Month: February 2015

How do healthy goats and cattle save orangutans from extinction? It’s all about deforestation, specifically illegal logging. Health in Harmony, Seneca Park Zoo’s conservation anchor in Borneo, reports a 68% decrease in illegal logging households for more than six years. This impressive accomplishment rings true as we have spent six days meeting Farmers’ and Widows’ groups investing in and relying on revenue generated from healthy cattle and goats. Such revenue includes highly productive organic farming from composted manure as well as meat production.

Highly reproductive goats (especially healthy twin kids) underscore the benefit of enhancing animal health & husbandry. Training has expanded formally with use of the FAMACHA card.  Pinker color to conjunctival mucous membranes under lower eyelid indicates anemia is not a health concern. New training in selectively administering oral de-wormer may decrease parasite loads in overall herd of approximately 250 goats.

As Ibu Setiawati and Jilli implement their new health monitoring and treatment practices, we look forward to returning next year for more good news.  Thank you Seneca Park Zoo donors for supporting Health in Harmony, making a true difference for goats, cattle, villagers and orangutans.

Blog and photos by:

Dr. Jeff Wyatt D.V.M., M.P.H., Director of Animal Health and Conservation for the Seneca Park Zoo

Dr. Andrew Winterborn D.V.M., Seneca Park Zoo and University of Rochester veterinary alumnus; University Veterinarian, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Seneca Park Zoo’s One Health-One Medicine veterinary approach emphasizes the connection between humans, wildlife and environmental health. That connection can be found in Rochester, through the relationship between the Genesee River and sturgeon health, and it can be found on the opposite side of the globe, as witnessed by the coexistence of Bornean villagers with the rainforest and its role in orangutan survival.

We recently enjoyed a species sharing medical experience when Valerie Lou, M.D., the University of Rochester International Medicine fellow sent this year to Borneo by the Seneca Park Zoo’s American Association of Zoo Keepers chapter, joined us on farm rounds. Dr. Lou journeyed to Borneo to mentor villager health care in ASRI Klinik, in synchrony and harmony with impactful orangutan forest conservation programs. Dr. Lou joined our veterinary & herd health team for a day with Jilli and Ibu Setiawati, as we recorded data, performed physical exams and healthy baby checks, de-wormed and hoof trimmed 37 cattle and goats under the care of 23 farmers’ groups and widows.

Blog and photos by:

Dr. Jeff Wyatt D.V.M., M.P.H., Director of Animal Health and Conservation for the Seneca Park Zoo

Dr. Andrew Winterborn, D.V.M., Seneca Park Zoo and University of Rochester veterinary alumnus; University Veterinarian, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Health in Harmony’s mantra, “Saving the Rainforest with a Stethoscope,” takes on greater meaning in this, our third conservation-medicine expedition to Borneo. Our veterinary mentoring of farmers and ASRI conservation staff last year has resulted in a more formal preventive medicine approach for cattle and goat herds, and in health trend tracking, performed and expanded by Jilli and Ibu Setiawati. Healthier livestock provides villagers with sustainable, forest-friendly, revenue generating alternatives to illegal logging and slash and burn farming practices.

We are honored and proud to participate in Health in Harmony and ASRI Klinik’s capacity building and mentoring initiatives which promote healthier lives for villagers and protect forest for 10% (2,500) of the world’s remaining Bornean orangutans currently thriving in Gunung Palung National Park.

Blog and photos by:

Dr. Jeff Wyatt DVM, MPH, Director of Animal Health and Conservation for the Seneca Park Zoo

Dr. Andrew Winterborn DVM, Seneca Park Zoo and University of Rochester veterinary alumnus; University Veterinarian, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Imagine a landscape of white rock pockmarked with thousands of holes. At night, out of each hole extends a hand with six or more fingers, writhing and snapping at anything that passes by. To complete this bizarre scene, visualize the hands covered with hairs. To touch these hairs could mean instant death, for some are very poisonous. Now imagine all of this covered in a layer of mucus. Each hand is connected to the other by a thin layer of tissue extending over the surface of the rock, so that this becomes one big mat of living tissue.

This science-fiction description is very close to the reality faced by minute planktonic organisms floating helplessly toward a coral reef in the warm tropical seas. The hands referred to are the coral animals, known as polyps, each with six or more tentacles armed with cells capable of shooting out threads tipped with poison or sticky mucus, or whip-like ends that can wrap around prey. No other animal group uses these unique weapons. Few other animals can remove tiny organisms from the water with such efficiency. Yet, as efficient as the colony of coral animals is, it can not be sustained by what it can trap in seas whose meager crop of plankton cannot meet it’s nutritional needs.

Though they are voracious and efficient carnivores, corals as well as gorgonians, anemones, and giant clams must rely on a very unique means of supplementing their nutrition. Each harbor within their cells a single-celled algae called zooxanthellae (pronounced zoo-zan-thell-y). The coral polyps and zooxanthellae have what is known as a symbiotic relationship. Coral polyps produce carbon dioxide and water as byproducts of respiration. The zooxanthellae cells use the carbon dioxide and water to carry out photosynthesis. Sugars, fats and oxygen are some of the products of photosynthesis which the zooxanthellae cells produce. The coral polyp then uses these products to grow and carry out cellular respiration. The tight recycling of products between the polyp cells and the zooxanthellae is the driving force behind the growth and productivity of coral reefs. As much as 90 percent of the organic material they manufacture photosynthetically is transferred to the host coral tissue.

Another byproduct of the symbiotic relationship with zooxanthellae is color. Several million zooxanthellae live and produce pigments in just one square inch of coral. These pigments are visible through the clear body of the polyp and are what gives many reef-building coral their beautiful color. As you begin to understand the complex ecosystem of the coral reef, it becomes clear how small physical changes such as ocean temperature, ocean acidification, poor fishing practices and land-based pollution can threaten the reefs’ ability to survive.

We invite you to come visit our coral reef exhibit, located in the Rocky Coasts Gallery, and watch this fascinating ecosystem close-up. Our philosophy is simple. If you see it, learn about it, and care about it, you will help protect it.

Blog, photo and video by Kevin Blakely, Zoo Keeper