Month: April 2015

In their Department of Transportation hardhats and fluorescent vests, members of the American Association of Zoo Keepers (AAZK) chapter of Seneca Park Zoo have been busy beautifying Bay Bridge overlook, adjacent to the highway sign “Seneca Park Zoo, ‘Grow Native’.” For the last decade, Zoo staff has picked up litter at the site and maintained a garden of wildflowers native to Upstate New York such as blue lupines, orange milkweed and yellow black-eyed Susans.

Our goal is to raise community awareness about the benefits of native gardening while cleaning litter from one of the most scenic meadows to be seen just before crossing above Irondequoit Bay.

Native flowers do not require fertilizer, which damages our waterways with excessive phosphorous and nitrogen, causing algal blooms which pose wildlife, pet and human health risks. Native flowers also do not require additional water given their acclimation to our Upstate environment.

Growing native flowers instead of exotic ornamentals will help displace and prevent aggressive, invasive plant species from harming habitat.

Not using fertilizer or additional water and displacing invasive plant species are all welcomed practices to protect our waterways and beautify our communities the “natural” way. Go native — grow native in your own yard!

— Blog by Dr. Jeff Wyatt, Director of Animal Health and Conservation

In my last blog post I invited you to throw a #partyformonarchs and share your gardens with us. The recent warmer weather has been teasing us, and while we haven’t quite entered the heart of the planting season, it is almost here.

In fact, the Butterfly Beltway Project will be planting our first garden of the season on May 9 at Midtown Athletic Club. This upcoming season looks to be an exciting year as we will be setting up gardens at private residences (maybe yours too?) and collaborating with schools, businesses and other organizations.

But there is more that you can do for monarchs. Scientists and lepidopterists (butterfly people) are looking for your help. By participating in one of two butterfly monitoring programs you can provide researchers with valuable information about butterfly populations.

• Through Journey North you can report your monarch butterfly sightings. They even have a handy app to help you report butterflies as you are out walking your favorite trails or in the middle of your #partyformonarchs garden. This will help scientists understand when monarch butterflies return to the area, the locations they use and how their population is doing.

• If you have a garden or a nearby field with milkweed in it, you can participate in the Citizen Science project Monarch Larval Monitoring Project. By doing weekly searches for monarch caterpillars through butterfly habitat like your garden, you can support MLMP’s goal of better understanding monarchs. They are looking to find out how and why monarch populations vary in time and space during their breeding season in North America. This will aid in conserving monarchs and their threatened migratory phenomenon and advance our understanding of butterfly ecology in general.

If you participate in either of these programs, we want to know! Send me an email at [email protected] to tell me about your conservation efforts, to ask any questions or to get help setting up your #partyformonarchs.

And keep an eye out for more Citizen Science programs that the Zoo will need your help with in the near future. With your participation, we can make a difference!

 

– Tim Fowler, Outreach Coordinator

As one might imagine, a lot of preparation is needed to receive a nine-ton delivery or two. So when Seneca Park Zoo confirmed that Moki and Chana, two 9,000 pound African elephants, would be arriving in mid-April to join Genny C and Lilac, there was a great deal of planning to be done by the staff.

The Zoo has a large, modern facility capable of holding up to five elephants, but some of the holding areas still needed to be modified.  Moki and Chana will be managed in restricted contact, so special barriers were put in place to facilitate this management style.

Closed-circuit cameras have been installed so that staff can record Moki and Chana’s behavior and interactions with Genny C and Lilac around the clock. The behavior of all four female elephants will be closely studied by staff to determine how best to physically introduce them to each other.

The food supply for elephants will be doubled. That means deliveries of 1,200 pounds of grain, 1,200 pounds of fresh produce and 360 bales of hay each month.

The most exciting part of the preparation was to actually visit with Moki and Chana at their then-current home, Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in Florida. In March, Elephant Manager Lindsay Brinda and I each had the opportunity to spend a few days in Jacksonville to get to know the elephants and learn how the staff there cares for them. Jacksonville Zoo welcomed us and allowed us to work closely with them as they shared training techniques, husbandry methods and personality profiles of the elephants.

Moki and Chana have been at Jacksonville Zoo for nine years, and their keepers are understandably deeply attached to them. One of the most difficult aspects of being a zoo keeper is sometimes having to say goodbye to animals that you have dedicated yourself to caring for, protecting, loving and sometimes fighting for. The Jacksonville staff are true professionals, though, and shared every bit of knowledge they had to ensure that Moki and Chana could have the same high level of care when they arrived at Seneca Park Zoo.

On your next visit to the Zoo, be sure to see our newest and biggest additions, and think about what it took to get them here. Believe me, it was all worth it!

– Mary Ellen Sheets, Elephant Handler

I am often asked this question by visitors while the elephants are enjoying a delicious truckload of browse that the keepers have collected for them. Browse is defined as “shoots, twigs, and leaves of trees and shrubs used by animals for food.”

Seneca Park Zoo implements a browse program as part of the elephant management program. This is a requirement for accreditation by the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums). The elephant staff works very hard to provide Genny C and Lilac with a variety of browse as often as possible.

The goal is to encourage species-appropriate appetite behaviors, as well as to promote dental health. Since elephant teeth migrate forward (not vertically), it is important that the right type of food is offered to promote dental health and allow for the natural progression of each molar.

The elephant staff offers types of browse that have been approved by our veterinarian as safe for the elephants to eat. Staff is trained to be able to identify various species of trees that are native to Western New York. Seneca Park Zoo has relationships with several local towns and tree companies who are happy to help provide the elephants with browse.

So the answer to the question “Do the elephants really eat trees?” is YES! Their favorites are sugar maple, Norway maple, silver maple and willow. They eat the leaves and small branches completely, chew the bark off of the medium size branches, and use their tusks to scrape the bark off of the large logs.

 

Blog by Sue Rea, Zoologist; Photos by Sue Rea and Jenna Bovee, Elephant Handler