A Zoo Man's Notebook, 2025

[Aardwolf]

When I look at the list of chelonians that I have worked with over the year, one thing strikes me in particular – the tortoises are much better represented (in proportion to their overall numbers) than the turtles and the terrapins. This is especially true if you exclude the native turtle species. The reason for this is pretty simple – tortoises, being land-based, are much easier and cheaper to house than turtles of the same size (the exception being species like sliders, which you can just huck into a pond and hope they’ll do fine).

I’ve worked with many of the smaller tortoise species over the years, and will share some thoughts about them.

The biggest of the smaller tortoises (smallest of the biggest?) that I’ve worked with are the red- and yellow-footed tortoises, forest dwellers from South America. These species are commonly kept in AZA, in non-AZA zoos, and as private pets (perhaps moreso the red-foot than the yellow). I’ve worked with yellow-foots at one non-AZA zoo, red-foots at two non-AZA and two AZA, one in which they were ambassadors, the other as exhibit animals.

The ambassador animals were kept in a rather dull trough-like enclosure in off-exhibit holding, fairly limited in space and complexity. The exhibit AZA animals had a fairly large, naturalistic outdoor space shared with green iguana, sloth, assorted birds, and (for a time) small primates. Being smaller, I’m more comfortable mixing tortoises of this size with other species than I am the larger tortoises – less likelihood of accidentally crushings. They weren’t always the most easily seen animals, often resting under bushes and shrubs, or amidst clumps of bamboo, but they did seem to enjoy having all of the space and the varied environment. More than once, I found them at the bottom of the small (10 gallon or so) pool, completely submerged (it was a bit steep, the exhibit hadn’t been designed with tortoises in mind, and they were a later addition. One non-AZA zoo kept their red-foots and yellow-foots in a set up similar to the AZA ambassador tortoises. The other kept them in an enclosure in their reptile house, shared with green iguana and Russian tortoises – mulch substrate, some branches and fake logs, and a water bowl. In warmer months, they were taken outside during the day and shared a grassy enclosure with sulcatas and leopard tortoises.

Diet at the exhibit AZA zoo consisted of some tortoise pellets, soaked, with chopped greens (a mix of romaine, collards, kale, red-leaf lettuce, green-leaf lettuce, dandelion greens – we tried to shake it up) with some chopped produce and a little bit of Bird of Prey diet, sprinkled with calcium, all served in a flat tray. The non-AZA diets were lettuce and produce – one large sink of salad was chopped up a few times a week for all of the tortoises. I suspect that they also ate a lot of the grain that was sold to feed the goats, sheep, pigs, and exotic ungulates at that facility.



What I mostly remember about the red-foots is their insatiable sexual appetite – even for tortoises. They constantly seemed to be breeding, though we never incubated the eggs. When showing them to school groups, I quickly learned that, though they are small enough to easily hold up for everyone to see, it’s best to present them by letting them walk on the ground. Not only is it more comfortable for the tortoises (being up in the air is hardly a natural situation for them), but, once in the air, male red-foots show an amazing tendency to let gravity take over and release their internally-held genitalia – and there are few sights in nature more startling to behold than the junk of a male red-footed tortoise, in all of its disproportionately large glory, flopping down for all the world to see.

The red-footed tortoises at one non-AZA shared their exhibit with a half dozen Russian tortoises, a commonly-kept, hamburger-sized species. Looking back, I’d call this an unideal set-up, as the Russians have different abiotic needs than the red-foots. Different dietary needs, as well (not much fruit on the Russian steppes). Unfortunately, too many zoo folks only have the basic taxonomy of animals worked out – they label something as a tortoise, and give it tortoise care protocols, or a duck, and it gets the standard duck care, or parrot, or so on. A successful keeper needs to dive a little deeper into what makes each species unique and adjust husbandry accordingly. The Russians seemed to do better in the outside, grassy summer yard than they did in the reptile house, where it was too humid for their taste. The one thing I did not like about having them outside was that, unlike the larger tortoises, they were small enough for very young children to reach over the fence and pick up – I would occasionally find a Russian plodding around the middle of the zoo, picked up by a child and then put down once the parents realized that they had it – without bothering to take it back. I also remember the beaks of these tortoises constantly being in need of trim.

I kept a gopher tortoise at on AZA zoo, sharing an outdoor exhibit with burrowing owls. The diet was fairly similar to what I described for the AZA exhibit red-foots. This tortoise probably had one of the best quality of life/natural living set ups of any zoo tortoise I’d seen – which, to be fair, meant that she dug a big burrow and largely kept to it – usually I’d see her sitting in the entrance, with the back half underground, gazing serenely at the world.

My favorite of the smaller tortoises to work with was the pancake tortoise, housed at two AZA zoos. Unlike most chelonians, every pancake tortoise I’ve worked with has been named, and all have pancake-themed names: Blueberry, Jemima, Batter, and so on, with my favorite being a big male named “King Syrup.” The tortoises were housed in the reptile houses of their respective zoos, in exhibits about 4’ x 4’ x 4’, with soil/sand substrate, some tufts of plants, and lots of rocks stacked in such a manner as to allow them to wedge themselves in the crevices. At one zoo, they shared living space with fat-tailed geckos and Warren’s armadillo lizards. Both zoos bred their pancake tortoises, with eggs incubated and young raised behind-the-scenes in little tubs (it’s become popular for many zoos to raise their hatchlings on public view in nurseries, though we were not set up to do such).



Other of the smaller tortoises worked with included the Egyptian tortoise, Madagascar flat-tailed tortoise, spider tortoise, Greek tortoise, Bell's hinged tortoises, and the Indian star tortoise (which I consider to be one of the loveliest of tortoises, though it often seems to be overshadowed by the radiated). I think I like having the very small tortoises (Egyptian, flat-tail, spider) the most because you can provide a proportionately larger living space and rearrange the habitat more easily. Also, because they are much smaller, it’s easier to accommodate several small groups of animals for breeding purposes – the space required to house one herd of Galapagos or Aldabra tortoises could easily sustain an entire SSP population of one of the smaller species. A relatively small zoo could potentially sustain an entire tortoise species by itself. Though, I do have to admit, as much as I love the little guys, none of them can match the giants for the awe factor and the exhibit appeal.

 

[Aardwolf]

Today, a species that a lot of members of this forum love to hate on, the white-tailed deer. I’ve worked with this native cervid at two facilities, one non-AZA, one AZA.

The herd at the AZA facility consisted of 1.4 individuals, all wild-born. Most came to the zoo in the same manner – found as a fawn, in most situations mistakenly believed to have been abandoned (white-tails are hiders, and it’s very common to find fawns on their own while their mothers are off feeding), and brought to the authorities, who then could not return the fawns to the wild. In one case, a woman brought the fawn home with her and raised it as a pet illegally. She probably would have gotten away with it, if she hadn’t brought it to her daughter’s school for show and tell one day.

The deer had a large, wooded paddock which they shared with a flock of wild turkeys. Substrate was a mix of leaf litter and pine needles (with a lot of careful raking, I was eventually able to get grass to grow in a few sunny spots), and a pool towards the front of the exhibit, which I occasionally saw the deer wade into. Towards the back on the enclosure was an open-fronted shed for shelter, which I seldom saw the deer use. Drilled into the side of the shed was the head of a push-broom, which we set up to allow the door to scratch/groom themselves. The deer were, as one would expect, fine outdoors in any climate conditions. The only thing which really seemed to bother them was the clouds of flies that swarmed them in the summer. Thankfully, most of them were calm enough to allow us to mist them with fly spray – we also put fly traps/paper around the shed, out of reach of the deer, but in an attempt to control the insects.

Along one side of the exhibit was an enclosure of wolves, separated by a small alleyway. The deer showed no alarm at the presence of wolves, nor did the wolves seem particularly interested in the deer – on one occasion, I saw a wolf and a deer standing directly opposite one another, curiously sniffing at each other. As skittish as our wolves were, and as friendly and outgoing as the deer were, we often commented that our wolves acted like deer and our deer acted like dogs. The deer varied in their friendliness – one was a puppy, who would shove her whole head into your pockets looking for treats. Others were a fair bit more skittish. We had one individual who had been found injured with her jaw out of whack, and as such her tongue lolled out the side of her mouth. She was still able to eat ok, but had a very hard time grooming herself, so we had to condition her to allow us to brush her – otherwise, she’d pull out hanks of hair (it was with her in mind that we set up the push-broom head).

Diet was based on Mazuri Wild Herbivore pellets with chopped produce – apple, carrot, pear, sweet potato, lettuce – mixed in, along with some browse and hay. All of them ate very well, but as is often with ungulates, there comes a certain age when they really seem to lose the ability to keep up their body weight, no matter how much they ate. In those situations, we’d offer supplemental feedings, but we always kind of knew that it meant that we were getting closer to the end of the line.

Breeding in our deer herd was not desired, so our male, acquired years before I arrived, had been castrated upon acquisition. The problem with castrating young male deer is that you can develop a condition called cactus buck (which, incidentally, is what we took to using as his name). This is when there is an imbalance in testosterone, enough to cause a rack to grow, but not enough to complete the process, and so the antlers grow in weird and kinda-bubbly (for lack of better description) and don’t shed like they should. In the wild, it’s often associated with testicular damage, like a deer jumps a fence and hits himself hard trying to clear the top. As a result, our deer looked like a freak of nature – when I saw the top of his head, it was like it was a pot that had left on to boil, and the antlers were bubbling over. Not long after I started, our vet worked out a hormone injection schedule that corrected this problem, and he began to grow and shed normal antlers for the rest of his long life – towards the end, he was actually sported a decent rack. I mostly bring this story up because I’d previously worked with zoo professionals who were adamant that you couldn’t castrate male deer for reasons of developing cactus buck.


Hormone treatment in process - our boy starting to grow in some normal antlers at last

Of course, the male’s new antlers were much prettier with his injections. The downside is that he wanted to use them. On us. There are few animals that give me more dread than a male ungulate in rut. I’ve worked with older keepers who swear up and down that male ungulates don’t feel pain – this is the result of their many failed efforts to fight off aggressive male deer and antelope in rut, who are single-minded in their attempts to kill/drive off keepers. Even castrated, Cactus was a pretty hard animal to manage at that time of year (while he still couldn’t breed, the hormone injections that fixed his antlers also made his attitude worse). He wasn’t as aggressive as he could be – just pushy, mostly, and he’d slowly, steadily follow up around as you tried to clean, showing a special interest in knocking over the wheelbarrow as he tried to spar with it. We had a rule that the deer exhibit was a two-person exhibit to service when he was like this. Some keepers carried pockets full of whole pears and apples to lob as a distraction when he got too close – but that just trained him to realize that he could get fruit by threatening keepers. Eventually, we solved the problem by building a larger catch-pen to hold him while we cleaned the exhibit when he was in rut. Oh, and deciding that in the future the exhibit would be for females only.

The deer were part of a native exhibit, and as the largest land mammal commonly found in our area, it made sense to include them. Some visitors were puzzled by their presence, others seemed almost angry that we had deer, like we were cheating them out of seeing something else. We’d get lots of comments about how they could bring us all the deer we wanted. The secret was, the deer could actually be hard to come by. We lived in an area that was very free from chronic wasting disease, and the state wanted to keep it that way, so it got to be a challenge to bring in new deer – they’d have to be deer found in our immediate area, and not many fawns turned up. Many that did were straight up euthanized by the state; it seldom crossed the minds of the authorities to ask if we could take them (such fawns would usually require hand-rearing, which we were willing and able to do, but the state didn’t have the bandwidth for). Towards the end of my time at that zoo, we were down to two individuals due to attrition, and were starting to worry that we wouldn’t be able to get anymore (and again, it was a native exhibit complex – it wasn’t like we could add gazelles and call it a day). I’ve heard that they’ve since gotten a few more to join the herd.

Lots of experience with uninvited white-tailed deer on grounds of various zoos, sometimes literally swarming the place at night, or even as soon as the gates close at the end of the day. They can be a nuisance, spreading disease and destroying foliage. On the other hand, clean carcasses (those that died of known cause and are fresh) can be fed out, as can carcasses donated by hunters or by state police as roadkill. I'm familiar with one case of a deer that entered a giraffe paddock and was literally chased to death by a giraffe, one of the stranger zoo deaths I've come across.

One last little deer story – our city hosted an annual dog show, which was located not far from the park where the zoo was. On that week, the park was full of folks walking their dogs, which tended to scare up all of the wild deer and send them running all over the town. When this happened, we always received lots of calls from folks convinced that those were our deer on the loose. Which baffled me – we had so many people say that they thought white-tailed deer were too boring or common to be zoo animals… but they couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that there were, in fact, wild deer in our area?

 

[Strathmorezoo]

Today, a species that a lot of members of this forum love to hate on, the white-tailed deer. I’ve worked with this native cervid at two facilities, one non-AZA, one AZA.

The herd at the AZA facility consisted of 1.4 individuals, all wild-born. Most came to the zoo in the same manner – found as a fawn, in most situations mistakenly believed to have been abandoned (white-tails are hiders, and it’s very common to find fawns on their own while their mothers are off feeding), and brought to the authorities, who then could not return the fawns to the wild. In one case, a woman brought the fawn home with her and raised it as a pet illegally. She probably would have gotten away with it, if she hadn’t brought it to her daughter’s school for show and tell one day.

The deer had a large, wooded paddock which they shared with a flock of wild turkeys. Substrate was a mix of leaf litter and pine needles (with a lot of careful raking, I was eventually able to get grass to grow in a few sunny spots), and a pool towards the front of the exhibit, which I occasionally saw the deer wade into. Towards the back on the enclosure was an open-fronted shed for shelter, which I seldom saw the deer use. Drilled into the side of the shed was the head of a push-broom, which we set up to allow the door to scratch/groom themselves. The deer were, as one would expect, fine outdoors in any climate conditions. The only thing which really seemed to bother them was the clouds of flies that swarmed them in the summer. Thankfully, most of them were calm enough to allow us to mist them with fly spray – we also put fly traps/paper around the shed, out of reach of the deer, but in an attempt to control the insects.

Along one side of the exhibit was an enclosure of wolves, separated by a small alleyway. The deer showed no alarm at the presence of wolves, nor did the wolves seem particularly interested in the deer – on one occasion, I saw a wolf and a deer standing directly opposite one another, curiously sniffing at each other. As skittish as our wolves were, and as friendly and outgoing as the deer were, we often commented that our wolves acted like deer and our deer acted like dogs. The deer varied in their friendliness – one was a puppy, who would shove her whole head into your pockets looking for treats. Others were a fair bit more skittish. We had one individual who had been found injured with her jaw out of whack, and as such her tongue lolled out the side of her mouth. She was still able to eat ok, but had a very hard time grooming herself, so we had to condition her to allow us to brush her – otherwise, she’d pull out hanks of hair (it was with her in mind that we set up the push-broom head).

Diet was based on Mazuri Wild Herbivore pellets with chopped produce – apple, carrot, pear, sweet potato, lettuce – mixed in, along with some browse and hay. All of them ate very well, but as is often with ungulates, there comes a certain age when they really seem to lose the ability to keep up their body weight, no matter how much they ate. In those situations, we’d offer supplemental feedings, but we always kind of knew that it meant that we were getting closer to the end of the line.

Breeding in our deer herd was not desired, so our male, acquired years before I arrived, had been castrated upon acquisition. The problem with castrating young male deer is that you can develop a condition called cactus buck (which, incidentally, is what we took to using as his name). This is when there is an imbalance in testosterone, enough to cause a rack to grow, but not enough to complete the process, and so the antlers grow in weird and kinda-bubbly (for lack of better description) and don’t shed like they should. In the wild, it’s often associated with testicular damage, like a deer jumps a fence and hits himself hard trying to clear the top. As a result, our deer looked like a freak of nature – when I saw the top of his head, it was like it was a pot that had left on to boil, and the antlers were bubbling over. Not long after I started, our vet worked out a hormone injection schedule that corrected this problem, and he began to grow and shed normal antlers for the rest of his long life – towards the end, he was actually sported a decent rack. I mostly bring this story up because I’d previously worked with zoo professionals who were adamant that you couldn’t castrate male deer for reasons of developing cactus buck.

View attachment 799557
Hormone treatment in process - our boy starting to grow in some normal antlers at last

Of course, the male’s new antlers were much prettier with his injections. The downside is that he wanted to use them. On us. There are few animals that give me more dread than a male ungulate in rut. I’ve worked with older keepers who swear up and down that male ungulates don’t feel pain – this is the result of their many failed efforts to fight off aggressive male deer and antelope in rut, who are single-minded in their attempts to kill/drive off keepers. Even castrated, Cactus was a pretty hard animal to manage at that time of year (while he still couldn’t breed, the hormone injections that fixed his antlers also made his attitude worse). He wasn’t as aggressive as he could be – just pushy, mostly, and he’d slowly, steadily follow up around as you tried to clean, showing a special interest in knocking over the wheelbarrow as he tried to spar with it. We had a rule that the deer exhibit was a two-person exhibit to service when he was like this. Some keepers carried pockets full of whole pears and apples to lob as a distraction when he got too close – but that just trained him to realize that he could get fruit by threatening keepers. Eventually, we solved the problem by building a larger catch-pen to hold him while we cleaned the exhibit when he was in rut. Oh, and deciding that in the future the exhibit would be for females only.

The deer were part of a native exhibit, and as the largest land mammal commonly found in our area, it made sense to include them. Some visitors were puzzled by their presence, others seemed almost angry that we had deer, like we were cheating them out of seeing something else. We’d get lots of comments about how they could bring us all the deer we wanted. The secret was, the deer could actually be hard to come by. We lived in an area that was very free from chronic wasting disease, and the state wanted to keep it that way, so it got to be a challenge to bring in new deer – they’d have to be deer found in our immediate area, and not many fawns turned up. Many that did were straight up euthanized by the state; it seldom crossed the minds of the authorities to ask if we could take them (such fawns would usually require hand-rearing, which we were willing and able to do, but the state didn’t have the bandwidth for). Towards the end of my time at that zoo, we were down to two individuals due to attrition, and were starting to worry that we wouldn’t be able to get anymore (and again, it was a native exhibit complex – it wasn’t like we could add gazelles and call it a day). I’ve heard that they’ve since gotten a few more to join the herd.

Lots of experience with uninvited white-tailed deer on grounds of various zoos, sometimes literally swarming the place at night, or even as soon as the gates close at the end of the day. They can be a nuisance, spreading disease and destroying foliage. On the other hand, clean carcasses (those that died of known cause and are fresh) can be fed out, as can carcasses donated by hunters or by state police as roadkill. I'm familiar with one case of a deer that entered a giraffe paddock and was literally chased to death by a giraffe, one of the stranger zoo deaths I've come across.

One last little deer story – our city hosted an annual dog show, which was located not far from the park where the zoo was. On that week, the park was full of folks walking their dogs, which tended to scare up all of the wild deer and send them running all over the town. When this happened, we always received lots of calls from folks convinced that those were our deer on the loose. Which baffled me – we had so many people say that they thought white-tailed deer were too boring or common to be zoo animals… but they couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that there were, in fact, wild deer in our area?

Hi Aardwolf, like you, I have always tried to emphasise to new keepers working with any deer species, how dangerous males are during rut,no matter how big the deer are. Also, when explaining to people how good deer are at swimming, some refuse to believe it, or they think that you are joking.

 

[FBBird]

Today, a species that a lot of members of this forum love to hate on, the white-tailed deer. I’ve worked with this native cervid at two facilities, one non-AZA, one AZA.

The herd at the AZA facility consisted of 1.4 individuals, all wild-born. Most came to the zoo in the same manner – found as a fawn, in most situations mistakenly believed to have been abandoned (white-tails are hiders, and it’s very common to find fawns on their own while their mothers are off feeding), and brought to the authorities, who then could not return the fawns to the wild. In one case, a woman brought the fawn home with her and raised it as a pet illegally. She probably would have gotten away with it, if she hadn’t brought it to her daughter’s school for show and tell one day.

The deer had a large, wooded paddock which they shared with a flock of wild turkeys. Substrate was a mix of leaf litter and pine needles (with a lot of careful raking, I was eventually able to get grass to grow in a few sunny spots), and a pool towards the front of the exhibit, which I occasionally saw the deer wade into. Towards the back on the enclosure was an open-fronted shed for shelter, which I seldom saw the deer use. Drilled into the side of the shed was the head of a push-broom, which we set up to allow the door to scratch/groom themselves. The deer were, as one would expect, fine outdoors in any climate conditions. The only thing which really seemed to bother them was the clouds of flies that swarmed them in the summer. Thankfully, most of them were calm enough to allow us to mist them with fly spray – we also put fly traps/paper around the shed, out of reach of the deer, but in an attempt to control the insects.

Along one side of the exhibit was an enclosure of wolves, separated by a small alleyway. The deer showed no alarm at the presence of wolves, nor did the wolves seem particularly interested in the deer – on one occasion, I saw a wolf and a deer standing directly opposite one another, curiously sniffing at each other. As skittish as our wolves were, and as friendly and outgoing as the deer were, we often commented that our wolves acted like deer and our deer acted like dogs. The deer varied in their friendliness – one was a puppy, who would shove her whole head into your pockets looking for treats. Others were a fair bit more skittish. We had one individual who had been found injured with her jaw out of whack, and as such her tongue lolled out the side of her mouth. She was still able to eat ok, but had a very hard time grooming herself, so we had to condition her to allow us to brush her – otherwise, she’d pull out hanks of hair (it was with her in mind that we set up the push-broom head).

Diet was based on Mazuri Wild Herbivore pellets with chopped produce – apple, carrot, pear, sweet potato, lettuce – mixed in, along with some browse and hay. All of them ate very well, but as is often with ungulates, there comes a certain age when they really seem to lose the ability to keep up their body weight, no matter how much they ate. In those situations, we’d offer supplemental feedings, but we always kind of knew that it meant that we were getting closer to the end of the line.

Breeding in our deer herd was not desired, so our male, acquired years before I arrived, had been castrated upon acquisition. The problem with castrating young male deer is that you can develop a condition called cactus buck (which, incidentally, is what we took to using as his name). This is when there is an imbalance in testosterone, enough to cause a rack to grow, but not enough to complete the process, and so the antlers grow in weird and kinda-bubbly (for lack of better description) and don’t shed like they should. In the wild, it’s often associated with testicular damage, like a deer jumps a fence and hits himself hard trying to clear the top. As a result, our deer looked like a freak of nature – when I saw the top of his head, it was like it was a pot that had left on to boil, and the antlers were bubbling over. Not long after I started, our vet worked out a hormone injection schedule that corrected this problem, and he began to grow and shed normal antlers for the rest of his long life – towards the end, he was actually sported a decent rack. I mostly bring this story up because I’d previously worked with zoo professionals who were adamant that you couldn’t castrate male deer for reasons of developing cactus buck.

View attachment 799557
Hormone treatment in process - our boy starting to grow in some normal antlers at last

Of course, the male’s new antlers were much prettier with his injections. The downside is that he wanted to use them. On us. There are few animals that give me more dread than a male ungulate in rut. I’ve worked with older keepers who swear up and down that male ungulates don’t feel pain – this is the result of their many failed efforts to fight off aggressive male deer and antelope in rut, who are single-minded in their attempts to kill/drive off keepers. Even castrated, Cactus was a pretty hard animal to manage at that time of year (while he still couldn’t breed, the hormone injections that fixed his antlers also made his attitude worse). He wasn’t as aggressive as he could be – just pushy, mostly, and he’d slowly, steadily follow up around as you tried to clean, showing a special interest in knocking over the wheelbarrow as he tried to spar with it. We had a rule that the deer exhibit was a two-person exhibit to service when he was like this. Some keepers carried pockets full of whole pears and apples to lob as a distraction when he got too close – but that just trained him to realize that he could get fruit by threatening keepers. Eventually, we solved the problem by building a larger catch-pen to hold him while we cleaned the exhibit when he was in rut. Oh, and deciding that in the future the exhibit would be for females only.

The deer were part of a native exhibit, and as the largest land mammal commonly found in our area, it made sense to include them. Some visitors were puzzled by their presence, others seemed almost angry that we had deer, like we were cheating them out of seeing something else. We’d get lots of comments about how they could bring us all the deer we wanted. The secret was, the deer could actually be hard to come by. We lived in an area that was very free from chronic wasting disease, and the state wanted to keep it that way, so it got to be a challenge to bring in new deer – they’d have to be deer found in our immediate area, and not many fawns turned up. Many that did were straight up euthanized by the state; it seldom crossed the minds of the authorities to ask if we could take them (such fawns would usually require hand-rearing, which we were willing and able to do, but the state didn’t have the bandwidth for). Towards the end of my time at that zoo, we were down to two individuals due to attrition, and were starting to worry that we wouldn’t be able to get anymore (and again, it was a native exhibit complex – it wasn’t like we could add gazelles and call it a day). I’ve heard that they’ve since gotten a few more to join the herd.

Lots of experience with uninvited white-tailed deer on grounds of various zoos, sometimes literally swarming the place at night, or even as soon as the gates close at the end of the day. They can be a nuisance, spreading disease and destroying foliage. On the other hand, clean carcasses (those that died of known cause and are fresh) can be fed out, as can carcasses donated by hunters or by state police as roadkill. I'm familiar with one case of a deer that entered a giraffe paddock and was literally chased to death by a giraffe, one of the stranger zoo deaths I've come across.

One last little deer story – our city hosted an annual dog show, which was located not far from the park where the zoo was. On that week, the park was full of folks walking their dogs, which tended to scare up all of the wild deer and send them running all over the town. When this happened, we always received lots of calls from folks convinced that those were our deer on the loose. Which baffled me – we had so many people say that they thought white-tailed deer were too boring or common to be zoo animals… but they couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that there were, in fact, wild deer in our area?

I think whether or not castrated deer grow antlers may depend on their age at castration. I know of two Fallow haviers that never grew antlers

 

[turkeyfox]

I think whether or not castrated deer grow antlers may depend on their age at castration. I know of two Fallow haviers that never grew antlers

I never knew the English language had a term for castrated deer.

 

[Kranich29]

Interesting that they were castrated, as the problems with antlers can be easily avoided just by going with vasectomy, rather than castration

 

[Aardwolf]

@FBBird, absolutely, it can be done safely and effectively. As you showed, if no one was castrating deer, there wouldn’t be a word for it (albeit one that’s seldom used – maybe more commonly in the UK, but I think that’s only the second or third time I’ve actually seen it). A major theme I keep coming back to is that, largely because of the small-sample size many zookeepers work with, limited experience gets conflated to superstition and lore. When I tried telling folks at the zoo that other facilities were able to do this successfully, they just wouldn’t listen. Castrated deer = cactus buck. Case closed.

There are few sights less reassuring to a zookeeper than watching a police officer walk up to your front gate carrying a cardboard box at arm's length. In fact, the only thing I think that worries me work is coming in first thing in the morning and seeing the cardboard box is already there, outside your front gate... and it's moving slightly. One such occasion of the former happened early in the career, when a policeman informed me that I, the first person that he saw, was now the proud owner of whatever the hell it was that was in the box, cause he sure couldn't figure it out, and could I sign here, please?

With at least enough knowledge gleaned from the cop to know that it wasn't a venomous snake or something (which has happened before), I took the box inside, assembled the staff, got some really thick gloves, and opened the box.

And that is how I met Kayla, the kinkajou. She'd been found wandering the streets, dazed as confused as only a small nocturnal mammal in broad daylight can be, when the cops found her and brought her to us, the nearest zoo that they could think of.



(Incidentally, this is not how any of this is supposed to work - they should have involved animal control, drawn up a chain of custody, gotten a vet to take a look at it, I don't know, CALLED TO SEE IF WE COULD EVEN TAKE IT... not just... showed up. If there's one annoying trend I've noticed in my professional dealings with law enforcement, it's that the cops kind of just do whatever they want and we have to work around them.)

Not knowing at all what the story was with this animal, we placed her in a wood-framed, wire-fronted holding cage in a storage room to keep her away from the other animals, treated her as semi-quarantined, and then retreated to another room to figure out what do with her. Another annoying thing I've noticed about not just cops, but non-zoo folks in general. They just assume that anything animal related, the zoo will take care of it or know what to do. In our case, of the six animal staff at our zoo, I soon found out that three of them had never even heard of a kinkajou before. I was the only one who'd ever worked with one at all - a rather elderly ambassador animal at an AZA zoo I'd volunteered at when I was younger.

I planned Kayla’s care based on what I remembered from those early days working with our kinkajou. I took a pillow case and some bungees and made a hanging nest for her, which she immediately retreated into. I also formulated a diet for her of kibble and fruit. She initially showed little interest in the kibble, but by drizzling some honey over it (there’s a reason they call them honey bears), she soon was scarfing it down. Water was provided in a hanging bottle drinker. We also tried to leave her alone as much as possible, keeping the lights out and entering the room only once or twice a day.

As it happened, Kayla was a young animal, or so it seemed. It also seemed like she was really NOT a former ambassador animal, as she was incredibly foul-tempered, quick to lunge and snap at anyone who approached her hammock with needle-sharp teeth (the ambassador I worked with was a sweet, sleepy little beast, who’d happily curl around her neck like a scarf, holding on with her prehensile tail, and occasionally licking you were her absurdly-long tongue). I suspect she was a former pet who did not care for the attempted enforced snuggles, bit her owner, and then got dumped on the street as a means of disposal (Paris Hilton had a pet kinkajou which treated her the same way). We never seriously considered exhibiting her. I flirted with the idea of putting her on exhibit with some of our small primates just so she’d have an outdoor space, but as snappy as she was, we decided against it. Besides, given her temperament, I feel like the noise of the crowds would have been very stressful for her.

Even more so than confiscations, animal acquisitions such as these are the most stressful events for a keeper. You suddenly are taking in an animal that you know nothing about – no medical history, no behavioral history, no husbandry info, nada. For all you know, it suffers severe allergies and is going to die horribly the first time you try to feed it a fairly standard diet. For all you know, it’s got serious diseases or parasites. I know of one major US zoo where, decades ago, police brought a chimp that was found walking the city streets (this being back in the day when baby chimps were common pets). It was brought to the zoo and, foolishly, placed in the primate building (this was before quarantine was really a thing, or before most zoos had hospitals). Surprise! The chimp ended up having tuberculosis.

We only kept the kinkajou for a few months, before she was rehomed to another facility. As far as I can tell, no law enforcement ever came back to follow up on her case or see what was going on with her.

 

[Pertinax]

I never knew the English language had a term for castrated deer.

I think it may be medieval in origin but can't remember for sure. There is also a term for the strange antler development sometimes caused by castration(or in wild deer testicular damage). It is 'peruque' from the french, meaning 'wig head'.

 

[Pertinax]

Hi Aardwolf, like you, I have always tried to emphasise to new keepers working with any deer species, how dangerous males are during rut,no matter how big the deer are. Also, when explaining to people how good deer are at swimming, some refuse to believe it, or they think that you are joking.

I've variously been told Axis deer are among the worst though obviously the Cervus group including Wapiti and all the various Red subspecies must be strong contenders too, as must be Moose. Handraised roebucks can be devils too. Always amazed when I see video of unwitting tourists at places like Yellowstone NP wandering around so close to rutting Wapiti bulls, or people in the London Parks with the Red stags. Another contender for high danger from aggression in captivity I imagine would be Sika stags, Sika as a whole seem remarkably unafraid of people at the best of times compared to e.g. timid Fallow.

I wouldn't fear truly wild deer in the same way, even when in rut, but park deer are far more accustomed to people while those in closer captivity such as zoos and hence even tamer, must be the most dangerous of all.

 

[Pertinax]

Also, when explaining to people how good deer are at swimming, some refuse to believe it, or they think that you are joking.

Yes indeed, they are very strong swimmers and can easily cross rivers, estuaries, even inlets and arms of the sea.

 

[Aardwolf]

I’ve worked with a lot of toads over the years, from delicate little Kihansi spray toads, which could perch on my thumbnail, to the adorable hog-nosed Puerto Rican crested toads, part of a reintroduction program, to the Asian yellow-spots, one of the most unexpectedly-attractive of toads. Still, the species that I have the most memories of, and one of the toads that I have worked the most with, is that most unglamorous of amphibians, the cane toad, AKA marine toad. I’ve worked with this species at two AZA and one non-AZA zoo.

The appeal of this species – especially to zoos that don’t really have much in the way of an amphibian culture – is easily understood. Sure, they aren’t the most attractive of toads – I mean, they basically look like big American toads – but they do have an impressive size. And yes, they work well for messaging about invasive species. But what really makes these toads so popular is that fact that they are, for all practical purposes, indestructible. I don’t like saying this about any species, because I feel that the realization that some animals are super-hardy leads to them getting substandard care. But seriously. I’m pretty sure the only way you can kill a cane toad is with a sledgehammer. Whereas so many amphibians are so delicate, so fragile, cane toads are just inherently tough animals. Which makes sense – there’s a reason that they were able to adjust so readily to alien environments and become invasive. They are less vulnerable to environmental contaminants, they’ll eat everything/anything, they’re tolerant of a wide variety of climatic conditions. They’re just tough.

One cane toad at an AZA zoo was an ambassador – which they are well-suited for, being larger/easier to see than many other species, and more tolerant of handling. Another was an exhibit animal, kept in a good-sized enclosure, about 4’ x 4’ feet. This was actually a zoo that had a largish amphibian collection, and we were putting together a special gallery for a celebration of “Year of the Frog.” In addition to the many endangered species we would be displaying, we wanted to highlight some species that were thriving in a human-dominated world, such as American bullfrog, African clawed frog, and these guys. That being said, for some species, such as this, I think it also can be beneficial to reinforce the fact that they aren’t alien monsters – they also have a native range, where they belong, and a niche that they properly fill. There’s nothing inherently “bad” or “evil” about cane toads… or brown tree snakes… or European starlings. They’re not trying to be destructive. They’re just animals, trying to survive in an environment where they were never meant to be.

I talked about how tough cane toads can be. Easy to keep doesn’t always mean “kept well,” however, which was my takeaway from my non-AZA experience with this species. A large specimen was kept in a 20-gallon tank. Now, I know toads don’t move much, but this was pretty ridiculous. The thing could barely move – nor was there a larger exhibit space to move it into. Between the water bowl (these guys like to soak a lot) and the hide (that being their other favorite hobby), there was almost no visible floor when you looked down from the top of the exhibit. It rarely moved – and when it did jump up, it would hit the roof of the tank, so I had to keep bricks on top of the lid to keep the toad from knocking it off and potentially escaping. Light was pretty simple and basic, and there was no supplemental heating, though this tank was pretty close to the old furnace that heated the reptile house, so that kept it pretty warm.

And so, I decided to try to expand the space as best as I could. In the warmer months, we were already taking the toad out into the grass behind the reptile house and letting it hop around a little for exercise and enrichment. I’d have liked to have tried this in a more wooded location, but didn’t exactly have permission from the owner for doing this, so wanted to be positive that I didn’t risk losing the toad. I also made a small play-pen in the back of the reptile house, where I could put it down for a little while to have a little more space. Neither of these activities did much to mitigate the abysmally small habitat for the animal, but there was little else that could be done under the situation, other than 1) try to rehome it (and not many people are banging at your door trying to get a cane toad) or 2) wait for it to die, and then don’t replace it.

Cane toads are, of course, toxic, so you want to be careful of your eyes and mouth when handling them (I mentioned earlier that they were handleable – their dry skin is tougher than the soft, moist skin of frogs – but “good for handling” is a fairly low bar for amphibians). It also made me a little wary of putting them in mixed species exhibits, though I know it has been done before.

These guys are not picky eaters. The non-AZA was a bit cheap, and tended to feed a rodent heavy diet, because rodents are easier and cheaper to keep/store than live insects, though I did get crickets when I could (but overall too fatty to be the dietary mainstay). At the AZA zoos, it was more varied and more invert focused – crickets, dubias, earthworms. I’ve heard of folks feeding crayfish before, but never tried it for them myself.

 

[Strathmorezoo]

Hi Aardwolf, interesting that you used a cane toad as an ambassador animal, particularly with their toxicity,UK health and safety would have something to say about it. When I worked with cane toads we had 20 which were housed in two ground floor vivs, about 6ft × 6ft. There were rocks that they could climb out on, with about 15cm of water. The best thing being drainage so they could be hosed down daily. We supplemented their diet with ox heart and/or liver dusted in multivitamins once a week. Really easy to feed individually.There was a basking lamp over the largest rock plus some hidey areas.

 

[Aardwolf]

@Strathmorezoo, how curious. Were you under the impression that when I said "ambassador" I meant that I was letting people touch them? Because there's no amphibian I'd want to put in that situation. Other than that, I can't imagine a safety risk of the toad - not unless I threw it at a kid and it went into their mouth. And even then, I'd probably worry about them choking on it before the poison got to them...

Today, a skim into another lizard family, one which I’m very fond of, the agamas. I’ve got a soft-spot for these iguana-wannabes, largely due to my time studying herpetology in East Africa, where 99% of my collected data was on red-headed agamas (a species I’ve kept as a pet), as well as my own pet bearded dragon growing up. I’ve kept a few species in zoos over the years. Today, we’ll primarily be talking about one of the most well-known of agamids, the frilled lizard, with notes on a few other species.

I’ve worked with frilled lizards at two AZA facilities. What I mostly recall about these lizards is that I’ve never, in fact, actually seen one frill up, even when I’d handle them. Which is just as well, I suppose, because it’s a behavior that they engage in when they are stressed or agitated, and you don’t want to see that in your animals; this is one of the species for which I think multimedia makes a great compliment to live animal exhibits, because you can use footage on electric signs to show behaviors that are either seasonal, infrequent, or associated with stress on the animal to educate visitors year-round. The closest I ever seen to frilling was their reaction when I would feed them calcium-dusted crickets or roaches, either off tongs or scatter fed in the exhibit. At the moment of snapping up the insect, the frill would poof out a tiny bit – I called it their hiccups – with a little flutter of excitement before settling back down.

​

The exhibit at the first AZA was about 4’ x 4’ x 4’ (the standard size at our zoo), with a rock wall wrapped around the back three walls of the exhibit, sand substrate, and several pieces of deadfall and tufts of dried grass. The three female frillies shared the exhibit with two bearded dragons and a White’s tree frog. (Most exhibits of frilled lizards in American zoos tend to be Australian Outback themed, as that is the habitat that most people associate the species with. Most of the stock in the US, however, is derived from Indonesia – so maybe we should be focusing in the jungly-side of this species nature?) At the other AZA zoo, the exhibits were all furnished by keepers from scratch. It’s from this facility that I have my most frustrating experience with frilled lizards.

I was brand new to the zoo (and fresh out of college), eager to make my mark. The frilled lizards were one of the species I’d inherited in my section and, as one of the few species that I was very familiar with, I decided to start with them. I spent most of the day working on fixing up their habitat, arranging sand and rocks and branches, then put the lizards back in. Then I went home for the night. When I came back the next day, I got a surprise. The lizards were in a holding tank in the back. All of the rocks and branches were stacked outside of the exhibit tank. Every last grain of sand was swept out. All that remained inside was a sticky note from my curator. "Do it better this time," was all it said.

Let's not beat around the bush - this guy was a jerk, and there were probably better ways to communicate with and train a brand new keeper in their first real job. But I at least was able to start understanding his aesthetic. Looking back on it, my frilled lizard display, which I had been so proud of at the time, was pretty damn ugly, sloppy-looking, amateurish. As he explained later, he wanted exhibits to look so natural that, if you took a photo of the animal in it and showed it to an expert on that animal, they might believe it was taken in the wild.

So I tried again, and I eventually got the frilled lizard exhibit... presentable. I soon learned that it was easier to get a natural effect by starting with smaller exhibits, so I began working on the small tanks. First I did the Philippine tree skinks. Then fire salamanders. Then red mountain rat snakes. The technique, I learned, was to trust in nature as the best architect. I looked at pictures of the animal in the wild and tried to recreate the effect. For some species, I was even able to use my own memories of seeing one in the wild and tried to recapture that instant of surprise of spotting the animal for the first time. For a greater plated lizard exhibit, I remembered the red clay of East Africa and searched until I found some. For fire salamanders, I remembered the images in books of a salamander tucked beneath a mossy fallen log, and I tried to recreate that. Nature abhors straight lines, so I softened the edges with live plants and pieces of deadfall. Towards the end, I got pretty decent at it.



Two other species of agama also hold special fondness for me. First was the Philippine sailfin dragon, kept at one AZA zoo in a large, mostly-aquatic tank shared with common snake-necked turtles. This was a much larger habitat than the frillies had, bigger than my little cubicle in the reptile house, with the front two-thirds taken up by a pool about three feet deep. Most of the land area was river rock. I seldom saw the lizard in the water, she (it was a lone female, so I never got to work with a truly stunning male) was usually draped like a leopard on a branch over the water. She was fed a tray of chopped dark greens, fruits, and vegetables, with some gut-loaded, dusted insects tossed in. I put her tray up high to keep the turtles from storming the beech and raiding it. She was a beautiful, calm lizard, and I would have loved to have had a male and tried to breed her.

The other species I hold a soft spot for because of its tiny size and curious appearance. Shield-tailed agamas are among the most endearing of little lizards – so small that they were comfortably housed in a 40 -gallon tank, and I swear I still almost lost them in there sometimes. They were fed a diet of finely chopped greens and veggies with a few insects, which I’d carefully place them around in a little circle to make sure everyone was eating. These little guys are semi-social, so you can find them in groups of one male and several females. They were delightfully low maintenance animals, and I’d often sit on the railing in the public area and watch them scurry around. Incidentally, I love desert reptiles because they are so much easier to maintain than rainforest ones. Who needs the hassle of constantly fretting about humidity and misting?



As a final note about agamas – I mentioned my experience with red-heads, in the wild and, briefly, as pets. I have never understood why this species – the most common of savannah herps – has not become a mainstay of zoos. Why are ZooChatters not constantly complaining that they are sick and tired of seeing these things in every zoo they go to? Males are brightly colored and beautiful. They are among the most social of lizards and can be kept in large groups. They’re so active, and easy to see, and so CHEAP AND EASY to take care of (husbandry is pretty close to a bearded dragon). I could easily imagine a decent sized exhibit with a colony of these scurrying around a rock kopje, maybe climbing over the tops of pancake tortoises, or chasing each other around an artificial termite mound. The lack of popularity of this species absolutely blows my mind.

 

[Strathmorezoo]

Yes

@Strathmorezoo, how curious. Were you under the impression that when I said "ambassador" I meant that I was letting people touch them? Because there's no amphibian I'd want to put in that situation. Other than that, I can't imagine a safety risk of the toad - not unless I threw it at a kid and it went into their mouth. And even then, I'd probably worry about them choking on it before the poison got to them...

Today, a skim into another lizard family, one which I’m very fond of, the agamas. I’ve got a soft-spot for these iguana-wannabes, largely due to my time studying herpetology in East Africa, where 99% of my collected data was on red-headed agamas (a species I’ve kept as a pet), as well as my own pet bearded dragon growing up. I’ve kept a few species in zoos over the years. Today, we’ll primarily be talking about one of the most well-known of agamids, the frilled lizard, with notes on a few other species.

I’ve worked with frilled lizards at two AZA facilities. What I mostly recall about these lizards is that I’ve never, in fact, actually seen one frill up, even when I’d handle them. Which is just as well, I suppose, because it’s a behavior that they engage in when they are stressed or agitated, and you don’t want to see that in your animals; this is one of the species for which I think multimedia makes a great compliment to live animal exhibits, because you can use footage on electric signs to show behaviors that are either seasonal, infrequent, or associated with stress on the animal to educate visitors year-round. The closest I ever seen to frilling was their reaction when I would feed them calcium-dusted crickets or roaches, either off tongs or scatter fed in the exhibit. At the moment of snapping up the insect, the frill would poof out a tiny bit – I called it their hiccups – with a little flutter of excitement before settling back down.

View attachment 800758
​

The exhibit at the first AZA was about 4’ x 4’ x 4’ (the standard size at our zoo), with a rock wall wrapped around the back three walls of the exhibit, sand substrate, and several pieces of deadfall and tufts of dried grass. The three female frillies shared the exhibit with two bearded dragons and a White’s tree frog. (Most exhibits of frilled lizards in American zoos tend to be Australian Outback themed, as that is the habitat that most people associate the species with. Most of the stock in the US, however, is derived from Indonesia – so maybe we should be focusing in the jungly-side of this species nature?) At the other AZA zoo, the exhibits were all furnished by keepers from scratch. It’s from this facility that I have my most frustrating experience with frilled lizards.

I was brand new to the zoo (and fresh out of college), eager to make my mark. The frilled lizards were one of the species I’d inherited in my section and, as one of the few species that I was very familiar with, I decided to start with them. I spent most of the day working on fixing up their habitat, arranging sand and rocks and branches, then put the lizards back in. Then I went home for the night. When I came back the next day, I got a surprise. The lizards were in a holding tank in the back. All of the rocks and branches were stacked outside of the exhibit tank. Every last grain of sand was swept out. All that remained inside was a sticky note from my curator. "Do it better this time," was all it said.

Let's not beat around the bush - this guy was a jerk, and there were probably better ways to communicate with and train a brand new keeper in their first real job. But I at least was able to start understanding his aesthetic. Looking back on it, my frilled lizard display, which I had been so proud of at the time, was pretty damn ugly, sloppy-looking, amateurish. As he explained later, he wanted exhibits to look so natural that, if you took a photo of the animal in it and showed it to an expert on that animal, they might believe it was taken in the wild.

So I tried again, and I eventually got the frilled lizard exhibit... presentable. I soon learned that it was easier to get a natural effect by starting with smaller exhibits, so I began working on the small tanks. First I did the Philippine tree skinks. Then fire salamanders. Then red mountain rat snakes. The technique, I learned, was to trust in nature as the best architect. I looked at pictures of the animal in the wild and tried to recreate the effect. For some species, I was even able to use my own memories of seeing one in the wild and tried to recapture that instant of surprise of spotting the animal for the first time. For a greater plated lizard exhibit, I remembered the red clay of East Africa and searched until I found some. For fire salamanders, I remembered the images in books of a salamander tucked beneath a mossy fallen log, and I tried to recreate that. Nature abhors straight lines, so I softened the edges with live plants and pieces of deadfall. Towards the end, I got pretty decent at it.

View attachment 800756

Two other species of agama also hold special fondness for me. First was the Philippine sailfin dragon, kept at one AZA zoo in a large, mostly-aquatic tank shared with common snake-necked turtles. This was a much larger habitat than the frillies had, bigger than my little cubicle in the reptile house, with the front two-thirds taken up by a pool about three feet deep. Most of the land area was river rock. I seldom saw the lizard in the water, she (it was a lone female, so I never got to work with a truly stunning male) was usually draped like a leopard on a branch over the water. She was fed a tray of chopped dark greens, fruits, and vegetables, with some gut-loaded, dusted insects tossed in. I put her tray up high to keep the turtles from storming the beech and raiding it. She was a beautiful, calm lizard, and I would have loved to have had a male and tried to breed her.

The other species I hold a soft spot for because of its tiny size and curious appearance. Shield-tailed agamas are among the most endearing of little lizards – so small that they were comfortably housed in a 40 -gallon tank, and I swear I still almost lost them in there sometimes. They were fed a diet of finely chopped greens and veggies with a few insects, which I’d carefully place them around in a little circle to make sure everyone was eating. These little guys are semi-social, so you can find them in groups of one male and several females. They were delightfully low maintenance animals, and I’d often sit on the railing in the public area and watch them scurry around. Incidentally, I love desert reptiles because they are so much easier to maintain than rainforest ones. Who needs the hassle of constantly fretting about humidity and misting?

View attachment 800757

As a final note about agamas – I mentioned my experience with red-heads, in the wild and, briefly, as pets. I have never understood why this species – the most common of savannah herps – has not become a mainstay of zoos. Why are ZooChatters not constantly complaining that they are sick and tired of seeing these things in every zoo they go to? Males are brightly colored and beautiful. They are among the most social of lizards and can be kept in large groups. They’re so active, and easy to see, and so CHEAP AND EASY to take care of (husbandry is pretty close to a bearded dragon). I could easily imagine a decent sized exhibit with a colony of these scurrying around a rock kopje, maybe climbing over the tops of pancake tortoises, or chasing each other around an artificial termite mound. The lack of popularity of this species absolutely blows my mind.

I'm afraid that's how I read it and as I said, in the UK, we are probably more protected with potentially toxic animals

 

[Great Argus]

As a final note about agamas – I mentioned my experience with red-heads, in the wild and, briefly, as pets. I have never understood why this species – the most common of savannah herps – has not become a mainstay of zoos. Why are ZooChatters not constantly complaining that they are sick and tired of seeing these things in every zoo they go to? Males are brightly colored and beautiful. They are among the most social of lizards and can be kept in large groups. They’re so active, and easy to see, and so CHEAP AND EASY to take care of (husbandry is pretty close to a bearded dragon). I could easily imagine a decent sized exhibit with a colony of these scurrying around a rock kopje, maybe climbing over the tops of pancake tortoises, or chasing each other around an artificial termite mound. The lack of popularity of this species absolutely blows my mind.

I recall agreeing with you previously on this topic, I'm surprised the species isn't more popular. Some years ago now I saw a large male in a savannah themed exhibit at the Oregon Zoo that I at least thought was a very striking lizard. With the various African tortoises and what not there's plenty of options for an excellent, easily visible display. Sure they aren't endangered, but zoos don't seem to have any issues with keeping tons of corn snakes, beardies, and diamondback rattlers.

 

[Joker22Hero]

Having caught up with this thread on a long train journey I wanted to chime in to say how much I’ve enjoyed reading about your experiences as a keeper, thanks for all the work that has gone into this write up so far!

 

[Aardwolf]

Today, a quick peek at the three Eurasian deer species I’ve worked with (excluding Reeve’s munjtac, which was sufficient different to be treated on its own). These are the European fallow deer, the sika deer, and the chital, or Axis deer. I worked with all three species together at one non-AZA facility, also working with fallow deer at a second non-AZA facility



Numerically, the fallow deer is the species that I worked with the most – at the primary non-AZA facility we’re discussing, there were over thirty of them. This facility was a feeding safari exhibit, where visitors were driven through a large, multi-acre field habitat with various ungulates and ratites. These species were all capable of staying outdoors year round with minimal shelter, though they had access to a few unheated barns (well-bedded with hay in the winter), as well as concrete culverts built into the side of a hill for shelter.

The fallow deer primarily served as the bulk or filler for the exhibit – kind of like peanuts in a bag of mixed nuts, with the zebras, bison, etc being the walnuts, Brazil nuts, and other good stuff. They filled out the exhibit and were reliable, if not exciting, feeders – it wasn’t unusual to see visitors hold back their grain from the fallow deer until the end of the tour, hoping that some of the more “exciting” animals would come to them instead. Still, the deer could usually be counted on to swarm the wagon in force, though I noticed that the bucks were usually less-inclined to approach, perhaps due to worries of getting their antlers tangled up. Besides the wagons, the deer had ad lib hay, as well as grain provided in troughs at the end of each day.

One of the convenient things about fallow deer, especially when managing a large herd in a zoo, is that they show a lot of coat variation – our herd was about evenly split between the common coat pattern, chestnut with spots, solid brown, and white. This made counting and keeping track of the deer much easier than would have been possible if they’d all looked the same. (The other non-AZA zoo I worked with this species at kept three bucks, one of each color). Each deer also had an ear tag, inserted shortly after birth (and this herd bred nonstop), which was required by the state for tracking deer for CWD purposes – but these could only really be read when the deer was right in front of you. When a deer would die, we would remove the tagged ear and save it in the freezer as proof of death for the state, to confirm that we weren’t trafficking deer. At another non-AZA facility were I worked (but not with the deer), untagged fallow deer – those that grew up and evaded the staff before they could be tagged – were culled for big cat food.

The males would fight a bit in the rut, but it never seemed that big of a hassle, and there seemed to be enough females (and enough space to avoid one another) that all of the bucks were able to cover a few females.

One year, we decided to experiment with hand-rearing some of the fawns to see if that would make them better feeders, more inclined to approach the wagons, and easier for us to catch up and handle. Two female fawns were selected and duly pulled, hand-reared in our petting barn alongside that year’s kids and lambs, then reintroduced to the main paddock. They were bottle-fed on lamb replacer and seemed to do well, though after we placed them back with the main deer herd, we didn’t really notice any real differences in their behavior that would justify us going through the work of doing it again (I know of a few AZA facilities that hand-raise some of their flightier ungulates, such as pronghorns and smaller gazelles, to make them safer to work around, less likely to run into a fence and hurt themselves).


The doe chital seen in this photo was one we dubbed "earless" - even though she obviously did had ears, just little ones.

Fallow deer have their advantages in a safari park – numerous, common, easy to care for, hardy – but I have to admit, I think they’re also just about the ugliest of deer, from their weirdly wide faces to their scoop-like antlers. Aesthetically, I greatly preferred the chital – the buck seemed to strike the perfect balance between the muscle and power of a larger deer, such as a wapiti or red deer, and the grace and elegance of the smaller deer. The antlers were sharper and lovelier, and the coat patterning was gorgeous. The Axis herd was far more aloof than the fallow, never approaching the wagons (which I thought gave them a dignified air – I don’t think I ever saw them run or panic), though they made a beautiful backdrop when they’d emerge from the wooded strips along the side of the exhibit to watch the wagons roll by (I most often saw them walking along the forest edge, keeping an eye on us, but ready to slip back into the woods if we approached). They bred well for us – one fawn was found that seemed to be neglected, so after a while we tried hand-rearing it, but were unsuccessful.

The sika were represented by an elderly female named Honey. She was a tubby little thing who was the favorite of the keepers – it was always a treat watching her fly across the yard, despite her age, to run up and nuzzle you for treats, her tongue flopping out as she rushed towards you. She was equally insistent at making a place for herself at the wagons when visitors were present, squeezing in between bison, eland, and other, larger animals and worming her way to the front of the crowd. Keepers feeding the yard at the end of the day from the back of their John Deere gator were warned to always be careful – Honey had a habit of slipping up behind the gator and eating grain from the buckets in the back while you were cleaning out the feeders, and if you weren’t careful, you could back right into her.


Honey getting some attention at the wagon - notice the yellow ear tag

I don’t think that I ever really saw the deer species interact with one another, or with the other species in the exhibit, even when they were in close vicinity to one another, it was more like they moved around one another. The exception was Honey, who, being the lone member of her species (a deliberate phase out – apparently the male sika had proven to be a bit more inclined to conflict than the other deer), would alternatively associate herself with other species as a plus one, rotating who were companions were based on her mood.

The thread will pick back up in a few days, after I take care of some unrelated business in the real world. My initial goal was to do 100 profiles, and we're now at a little over 110, with a few more still to go!

 

[Aardwolf]

I feel about toucans much the same way that I feel about chameleons. Both are relatively iconic taxa, which visitors are familiar with and can generally identify (sometimes applying the name to unrelated species – hornbills in the case of toucans). At the same time, both have reputations among zookeepers for being challenges, both to keep and to breed, with much of the US zoo population being driven either by private sources or by a handful of facilities which are generally good at breeding (in the case of toucans, Dallas World Aquarium). I’ve worked with zookeepers who have flat out refused to consider obtaining toucans, citing their difficult reputation, which I often find to be somewhat exaggerated and based on old data. Unlike the chameleons, notoriously temperamental and tending to dislike handling, toucans are very often used as ambassador animals.

My toucan experience came in the form of a bird who, like many toucans in American zoos, rejoiced in the name of Sam. Sam was a zoo-born keel-billed toucan, who had been with our facility since he was a little over a month old, and stayed at our zoo for the next 12 years. The bird was a hand-reared ambassador at our AZA zoo, primarily living indoors in modular caging in the ambassador holding area, but also having access to an outdoor mew, both well-perched and with cavity nests for shelter. Neither mew was especially large, but the prevailing thought at the time was that ambassador birds, going outside so often, received space and simulation that way. Toucans are surprisingly hardy with the cold, and can be kept out in the 30’s as long as they have shelter and heat; at the other end of the spectrum, they can tolerate crazy heat, but should have access to shade and misters.

The great challenge of toucans is usually their diet. They are highly susceptible to iron-storage disease, so foods high in iron should be avoided (historically, a lot of zoos fed parrot chow or monkey chow as their dietary base, only to have birds die years later from the accumulation of iron, which especially impacts the liver). A standard diet consists of a pellet base, such as Mazuri softbill, and diced fruit. This diet can make them a challenge to house with other species of birds, as the toucans will help themselves to the diets of other species and poison themselves (that and the fact that they also will happily predate the eggs and fledglings of other species). Pellets can be somewhat unpalatable to some toucans due to their dryness and hardness, but they can be softened with liquid, or allowed to sit for a while with the fruit so that they absorb some of the moisture. Diet may be a contributing factor in the difficulty in breeding this species, but other factors of possible concern include the size and complexity of the exhibit and the compatibility of the pairs. It was the diet issue that made many zookeepers I’ve worked with fearful of trying their hand with the species, though with improvements in dietary formulation, it seems like that challenge has been greatly reduced.

It has been noted that tannins, such as in tea leaves, can help absorb iron, so some zoos supplement their bird diets by sprinkling tea leaves over them. The downside is that tea leaves, while binding iron, also bind other nutrients, and if over-applied can cause their own dietary issues.

Husbandry and breeding challenges aside, it’s easy to see why toucans are such compelling ambassador animals (as well as exhibits), and Sam was a delight to work with. He was very personably, hopping up to us whenever we approached. Even in the wild, I’ve often found toucans and aracaris to be more approachable than many parrot species. Hand-raised birds, like Sam, tend to be calmer and more tractable than parent-reared birds. One of his favorite activities was catching little pieces of fruit that we would toss to him. I especially remember how fun it was to toss him a grape, which he would catch from his perch, then toss down his gullet (in breeding situations, which Sam was not in, diced grapes can be given to the male so that he may present them as gifts to his prospective mate).


An educator at a different facility tossing treats to a keel-billed toucan (not Sam) as part of an education demonstration.

Much of our use of education birds is informed by the long history of keeping hawks and falcons for falconry. One important distinction that should be made is in the use of gear to handle or present these birds. Hawks have traditionally worn jesses, and many trainers have experienced their birds trying to take off from the glove, pulling against the leather thongs. Hawks, however, have strong, powerful legs for catching and killing prey, and their legs are okay with this. Other commonly used program birds, such as toucans and kookaburras, do not, and shouldn’t be jessed. Toucans are worked best when free-flown (a scenario that, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, makes me nervous). Sam, to his credit, only flew-off from his handler once during a program, didn’t go far, and was easily tempted back with some treats.

 

[birdsandbats]

I feel about toucans much the same way that I feel about chameleons. Both are relatively iconic taxa, which visitors are familiar with and can generally identify (sometimes applying the name to unrelated species – hornbills in the case of toucans). At the same time, both have reputations among zookeepers for being challenges, both to keep and to breed, with much of the US zoo population being driven either by private sources or by a handful of facilities which are generally good at breeding (in the case of toucans, Dallas World Aquarium). I’ve worked with zookeepers who have flat out refused to consider obtaining toucans, citing their difficult reputation, which I often find to be somewhat exaggerated and based on old data. Unlike the chameleons, notoriously temperamental and tending to dislike handling, toucans are very often used as ambassador animals.

My toucan experience came in the form of a bird who, like many toucans in American zoos, rejoiced in the name of Sam. Sam was a zoo-born keel-billed toucan, who had been with our facility since he was a little over a month old, and stayed at our zoo for the next 12 years. The bird was a hand-reared ambassador at our AZA zoo, primarily living indoors in modular caging in the ambassador holding area, but also having access to an outdoor mew, both well-perched and with cavity nests for shelter. Neither mew was especially large, but the prevailing thought at the time was that ambassador birds, going outside so often, received space and simulation that way. Toucans are surprisingly hardy with the cold, and can be kept out in the 30’s as long as they have shelter and heat; at the other end of the spectrum, they can tolerate crazy heat, but should have access to shade and misters.

The great challenge of toucans is usually their diet. They are highly susceptible to iron-storage disease, so foods high in iron should be avoided (historically, a lot of zoos fed parrot chow or monkey chow as their dietary base, only to have birds die years later from the accumulation of iron, which especially impacts the liver). A standard diet consists of a pellet base, such as Mazuri softbill, and diced fruit. This diet can make them a challenge to house with other species of birds, as the toucans will help themselves to the diets of other species and poison themselves (that and the fact that they also will happily predate the eggs and fledglings of other species). Pellets can be somewhat unpalatable to some toucans due to their dryness and hardness, but they can be softened with liquid, or allowed to sit for a while with the fruit so that they absorb some of the moisture. Diet may be a contributing factor in the difficulty in breeding this species, but other factors of possible concern include the size and complexity of the exhibit and the compatibility of the pairs. It was the diet issue that made many zookeepers I’ve worked with fearful of trying their hand with the species, though with improvements in dietary formulation, it seems like that challenge has been greatly reduced.

It has been noted that tannins, such as in tea leaves, can help absorb iron, so some zoos supplement their bird diets by sprinkling tea leaves over them. The downside is that tea leaves, while binding iron, also bind other nutrients, and if over-applied can cause their own dietary issues.

Husbandry and breeding challenges aside, it’s easy to see why toucans are such compelling ambassador animals (as well as exhibits), and Sam was a delight to work with. He was very personably, hopping up to us whenever we approached. Even in the wild, I’ve often found toucans and aracaris to be more approachable than many parrot species. Hand-raised birds, like Sam, tend to be calmer and more tractable than parent-reared birds. One of his favorite activities was catching little pieces of fruit that we would toss to him. I especially remember how fun it was to toss him a grape, which he would catch from his perch, then toss down his gullet (in breeding situations, which Sam was not in, diced grapes can be given to the male so that he may present them as gifts to his prospective mate).

View attachment 803003
An educator at a different facility tossing treats to a keel-billed toucan (not Sam) as part of an education demonstration.

Much of our use of education birds is informed by the long history of keeping hawks and falcons for falconry. One important distinction that should be made is in the use of gear to handle or present these birds. Hawks have traditionally worn jesses, and many trainers have experienced their birds trying to take off from the glove, pulling against the leather thongs. Hawks, however, have strong, powerful legs for catching and killing prey, and their legs are okay with this. Other commonly used program birds, such as toucans and kookaburras, do not, and shouldn’t be jessed. Toucans are worked best when free-flown (a scenario that, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, makes me nervous). Sam, to his credit, only flew-off from his handler once during a program, didn’t go far, and was easily tempted back with some treats.

At ZooAve in Costa Rica, I even saw wild toucans stealing food from zoo animals!

 

[Strathmorezoo]

I feel about toucans much the same way that I feel about chameleons. Both are relatively iconic taxa, which visitors are familiar with and can generally identify (sometimes applying the name to unrelated species – hornbills in the case of toucans). At the same time, both have reputations among zookeepers for being challenges, both to keep and to breed, with much of the US zoo population being driven either by private sources or by a handful of facilities which are generally good at breeding (in the case of toucans, Dallas World Aquarium). I’ve worked with zookeepers who have flat out refused to consider obtaining toucans, citing their difficult reputation, which I often find to be somewhat exaggerated and based on old data. Unlike the chameleons, notoriously temperamental and tending to dislike handling, toucans are very often used as ambassador animals.

My toucan experience came in the form of a bird who, like many toucans in American zoos, rejoiced in the name of Sam. Sam was a zoo-born keel-billed toucan, who had been with our facility since he was a little over a month old, and stayed at our zoo for the next 12 years. The bird was a hand-reared ambassador at our AZA zoo, primarily living indoors in modular caging in the ambassador holding area, but also having access to an outdoor mew, both well-perched and with cavity nests for shelter. Neither mew was especially large, but the prevailing thought at the time was that ambassador birds, going outside so often, received space and simulation that way. Toucans are surprisingly hardy with the cold, and can be kept out in the 30’s as long as they have shelter and heat; at the other end of the spectrum, they can tolerate crazy heat, but should have access to shade and misters.

The great challenge of toucans is usually their diet. They are highly susceptible to iron-storage disease, so foods high in iron should be avoided (historically, a lot of zoos fed parrot chow or monkey chow as their dietary base, only to have birds die years later from the accumulation of iron, which especially impacts the liver). A standard diet consists of a pellet base, such as Mazuri softbill, and diced fruit. This diet can make them a challenge to house with other species of birds, as the toucans will help themselves to the diets of other species and poison themselves (that and the fact that they also will happily predate the eggs and fledglings of other species). Pellets can be somewhat unpalatable to some toucans due to their dryness and hardness, but they can be softened with liquid, or allowed to sit for a while with the fruit so that they absorb some of the moisture. Diet may be a contributing factor in the difficulty in breeding this species, but other factors of possible concern include the size and complexity of the exhibit and the compatibility of the pairs. It was the diet issue that made many zookeepers I’ve worked with fearful of trying their hand with the species, though with improvements in dietary formulation, it seems like that challenge has been greatly reduced.

It has been noted that tannins, such as in tea leaves, can help absorb iron, so some zoos supplement their bird diets by sprinkling tea leaves over them. The downside is that tea leaves, while binding iron, also bind other nutrients, and if over-applied can cause their own dietary issues.

Husbandry and breeding challenges aside, it’s easy to see why toucans are such compelling ambassador animals (as well as exhibits), and Sam was a delight to work with. He was very personably, hopping up to us whenever we approached. Even in the wild, I’ve often found toucans and aracaris to be more approachable than many parrot species. Hand-raised birds, like Sam, tend to be calmer and more tractable than parent-reared birds. One of his favorite activities was catching little pieces of fruit that we would toss to him. I especially remember how fun it was to toss him a grape, which he would catch from his perch, then toss down his gullet (in breeding situations, which Sam was not in, diced grapes can be given to the male so that he may present them as gifts to his prospective mate).

View attachment 803003
An educator at a different facility tossing treats to a keel-billed toucan (not Sam) as part of an education demonstration.

Much of our use of education birds is informed by the long history of keeping hawks and falcons for falconry. One important distinction that should be made is in the use of gear to handle or present these birds. Hawks have traditionally worn jesses, and many trainers have experienced their birds trying to take off from the glove, pulling against the leather thongs. Hawks, however, have strong, powerful legs for catching and killing prey, and their legs are okay with this. Other commonly used program birds, such as toucans and kookaburras, do not, and shouldn’t be jessed. Toucans are worked best when free-flown (a scenario that, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, makes me nervous). Sam, to his credit, only flew-off from his handler once during a program, didn’t go far, and was easily tempted back with some treats.

In my opinion, Toucans, any species, epitomises tropical birds, they are a species I would have loved to have owned. I agree, Aracaris are easy to tame, a cock Green Aracari I own, would take blueberries and and mealworms from me within a month of the pair arriving. Infact, he gets upset if I ignore him and chatters loudly to get my attention