Smithsonian National Zoo Smithsonian National Zoo News 2020

AmbikaFan said:
5) The document boasts that elephant Ambika is the oldest Asian elephant in the country. She is not. Shirley of Wild Adventures in GA is four years older, born in 1948, and Mysore of Ringling is two years older. Ambika is wonderful enough without hyperbole. Wouldn't you think an official document submitted to Congress would be accurate?:rolleyes:

7) "Significant mammal additions in FY 2019 and expectations for FY 2020 include clouded leopard cubs, a female amur tiger, and a sea lion pup. Zoo staff expects successful breeding for the carnivores (lions/tigers and cheetahs), elephants, giant pandas, and pinnipeds (sea lions and seals" (emphasis mine) At 22, Mei Xiang would be older than the oldest giant panda females to give birth at 21. Likely? No. And with Maharani not pregnant as of 1/1/20 after two years with no success, "expects" may a bit optimistic.

10) The guinea pig exhibit is already here, in Amazonia.

11) "Digital signs help provide visitors with maps of exhibits and facilities, schedules of activities such as keeper demonstrations, and more in-depth information about the animal collection. NZP/SCBI will continue to develop its digital signage program and will install new signs as funds become available." This would be great, but this paragraph notably doesn't say that this will happen in FY2021, despite this being the FY2021 budget....

12) "SCBI is the co-creator and leader of eMammal, a regional wildlife project that uses citizen scientists and camera traps to monitor wildlife across public lands in the mid-Atlantic states." If this was ever publicized in Zoogoer, I missed it.

15) The document mentions the major Bird House renovation and nothing about any other infrastructure improvements at all except a new "BioRepository Facility, which will store frozen germ plasm(a)(sic), DNA samples and cell lines of hundreds of species from around the planet. studies rare and critically endangered species, using reproductive sciences, including the collection and storage of genomic resources derived from biomaterials"

It's worrisome that there is virtually no other infrastructure expenditure mentioned, except fencing and maintaining the shade structure for bison and the climbing structure for the gorillas. It's a sign of how little funding there is for maintenance that they mention the paltry bison shading; few animals live in accommodations as barren as the bison. We know from the deferred maintenance in the 1980s and 1990s how much deterioration can occur. Yes, the locked federal salary schedule is an ever-increasing fixed expense that can't be changed, leaving little wiggle room for anything else, but surely it would be prudent to include some in the budget so that Congress knows the facilities could otherwise deterioriate rapidly.
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5) Honestly, no, no I am not shocked there's an error in an official document sent to congress. Also, the zoo says Ambika was born around 1948, and the Wild Adventures says Shirley was born in 1943.

7) They say this every year, it just means the zoo is trying to breed those animals and is prepared if successful.

10) Yes it very clearly states it was already built, it's just being used as an example of the paragraph above.

"The Zoo welcomes about two million visitors every year. The Zoo continues to expand its on-site efforts to engage all visitors. In FY 2021, NZP is taking strides to put accessibility at the forefront of exhibit design. The following projects demonstrate this commitment."

11) The zoo has already been doing this. There's already multiple digital signs throughout the park. The paragraph above says:

"In FY 2021, the Zoo will continue its internal customer service initiative to provide staff with meaningful ways they can improve the guest experience. This internal training program is essential to help staff use customer service best practices to guide interactions and underscore conservation messaging."

So, zoo staff aren't always available, so one way the zoo is trying to "improve the guest experience" is by adding digital signs to help zoo visitors. They're just saying that if they can get money for it, they will continue adding them. It doesn't say its a FY21 project because the project spans multiple fiscal years, and started before FY21, and will likely continue after it.

12) eMammal | See wildlife. Do science.

15) There are other projects mentioned, such as replacing the elevator in Amazonia, and fixing or replacing hydraulic shift animal doors in multiple buildings. Pages 213-227.
 
Andrew_NZP said:
5) Honestly, no, no I am not shocked there's an error in an official document sent to congress. Also, the zoo says Ambika was born around 1948, and the Wild Adventures says Shirley was born in 1943.

7) They say this every year, it just means the zoo is trying to breed those animals and is prepared if successful.

10) Yes it very clearly states it was already built, it's just being used as an example of the paragraph above.

"The Zoo welcomes about two million visitors every year. The Zoo continues to expand its on-site efforts to engage all visitors. In FY 2021, NZP is taking strides to put accessibility at the forefront of exhibit design. The following projects demonstrate this commitment."

11) The zoo has already been doing this. There's already multiple digital signs throughout the park. The paragraph above says:

"In FY 2021, the Zoo will continue its internal customer service initiative to provide staff with meaningful ways they can improve the guest experience. This internal training program is essential to help staff use customer service best practices to guide interactions and underscore conservation messaging."

So, zoo staff aren't always available, so one way the zoo is trying to "improve the guest experience" is by adding digital signs to help zoo visitors. They're just saying that if they can get money for it, they will continue adding them. It doesn't say its a FY21 project because the project spans multiple fiscal years, and started before FY21, and will likely continue after it.

12) eMammal | See wildlife. Do science.

15) There are other projects mentioned, such as replacing the elevator in Amazonia, and fixing or replacing hydraulic shift animal doors in multiple buildings. Pages 213-227.
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The above is a reporting of 20 pertinent observations of the FY21 budget--absent pages 213-227--and this includes both positive developments and matters for concern. You're very quick to criticize my entries on the guinea pig exhibit or the eMammal project, when, as in other entries, I'm simply providing the information, not analyzing it. Furthermore, you inexplicably take lengthy issue with something I never disputed. I never said that digital signage wasn't a good idea or any of its efforts to communicate more effectively with visitors wasn't a good idea; I said that the zoo had not committed to any timetable for the signage. A budget like this is an official document, an accurate assessment of specific projects for the fiscal year in question. And I know about budgets like this because I have a graduate degree in not-for-profit administration from Columbia and have written at least 10 annual budget proposals (plus year-end reports) like this for the National Endowment for the Arts. Wording is deliberate, and what isn't said is important. They don't promise a single new sign through the FY21 period because they know it's one of the very few bits of money they can use instead to feed animals and pay the electric bill or other critical necessity if this budget isn't approved in full. It's the sign of an organization whose funding can not keep up with expenses. It means that they've already attempted to keep the budget "lean" and ask for the least possible increase as a means of retaining their credibility--and it still may not be enough.

Lying to Congress is nothing to take lightly; it's a terrible idea to embellish recent accomplishments in a budget proposal such as this. There's no such thing as saying something every year, in some boilerplate form, unless it's true. What is pledged here must be fulfilled, or in two years when the final report is submitted, it will look as if the organization has been managed poorly not to have achieved what it said was possible. Importantly, it will also reduce the organization's credibility; if Congress discovers a lie, they will question whether anything is true and if the budget is padded with non-essentials. With the immense media coverage of the giant pandas, there are bound to be many Congressmen and aides who know very well that Mei Xiang is post-reproductive and that the zoo is, at best, being deliberately misleading. Falsehoods will only antagonize the very people we need to approve this budget. In this case, the slightest falsehood will also be something animal activists jump on to prove their claim that zoos lie about animal records. It's idiotic that I should have to defend this position.

Ten years ago when keepers said Ambika had become the third oldest Asian elephant in North America, I went to the AZA studbook to find who the first two were. The eldest was Shirley of Valdosta, GA, born in 1944. Now that the elephant studbooks are no longer available publicly, the research that @Elephant Enthusiast has done for the North American Asian Elephant Population thread has been invaluable; he's updated it every year and recorded every birth and death throughout the year. His records agree with what I knew, that sometime long before Wild Adventures created its website, someone provided official information to the AZA--stating that Shirley was born in 1944. For the record, Ambika is actually tied as third-eldest with Shirley from the Elephant Sanctuary, also born in 1948.

I don't make mistakes with facts regarding Ambika.
 
AmbikaFan said:
1) One of the very first projects in the increased budget is for "introducing more intensive animal quarantine and screening procedures to prevent disease transmission from wildlife to livestock, people, and other animals in the Zoo’s collections." Has there been a problem with disease transmission in the collection?
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To my knowledge, the deer that often roam the zoo grounds are known to carry malaria, which is transmissible to the zoo's animals.
 
Nolie Thornell said:
Sad.... any idea what may replace the bison in that exhibit?
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My first thought was something, anything, from SCBI, which holds 26 species. But NZP has left exhibits empty before, namely the yard opposite the elephant house entrance, which has held P horses, camels, and....nothing. We probably fail to consider that SCBI animals could be on breeding schedules, require AIs, and need the environment they're used to during gestation. With this in mind, I'd really have no clue what they could put there, but we do know that their departure was planned, so they at least knew well ahead of time that the exhibit would need replacement animals.
 
It seems that the AZA has advised zoos not to announce elephant pregnancies until a couple of months before the due date. This provides some lovely surprises with payoffs due soon after, but it can often feel like waiting in a vacuum for some--any--news until then.

Of course, we've all been waiting with baited breath for word that Rani was pregnant ever since the wonderful Spike arrived at the zoo to squire her. In past visits, I've been told no and even given ultrasound specifics. When I was last there on New Year's Day, something was different. The keeper I asked didn't answer me directly and hustled on to other duties. Then when yet another pregnancy (Shanti's, Bozie's daughter) pregnancy was announced in Houston just two months before her due date, I really began to suspect a "mum's the word" policy. Pun intended.

Well, I was watching the webcams today, chatting on here with another NZP elephant fan, and the cam froze at one point, leaving me with a full, head-on view of Maharani for a full couple of minutes. It didn't take that long, though, for me to notice how wide she was, "high and wide," certainly round if not a bit ovoid, almost with pointy sides. I don't say this lightly, but I believe Rani may be pregnant.

Some elephants carry low, some high, but Rani looked today almost identical to Chester's Sundara when I made the prediction that she was pregnant. I bred dogs, so maybe this is something only a breeder would look for, but the shape is unmistakeably different from extra weight, which is almost always driven by gravity to hang low. But a female's strong uterine muscles can counteract gravity to a considerable degree, keeping the weight higher until the baby's final surge of weight gain..

Sundara turned out to be 19-20 months pregnant when I made that observation and has successfully had her baby, a little girl. Rani is nowhere near that far along, because I had a detailed talk with a keeper about a procedure Rani had had that very day that determined that she was not pregnant sometime in 2019. And if I hadn't stared from that particular angle for so long, I might not have noticed this. But not only had she just spent uneventful time sharing baby-daddy Spike with Bozie and Swarna, keepers later let her in the same enclosure with the hobbled Shanthi and Ambika, who would be totally incapable of fending off some attack from the exciteable and violent Maharani. She was excited to see Shanthi and even let the older girl lay a trunk over her head, a very slight show of dominance. Rani was almost as chill as Spike. This is so uncommon that I have to wonder if she could be enjoying the progesterone-driven radiance that many pregnant mothers experience. Without this little scenario, I might have written off her shape. Instead, I think I'm hopeful.

Can you imagine? Finally hopeful? Keep your fingers crossed!
 
CarLover said:
To my knowledge, the deer that often roam the zoo grounds are known to carry malaria, which is transmissible to the zoo's animals.
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Wow, I didn't know that there was much threat in this country of malaria except for avian malaria. This, of course, could be very significant. I used to see deer very frequently on the tall slopes leading down Ameriçan Trail, in the flat area across/behind Amazonia and the restaurant, and in the elephant habitats, even the top one adjacent to the indoor habitat doors. With the very tall walls, I wondered how they got in, but the answer was sliding easily through the bars of the gates. They seem to be gone in the elephant areas, but dealing with this is a problem because poisoned bait could end up being eaten by collection animals. Do you know what they did or tried? Perhaps capturing them? Could they be tagged and vaccinated?
 
The weekly newsletter said the zoo is still open despite the COVID-19 threat. They say hand sanitizers have been placed "throughout" the zoo--which, it turns out, means the visitor center, bus lot, and the kiosk by Great Cats...

The spotlight on Grevy's Zebra Moyo continues with a keeper explanation and several videos. It turns out "Moyo" means "Heart" in Swahili, and it's a perfect name for this fellow whose chest stripes form a heart!

How Do You Train a Zebra?
 
The zoo will be closed indefinitely, starting Saturday the 14th. They had previously cancelled all Smithsonian events nationwide, including Museum Day (April 4th), but have now extended that to closing ALL of their museums in DC (not their museums elsewhere, yet).
 
I find it rather disturbing that I have not received a member's newsletter announcing the Zoo's closure, but they DID send out a member's newsletter this morning to advertise and sell tickets for its fundraiser BITE on 5/20.

While the zoo may be open by then, it sends a disturbing message that fundraising is more important than its important FONZ membership in terms of notification AND it suggests the possibility that the zoo could be opened for a fundraiser, but not for the general public. Zoos and museums often close early for fundraising activities but NOT when the public is otherwise prohibited from attending at any time. This is a major misstep for NZP, the zoo paid for by the people and operated without admission fee to reflect that.
 
Just got notice of "temporary" zoo closure. It also promises notification of "the status of upcoming ticketed and non-ticketed events." Surely even eventgoers would be more concerned with the status of the animals and their caregivers, which is not promised.....
 
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