Zoo of the Week

Good afternoon zookeepers,
it's time for the zoo of the week. This week, our Modern Zookeeper mobile took a short trip from last week's Zoo of the Week in St. Paul Minnesota up north to the Lake Superior Zoo in Duluth Minnesota.

The Lake Superior Zoo has long been considered one of the top forty five zoos of the upper midwest(not counting Michigan) and features several habitats to engage young and old. There's an Australian Outback, African Savanna, and Nocturnal Trail.

Zookeeper Diego is partial to the Asian Caravan, featuring a snow leopard, siberian tiger and Pere David's Deer.

The deer are no longer actually seen by bedouins traveling across the Silk Road, as they have gone extinct in their native habitat of China. The last deer were reportedly killed and eaten by foreign troops during the time of the Boxer Rebellion.

Apparently a herd was bred in captivity while in England and have now been re-released into the wild in China.

There are several theories about how the Pere David's Deer got to the Lake Superior Zoo, but most zoologists believe that the deer came over with explorer Leif Erikson to Newfoundland. Then after tiring of the bland Viking diet, they migrated westward, traversing the St. Lawrence Seaway before hitching a ride with local voyageurs down to the Great Lakes port in Duluth.

The zoo welcomed them with open arms.

The Lake Superior Zoo also offers a Zookeeper for a Day program for only 12 dollars and a Zoo Snooze where you can sleep in one of the animal cages at the zoo. Modern Zookeeper particularly recommends sleeping with the kinkajous.

Siamang

Just when Kentucky seemed stocked up on primates, along came baby Zain, a baby male Siamang born this week at the Louisville Zoo.

As everyone on Modern Zookeeper probably knows, siamangs are apes native to Malaysia and other parts of SE asia. They eat figs and other fruits and are known for their piercing howls that can be heard for over 2 miles through the forest.

Here's what little Zain may look like someday...

a handsome tapir indeed

Pangolin symbiosis

Hi from a Zookeeper in New York Cuty

HI:

I AM A ZOOKEEPER IN NEW YORK AND I HEARD ABOUT THIS NEW BLOG. IT LOOKS LIKE YOU HAVE A GREAT COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THE WELL BEING OF ANIMALS AS WELL AS NAMING FAVORITE ANimals (woops , my caps button HAHA!) ANyway I wanted to alert any people that are fans of Tapirs that there is a good source of information about Tapirs and it can be sent to your email "inbox" Its called tapir talk and you can learn more about it
here
A Modern Zookeeper Rocky Dynamic

Deaths in the family

Good morning weekend zookeepers,
I thought Sunday would be a good day to reflect upon the zoo deaths from the past few days. Formal obituaries on each of these great beasts will follow...

7 kangaroos died at the Guadalajara, Mexico zoo after experiencing severe stress during a season of rain storms. Red kangaroos are widely considered the most high-strung of marsupials.

While environmental stresses may cause anxious twilight foraging in the Western Grey Kangaroo, abstinence from sexual activity in the Eastern Grey Kangaroo, or general malaise in the Antilopine kangaroo, none really lose their cool like the old Red Kangaroo.

Here's a test question from the Zookeeper Credentialing International Exam(ZCIE) that illustrates the well-known behavior.

HYENA: MARTIN LAWRENCE:: RED KANGAROO: ?

A) Will Smith
B) Mandy Moore
C) Charles de Gaulle
D) Rodney Dangerfield

For those playing at home, the answer is D.

In other animal tragedy news,
at the Zoo of Northwest Florida, Sammy the giraffe died of a neck injury this week. And while investigators stated that the necropsy revealed evidence of trauma, no one knows yet if the death is related to the death earlier this year of baby Niles, a one and a half year old hippopotamus. Theories abound about the possible motivations for the deaths...poor Pensacola zookeeping, trans fats in the animals' diet, violent video games. Feel free to post your own thoughts.

RIP kangaroos, Sammy and Niles.

Zoo of the Week

This week's zoo of the week is the Como Zoo in St. Paul, Minnesota

I attended this zoo as a youth, when zookeeping was just another possibility of career options along with locomotive engineer and researcher specializing in ochronosis.

In earlier times, there was a fish booth where for two dollars you could by a paper plate with five fish on it to feed to the sea lions.

The daily highlight is the Sparky the Seal show, although Sparky is soon to retire to be replaced by Chino a newly trained seal recently rescued from injury in the Pacific.

The current highlight of the zoo is a polar bear, although the zoo currently only has old water cooler jugs as play toys for the bear. If you'd like to donate other office supplies to the bear cage, the zoo can be contacted at
http://www.comozooconservatory.org/supp/index.shtml

The pangolin

When I was a younger zookeeper, recklessly enamored with a black Finn,
I once saw a man carrying a dead pangolin on a stretch of forested highway in western Cameroon. I believe it was dead, although I couldn't be sure through the haze of the red dust kicked up from the unpaved road.

It was a tragic moment that shocked me from my afternoon reverie. To see the pangolin, the humble prince of the Pholidota order, soon to become part of a delicious stew was a sad image.
I always fancied myself as similar to the pangolin and it reminded me of my own mortality.

We both have no teeth and long tongues and both the pangolin and I will curl up into a protective ball when challenged. And although we share the ability to emit a noxious smell from our anus, I do not typically do so when predators approach.

If you'd like to see a pangolin in person, I would suggest the following Taiwanese locales:
1. The Taipei Zoo
2. Ticino restaurant on Tien Mou east road(order the fondue).

For the budding zookeepers in the home audience, the following items are necessary if raising a pangolin at home:
1. Shade trees
2. Bowl of water
3. Cathedral mound of African termites(about 300 pounds of mound+termites will suffice for one month of food)
4. TLC

Welcome

Welcome all to the world of modern zookeeping,
throw away your prior assumptions about what zookeeping used to be, for this page will notify you of contemporary ways of creating a successful, carbon-neutral, non-denominational zoo that will appeal to young and old, hip and square, animal experts and those who couldn't tell the difference between an aardvark from an aardwolf.

There will be news from zoos, DIY posts, comedy/tragedy, opinion and animal facts.

Zookeeper Diego