a new VHF radio collar and followed him daily for the next week. Surprisingly, he wandered back to his normal range.

We know that koalas range over slightly different areas in breeding and nonbreeding seasons and over time their ranges seem to have a degree of drift (they reuse about 60 percent of the previous year’s range each year), but the excursions some of them make have us puzzled. That is why we trailed the GPS collars (purchased with an Ocelots grant) last year and why we are now eagerly awaiting the arrival of the next shipment of ten more collars.

This year, for the first time, we will be able to know where the koalas are constantly from the start of the breeding season until most of the young are born. The collars log the location of the animals every two hours, meaning that if koalas, like Jackaroo, move to another part of the island while I am not there, we will know. I wonder how many other koalas leave their normal areas when I go away?

Dr. Bill Ellis is a Conservation Research Postdoctoral Fellow for CRES.

Here’s more information about Bill’s koala project.

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Somewhere in the middle are Red and White. Sometimes they pick on other birds, and sometimes they are the victims. White is a bit unusual, as she has been seen wing-begging to other birds, a food-solicitation behavior most condors leave behind when they leave the nest. White also seems unusually bold at times, challenging the mentor bird and frequently aggressive with others. On the other hand, she has a special relationship with Blue, and the two can be seen cuddling and preening each other from time to time.

Yellow stands alone at the bottom of the hierarchy. She is attentive to the moods of the other birds and clears out when someone is making waves. She is frequently the target of aggressive moves made by Red or White. Yet she always seems to rebound well and can be found playing or preening with other birds.

Soon our little cohort will be making a big transition. In four to five weeks, they will be shipping south to their release site in Baja California, Mexico. There, they will join a few other birds of the same age, raised at the Los Angeles Zoo. This larger cohort will be housed in a flight pen with a new mentor bird and will spend many months acclimating to the weather and other conditions in the area that will become their permanent home. In 2008, these birds will be released into the wilds of Baja, where they will join 11 other birds from previous years in the mountainous Sierra San Pedro de Martír National Park.

In the meantime, our colorful cohort will receive the necessary medical exams to ensure that they are healthy. One will get a transponder so that tracking the animal in the wild will be easier. And all will lose their colorful wing tags in favor of the standard “Baja blue” tags that all birds wear in Sierra San Pedro de Martír. We will continue to observe them throughout this preshipment period, and researchers in Baja are prepared to pick up where we leave off once the birds do move.

We hope that all this effort pays off, and that these birds thrive as successful, breeding members of the Baja condor population. We did have a previously released condor make a trek across the border into San Diego County recently, so who knows? Maybe I will see one of these birds again someday. I hope you have the opportunity to see one, too. The more people that have the opportunity to spot them in the wild, the more likely it is that our project is succeeding in restoring these birds to their historical range.

Suzanne Hall is the senior research laboratory technician for the Giant Panda Conservation Unit of Applied Animal Ecology/CRES.

Here’s more information about the California Condor Recovery Program.

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One factor that seems to determine elephant ranging activity is the level of security in an area. Rather than continuing with the conservation colonialism that has characterized a number of past efforts in wildlife conservation, we have embarked upon a program of community-based conservation that includes a combination of improving the quality of life for the local people with the preservation of the natural biodiversity in the area. To achieve this goal, we have provided funds for a number of scouts and rangers to patrol the area. The scouts work in conjunction with the Kenya Wildlife Service to protect the animals, but they are also being trained in the collection of scientific data necessary to save species. (San Diego Zoo Director Richard Farrar is shown meeting the scouts.)

The future of elephants in Africa will not only depend upon protecting them in national parks; it will also depend upon the motivation and incentive of the local population living outside of parks. The San Diego Zoo is fortunate in having dedicated partners in Kenya working to ensure that the African elephants will roam throughout northern Kenya.

Fred Bercovitch is head of the Behavioral Biology Division, CRES
Jeff Andrews is animal care manager of elephants, Wild Animal Park

Watch the Wild Animal Park’s elephants daily on Elephant Cam.

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It has been fascinating to see the relationship develop between this little chimpanzee, who not only had seen his mother killed but had three shotgun pellets lodged in his body, and Jody, who has been looking after Nanga around the clock

Jody said, “The best part of the day was to be woken by a soft ooh-ooh-ooh at 6:20 every morning. A large bottle of milk formula preceded the following play session in my room with a variety of everyday objects that I’d collected for him: a small mirror, an old book to tear up, some empty bottles. But nothing was quite as entertaining as the container itself, which he would sit on, stand on, and purposefully fall into.” Later on, they’d go to the Wildlife Centre, where Nanga was slowly getting to see other animals in the quarantine areas. By 7:30 p.m., Nanga would be rubbing his eyes, ready for bed.

This was the daily routine for the month that Jody looked after Nanga. At the beginning of week five, Nanga had his second TB test. All the animals that arrive at the LWC have to have regular TB tests to limit the possibility of them passing the disease on to other animals, but also, potentially, to humans. Equally, it is possible that Nanga could have contracted a disease from the many people who have handled him since he was taken from his mother, and so regular health checks are a vital part of life at the LWC, as in all other sanctuaries and zoos.

Once Nanga had cleared the TB test he was free to enter into the ‘baby enclosure’ with the four other infant chimpanzees that have been rescued over the past year or so. At first, Nanga was with the other infants for just half an hour each day, and gradually the time increased until Jody was able to hide in the enclosure without any major incidents. On the second day, he embraced Gabon, a young female chimpanzee. Jody said, “It was so wonderful to see him play with the others and receive hugs from them when he needed comfort.”

Caring for Nanga over the last few weeks has been an incredible experience for Jody, who left Cameroon last week. Nanga is still doing fine and has moved on to spend all his time with the other infant chimpanzees that will become his surrogate family.

Dr. Bethan Morgan is a Conservation Research Fellow for the San Diego Zoo’s CRES.

Here’s more information about Bethan’s project.

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After discussing the best strategy, we decided to start on June 19, mostly because we would have plenty of people to observe what was to unfold over the next several days. Like people, you can’t make animals like each other if they don’t want to. Fortunately for us, that wasn’t a problem. From the beginning, Kalluk was very curious. He frequently approached Chinook, “talking” to her and even extending invitations to play. Chinook was also curious and extended the same courtesy. Tatqiq, however, was a little more gun-shy. She would watch the activity but preferred to do so from afar. When Chinook approached, Tatqiq made it clear she just wasn’t quite ready to interact. Chinook was very mature about the whole process and respected Tatqiq’s wishes.

On the second day, Kalluk and Chinook had some playtime in the pool (pictured above, Kalluk on the left, Chinook on the right). But Chinook was still persistent about wanting to make friends with Tatqiq. Tatqiq’s curiosity got the better of her and on the third day, she thought that having a big sister might be kind of cool. Kalluk watched from the sidelines as Tatqiq and Chinook played in the pool just as he had done the day before. But don’t worry, on the fourth day all three were showing off and having fun as if they were old buddies. Some would even say that Chinook gave the kids a run for their money!

We have continued every day with having the three bears together for some period of time. Part of the process still involves a varying rotation, different types of shifts, and the duration of time they are all together. We are not doing constant supervision at this point, but still only having them together while the keeper is there and separating them overnight. We could not be happier with the success and we are looking forward to seeing their relationships grow. It’s been years since we’ve seen Chinook play like this and feel that the right decision was made, not only for Chinook, but also for the sake of all three bears.

Kelly Murphy is a senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo’s Polar Bear Plunge.

Watch polar bears daily on Polar Cam.

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