Zoo day

We went to the zoo today! The idea came to me last night after the kids had gone to bed. The weather is supposed to be fantastic for the next week or so, and we avoided the zoo for most of the summer due to the crowds, so it was high time we head down there. It was a great day, and N. commented that it was nice to have the zoo to ourselves without big fieldtrip groups milling around. I had to agree with her!

We went to the animal encounter show, which is basically a chance for the handlers to give the animals a dress rehearsal in front of an audience. They had four different animals in various stages of training, and explained how they use a clicker and food rewards as part of their positive reinforcement. This was right up N's alley! Especially when they brought a rat out to practice it's run up a fake rock, across a rope, and through a small door in the "cliff face" (ie. back wall of the stage). Now she really wants to go out and buy a clicker ASAP to train her rats to do something, anything, but she's sure it will be really cool. N. and I talked to the handler about what her background is, and how she got into this line of work. She has a degree in zoololgy, and started at this zoo as an intern ten years ago. She highly recommended participating in 4-H as a good opportunity to learn more about animals and animal training. This is something I've been considering, so I now have more incentive to investigate it further.

Next we went over to the Rocky Shores area, where we were surprised to see two zoo employess with a giant hornbill waiting to get on the elevator as we were getting off. Not what I was expecting to see as the doors slid open!
After getting off the elevator, we wandered over to the walruses who were being fed. Man, they are HUGE! There was one keeper for each of the three walruses, and one keeper who was talking about the animals and answering questions. Conversation turned to walrus breeding, which was kind of interesting. Breeding season is January to March, and the only way to determine whether a walrus is pregnant is through a blood test to detect progesterone levels. Problem is, their progesterone levels are naturally high all through the summer, so they won't know if either of their two females is pregnant for another month or so. Gestation is 15 months, so they'll still have plenty of time to prepare if it turns out there was a successful mating. Apparently there have only been 5 successful breeding attempts of walruses in captivity (offspring surviving longer than one year), and there have been 6 live births that didn't survive the one year mark. At this zoo, one of the walruses has given birth twice - one died during the birth, and the other died at four days old (believed to be the result of aspirating meconium in utero). I'm telling you, it was fascinating stuff!