Happy National Zoo Keeper Week!

This week is National Zookeeper Week. This national celebration is in recognition of Zookeepers, aquarists, and the animal care professionals in our nation's zoological parks and aquariums. Zookeepers serve as animal care experts, frontline educators, and conservationists. So if you pass a keeper or aquarist this week, please take a moment to thank them for their dedication to the animal care profession.

Tortoise Home Makeover

Thanks to the help of the horticulture and maintenance staff, the Galapagos Tortoises received an exhibit makeover. New boulders were placed in the yard as a barrier to prevent exploration into the bird yard pool and new sod was laid for the tortoises to enjoy. In their night holding, old mulch and dirt was completely removed allowing for a thorough cleaning of the ventilation and heat system and new, fluffy mulch was put in. Marco and Erwin appear quite content in their made-over holding and exhibit. Thanks again to everyone who worked so hard to make the tortoises "happy".

Sparky visits the Doctor!

The 2009 Sparky Shows have started and are going well! This year the show is about how we prepare Sparky and all of the Como Zoo pinnipeds for visiting the doctor. We walk the audience through a visit to the doctor after Sparky pretends to hurt her flipper. The audience learns how we collect a blood sample on sea lion, how we prepare her to visit the opthamologist as well as all about the many other things we do to keep Sparky healthy. This year each show is a little different to help keep Sparky and her audience interested, but of course we finish with some high energy favorites performed by Sparky!

Baby giraffe, meet your adoring fans!

The baby giraffe at Como Zoo finally made his debut to the public this morning. Born a month ago today, he had to get used to his surroundings and his zoo keepers before being put on display. After a rough start in life due to septicemia, an infection of the blood, the little male was taken to the University of Minnesota where he was given round the clock care to clear up his infection. He lived at the U of M for 10 days before coming back to the giraffe barn.

Introductions with his mother, Clover are ongoing, but due to the extent of his illness and the length of stay at the U of M, she was unable to nurse him. He is being raised by the zoo keepers and will readily drink up to 4 liters of milk at a time from a bucket.

After initially just peeking at his adoring fans from the doorway, he mustered up enough courage to come out onto the display when a camera man arrived. He will be on limited display with the choice to go back into his holding for a while until his hooves toughen up to the concrete floor. Later this summer, the zoo keepers will work on introducing him to the outside yard and the rest of the giraffe herd.

Swimming with Sparky

This summer Sparky V, who retired from shows in 2000, celebrated his 31st birthday. As the second oldest sea lion in a North American zoo, he has encouraged his trainers to find new and creative things to train him to do that he is physically capable of doing in his old age. Sparky V has always had a uniquely laid back temperament and a trusting relationship with his trainers, so in the summer of 2008 we started getting in the pool with him and training him to do water behaviors. Because of his old age we had different goals than many other facilities that swim with their sea lions. Sparky V would not be doing any fancy foot-pushes or pulling us through the water; the purpose of our water work would be to keep his training new and exciting and allow him to spend more time in the water where he is most comfortable. This video is a clip from last summer when just began to work with him in the water. The first behavior we trained is called a water present, where he floats next to the trainer with flippers extended so we can take a good look at his entire body. The most important part of this behavior is that he is calm. He relaxed immediately with the behavior and responded positively to the water work. You can see in the video that a large portion of his training is using fish and touching him as reinforcement for his calmness. We continued this training inside during the winter, although it is more fun in the sun!

Kudu Debut

After completing some upgrade work in the kudu exhibit over the weekend, today was the first day the three male Lesser Kudu were able to go outside for the season. While it was not an extraordinarily warm day, the three boys appeared to enjoy the weather and could be seen sparring, running around the exhibit and pushing their horns in the soil.

After a few days the kudu will be joined by two crowned cranes and two yellow-billed storks. Once all of them are settled in, we will introduce the two female zebra into the mix. Minnie, the younger zebra, has not been on the outside display yet as she just came to us only a month ago from Mesker Park Zoo in Indiana. She should be interesting to watch as she runs around the display and meets her display mates.

Orangutans in the sun

After a very long Minnesota winter, the orangutans at Como Zoo were let outside for the first time this year. All three adults explored the exhibit thoroughly munching on their breakfast as they moved around. Jaya, the one year old clung to Mom Markisa's back, not quite sure of his surroundings. I'm sure he'll be dangling from the ropes and hamming it up for the crowds in no time.