Animal Blog

Coins for Conservation

You may have seen some new machines in the lobby. They are not yet set up with all the graphics needed to explain what they are for, so I thought I would explain it on the blog. It will be a few weeks before the signage is ready for them. This is Blank Park Zoo's new "Coins for Conservation" program. Out of every admission and membership sold at the Blank Park Zoo, a small percentage will go towards a conservation project. We have three projects that we will be supporting: a local project, a nationwide project and an international project. The local project deals re-introducing prairie chickens into the state of Iowa, the nationwide project deals sea turtle conservation and the international project is conservation of giraffe in Africa. In a few weeks we will have more information about these projects. When it is all set up and ready to go, everyone that visits the Zoo will get a special token coin to drop into a machine - you'll get to choose the project you want to help out. Each machine does something interesting with the token. Of course if you want to try the other machines as well, just drop a quarter in the machine and that will be and extra donation to that conservation project. Watch the video below to see the path the coins travel.

Scarlet Macaws

Kevin Drees, Director of Animal Care & Conservation, recently responded to a visitor's questions about the Zoo's Scarlet Macaws. As it turns out the response was very interesting and is this week's blog.

Back in 1986 when the Blank Park Zoo was first opening after being closed/renovated for four years, we were contacted by the USFWS to hold a group of scarlet macaws that were confiscated in New York as part of an illegal importation for the pet trade. We held the birds for 3 years while the case went through the court system and in the end the birds became federal property and they donated 6 to us for exhibit purposes. I did know the birds were wild caught (and couldn’t be returned to the wild), so I immediately set up a pair for off-exhibit breeding. The others were sent to other zoos for display and breeding. Within two years they had successfully parent raised three clutches. When the discovery center was being designed, we set out to build an exhibit just for our macaws…the idea was for it to resemble the clay cliff areas where macaws congregate to eat minerals.

There is a kitchen behind the “mud-wall” that the birds put their heads through to get their diet of pellets and about 15 different fruits, vegetables, and seeds. Of course in captivity, macaw’s territoriality usually prevents keeping a group of adults together. We thought free-flying in the conservatory would be too hard on the plant material…

So the six birds in the exhibit right now are the original breeding pair and their offspring. You can usually pick out the dominate pair fairly easily. There are a fairly large number of scarlets in zoos right now, so there isn’t a pressing need to reproduce such a long lived bird, but if needed, I’m sure our original pair would gladly do it if moved to an off-exhibit space. The only way we can keep the six adults together is to not provide a nesting cavity in the display.

Last year the College of Vet Medicine at Texas A &M started a genome project with our original female (they needed a known wild-caught bird that was in a stable environment). They determined that she (and consequently our whole group) is of the Ara macao macao…the subspecies found in the Amazon Basin. Generally there are two, sometimes three subspecies of the scarlet recognized…and there isn’t much difference between them. The yellow on the wing is one clue, but so is the “bluishness” or “greenishness” of the wing feathers…but I guess the genetics tell the whole story.

Cleaning the Jellyfish Exhibit

The jellyfish exhibit is one of the most fascinating and technically complex exhibits at the Blank Park Zoo. I sat down with the Zoo’s aquarist, Dan Bieltz, the other day and he told me about a yearly maintenance procedure he performs on the exhibit. The purpose of the maintenance is to eradicate a plant like organism called a 'hydroid"(true animal however) which is a pest in public aquaria jellyfish exhibits. It has been hypothesized that the hydroid cysts contaminate Artemia nauplii eggs or the larval form of brine shrimp.

The procedure makes for a long, long day and involves scuba diving, chemistry, scrubbing and a lot of work.

Hydroids are not friendly to jellyfish. They are threadlike and grow into a network. They can sting and damage the jellyfish and if not removed can cause a hole in the jellyfish. The first challenge for keepers is to remove the jellyfish from the tank – not an easy task because touching the jellyfish with a net can damage them.

“We use a net to encourage them to come to the top so we can remove them, but it’s a slow process because the net can’t touch the jellyfish,” said Bieltz. “The process takes about 2 hours.”

Once the jellyfish are out and in a temporary holding area, chilled to about 58 degrees, the keepers must work quickly.

“The whole process takes about 24 hours and there is a time limit on how long the jellies can be out of the exhibit,” said Bieltz.

First, the salt water is drained. Then they fill the exhibit with 2,500 gallons of reverse osmosis water. Then bleach is added into the exhibit. Then the keepers wait two hours for the bleach to work its magic.

Once the bleaching is complete, it is now important to neutralize the chlorine bleach.  A product, commonly used to reduce chlorine levels in swimming pools, called sodium thiosulfate is added.  The water will change color and produce a rotten egg smell. Once the color change is complete, the exhibit is emptied and filled back up with fresh reverse osmosis water.

Then they test for free chlorine to determine if the water chemistry is safe for divers. In a separate area, the keepers start to make the final batch of salt water. Once the test results show the water is safe, the keepers suit up and dive into the tank and start scrubbing and removing the dead hydroids.

Once it is clean, the water is removed again and the final salt water is added. Once water is chilled to 60 degrees, the jellyfish can be placed back into their nice clean exhibit.

Bieltz noted that with many fish he has to let the tank ‘mature’ in relation to the nitrogen cycle. With jellyfish, this does not take place because jellyfish do not have blood. He also noted that the frequency of this operation depends on the size of the exhibit and smaller jellyfish tanks may have to be cleaned more frequently.

Posted by Ryan Bickel

National Zookeeper Week

This week the Blank Park Zoo is celebrating National Zookeeper Week by recognizing all of its dedicated zookeepers and aquarists!

Throughout the week zookeepers, aquarists and animal care professionals across the nation will be honored for their hard work and efforts to preserve our wildlife and their habitats. National Zookeeper Week, created by The American Association for Zookeepers, is celebrated every year starting the third Sunday in July.

This year, the Blank Park Zoo will recognize its zookeepers and aquarists with “Meet the Keeper” posters displayed throughout the Zoo, and a special zookeeper appreciation lunch.

We encourage all of our members and guests to come out to the Zoo this week to show their appreciation and get to know the keepers and their animals!

(Picture: Keeper Rachael Cohen target trains a golden-headed tamarin.)

Lemurs enjoy a cool treat!

Yesterday it was hot! Some of the animals, like Snow Leopards have a choice of whether to come outside or stay in the air conditioning. Red Pandas stay inside and you can enjoy them in their indoor exhibit. Other animals take a dip in a pool. The tortoises can cool off in a big mud puddle or underneath a water sprinkler.

Yesterday, a keeper gave the ring-tailed lemurs a cool treat - a banana frozen in ice. This type of activity is called enrichment. Enrichment is just an activity time for the animals.

August 2-6, the Blank Park Zoo will be holding a Safari Splash event and you can watch some ice enrichment activities with the animals, and kids will have their own enrichment on the inflatable water slide we will have. Check back at the events page of the website for a schedule to be posted soon.