Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden News From the Cincinnati Zoo 2010

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Sad news coming from the zoo this morning. Yesterday evening the Cincinnati Zoo lost one of their three year old Masai Giraffes, Akilah. She was found with her ossicones, or horns, caught up in the safety netting around one of the trees in her paddock. The official cause of death is unknown at this time. A necropsy was to be performed this morning. The zoo will perform a safety inspection of the yard and the netting will be removed before the other two giraffes are let out again. Terrible news to find out before I head off to the zoo this morning. Thoughts and prayers go out to the Cincinnati Zoo staff. They've had a rough couple of months.
 
Very sad. I wonder if this sort of thing has happened before in other institutions. Sounds like a true freak accident.
 
The necropsy reports came back today and they found that Akilah died of a heart attack while struggling to free herself from the netting.
 
Night Hunters: Under Construction III — Cincinnati Zoo Blog

Night Hunters blog update number three.

Okay, I forgot to give the news from when I visited two weeks ago!

- No sign of the Tufted Deer. The Bennett's Wallabies were in an exhibit in the Children's Zoo (Unfortunately in one of those glass fronted exhibits in the Nursery), but the Emus were still in the exhibit in Wildlife Canyon.

- With that said, I spoke to someone from the zoo and they said that the exhibit in the Nursery will be the home of the wallabies for now.

- A lot of new fences are up around the zoo. Especially around the hoofstock exhibits in Wildlife Canyon and in Flamingo Cove / Rhino Reserve. I don't know why they just now decided to put fences up. Those exhibits haven't had fences for as long as I remember.

- No signs of any Okapis either. I know that the Eastern Bongo exhibit had been split in two for the Okapis, but when I went there were no exhibit signs for the Okapis and the Bongo cows and Luna were in one exhibit and the Bongo bull was in the other. On a good note I heard a bongo for the first time that day. The bull bellowed several times while we were there. Such an interesting sound!

- New barriers were put up around the bear grottos as well. I also noticed new enrichment items and logs.

- The Bald Eagles are no longer in the aviary next to the Polar Bears. A young Steller's Sea Eagle is now on exhibit there.

- The new Banded Palm Civet is now in one of the Nocturnal exhibits in Jungle Trails. It was quite active!

- Several animal species flip-flopped exhibits in the Night House.

- I was not that thrilled with Dragons. There only a couple of lit exhibits in a dark hall way. Nothing that special imo.

- On to the renovated Children's Zoo! It's now seperate from Wolf Woods making it very hard to get to. The ony way you can get to it is from the boardwalk by the Little Blue Penguins or through the Zoo Shop. There were new play equiment and activities for children but I'll focus on the animal exhibits. First of there is a small exhibit with a few perches which I assume is for some species of bird. There were no signs and there weren't any animals on exhibit. Next to that exhibit was an exhibit for three or four tortoise species including the Radiated Tortoise, Star Tortoise, and the Red-footed Tortoise. Next was an average contact yard with Nigerian Pygmy Goats. Free-ranging Turkeys and Chickens are running all over the place throughout the Children's Zoo. Then you reach the old barn. The first two paddocks are the same with Jacob's Sheep and Dexter Cattle. Then you have another yard of Pygmy Goats. On the opposite side is an exhibit with more goats and two Dexter/ Longhorn Calves. behind those yards you can see two larger yards for Llamas, Alpacas, and Miniature Donkeys.

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I could care less (I'm 33 years old), but it seems like the Children's Zoo has gotten less interesting with every improvement since the major reworking in the mid 1980's. They actually had some interesting animals and kid-friendly features back then. I always liked the prarie dog bubbles and the tunnel that wound behind the exhibit. Now it's nothing. I suppose the petting zoo concept is good fun for kids, but it was more of a playground meets zoo type of experience back then.
 
I know exactly what you mean. I mean they used to have Crowned Lemurs, Prairie Dogs, Cockatoos, Kookaburras, and several other species that don't remember that were actually interesting to see. Even the Pot-bellied Pigs were a nice break from the usual "barnyard" animals most Children's Zoos have. Now the Children Zoo has really fallen into the "barnyard" "children's zoo" stereotypical standard. I was kind of excited to hear that they were bringing in Llamas and Alpacas because they are a nice break from the sheep, goats, and chickens, but you couldn't hardly see them let alone get close to them. They were in paddocks way back behind the old barn behind the main goat/sheep/ miniature cattle paddocks.
 
I thought I'd post an odd rumors I heard that people who frequent the zoo might find interesting.

There's an elephant skull in the pelican exhibit inside Jungle Trails. I've heard more than once from people working at the zoo that it is an ACTUAL elephant skull. Legend has it that it was resurrected from Swan Lake, where the elephant had been interred for an unknown period of time.

Nothing else, just thought that was kind of interesting to think about. Perhaps at one time the lake was an all purpose animal graveyard for the zoo. All speculation of course, but i wonder what you'd find if you strapped on a SCUBA suit and had a look around the bottom.........
 
Haha. I too have heard that. When I took a behind the scenes tour a couple of years ago a keeper told our group that. He said that the animal bodies were disposed of there and when all of the flesh had decomposed the bones are now often used in exhibiting and for enrichment.
 
Kudu21 said:
Haha. I too have heard that. When I took a behind the scenes tour a couple of years ago a keeper told our group that. He said that the animal bodies were disposed of there and when all of the flesh had decomposed the bones are now often used in exhibiting and for enrichment.
Click to expand...

I'd absolutlely love to see what's down there. They could do a summer class or tour and call it The Underwater History of Our Zoo. I'd do it.
 
It would be amazing to see all of what's down there, but unfortunately I don't think a tour like that would hit off well. Many people would be quite hesitant to the idea of looking for the remains, and it wouldn't bring in support from those animal right activists either. That aside I'm with you. I'd love to just poke around and see.

Speaking of Swan Lake... Do you know what ever happened to school of Paddlefish the zoo released into the lake a couple of years ago? There was this whole big thing about them for a while, but they don't even have the Paddlefish listed on their website anymore.
 
Just a note: during the years I worked there, animal remains were not disposed of by throwing them in Swan Lake
 
I would have figured, they haven't done that in many many years according to the keeper. They just bring up some of the bones every now and then for exhibit decorations, ec.
 
A new baby Potto was born at the Cincinnati Zoo December 8th. It is too early to tell the gender of the baby. This baby makes the eighth Pottos at the Cincinnati Zoo. There are only sixteen in captivity in the United States.
 
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