Entries Tagged 'zoos' ↓

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a couple of gems so far this week related to the Zoo.

Yesterday, the AJC published some new photos of the giraffe calf born July 13.

Today, Laura Raines has a beautiful story about the children’s hospital nurses who cared for baby orangutan Sandar in his final days.

Credit: Zoo Atlanta

Boma, a 23-year-old male eastern black rhinoceros, died at Zoo Atlanta yesterday, just a few months after the zoo welcomed a female rhino that it hoped would be a potential mate for the rhino who never sired any offspring in his more than 20 years at the zoo.

The animal had undergone two weeks of aggressive treatment for gastrointestinal problems, zoo officials said.

The rhino was born at the Zoo Dvur Kralove in the Czech Republic and came to Atlanta in 1989, helping in the zoo’s rebirth in the late 1980’s, the zoo said.

The estimated life span of a black rhino is 50 to 60 years, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Zoo Atlanta president Raymond King said in a statement, “Bo was a special member of the Zoo Atlanta family for more than 20 years and was an important ambassador for a critically endangered species.”

Boma’s condition went from guarded to grave since the week of July 12, the zoo said.

Glenda the giraffe and her new baby (Source: Zoo Atlanta)

Zoo Atlanta has a new baby giraffe.

First-time mom Glenda, aged 3, gave birth to the zoo’s tallest baby on Tuesday at Zoo Atlanta, zoo officials said.

The newborn was 6 feet tall and weighed between 100 and 150 pounds.

Mother and calf will bond for a few weeks privately before joining the African Plains habitat.

“We are extremely excited about the birth of the calf,” Raymond King, President and CEO of the zoo, said in a statement. “Giraffes have long been a very popular and charismatic part of the collection.”

As is typical for giraffes, Glenda gave birth standing up and her calf was born feet-first.

Glenda was born at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in October 2006. She and her half-sister, 4-year-old Mona, arrived at Zoo Atlanta in October 2007. The females share their habitat with the calf’s father, 4-year-old Abu.

Credit: Zoo Atlanta

Sandar, a 3-month-old orangutan at Zoo Atlanta who had been ill since birth was euthanized July 1, the zoo said.

The male Bornean orangutan was born March 30 to mother Miri and father Sulango. Zoo officials said the Animal Management and Veterinary Teams made the decision to euthanize “based on a progressive deterioration in his condition over the last two weeks and no hope of improvement in his prognosis.”

Sandar had been under round-the-clock care by zoo veterinarians and nurses from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

“The Zoo staff and the many dedicated nurses, doctors and specialists from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta went above and beyond the call in doing everything possible to combat Sandar’s many challenges and health complications. With his physical and developmental problems, he would never have survived this long in the wild,” Dr. Dwight Lawson, Senior Vice President of Collections, Education and Conservation for Zoo Atlanta, said in a statement.

Shortly after birth, Sandar was removed from his parents shortly after birth for hand-rearing. The zoo said he experienced a succession of illnesses and needed supplemental oxygen and a feeding tube.

A necropsy will be performed at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, as is customary after zoo deaths.

Credit: Zoo Atlanta

The gorilla exhibit at Zoo Atlanta is closed for repairs after a nervous silver back gorilla on Sunday charged a glass panel in the viewing area and cracked it. The zoo said guests and staff were never in danger.

Zoo officials said Taz, the 20 year old gorilla, “exhibited this behavior most likely because he had undergone a routine medical exam the previous day and was concerned about the presence of veterinarians in the viewing area.”

“Gorillas often associate their veterinarians as the ones giving vaccinations and can react nervously – much like many people do with a visit to the doctor or dentist,” said Dr. Hayley Murphy, Director of Veterinary Services.

The animal management and veterinary teams quickly evacuated the Willie B. Conservation Center and brought the gorillas, including Taz, into their overnight holding area. No animals or people were injured. The exhibit is designed with several glass viewing panels and a moat barrier with electric wire between the yard and the public viewing areas.

Mei Lan has been announced as an Earth Hour Global Ambassador.

Former Zoo Atlanta panda princess Mei Lan has been in China barely a week and has already been appointed a “global ambassador” for Earth Hour 2010, a four-year-old event led by the World Wildlife Fund to fight climate change. The organization says global warming is one of the greatest threats facing wildlife and nature.

Mei Lan’s new hometown, Chengdu, was the first city in China to commit its support to the March 27 event. At 8:30 p.m. local time, people around the world will turn off their lights for one hour to symbolically demand action on climate change. Last year in the U.S., 80 million Americans, 318 cities and eight states officially turned off their lights for Earth Hour, including Atlanta. The Pyramids in Egypt and even the Las Vegas strip went dark.

Mei Lan joins Desmond Tutu, Cold Play and Cate Blanchett in becoming an Earth Hour ambassador. Fans will be able to follow her ambassador role at www.twitter.com/earthhour. The recognized symbol of WWF, giant pandas have lived in Chengdu for more than 8 million years.

Meanwhile, Mei Lan is dealing with more prosaic concerns as she continues to adjust to her new home at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. On Thursday, Zoo Atlanta reported that Mei Lan spent more time resting. She is drinking regularly and eating bamboo, but not as much bamboo as she did at Zoo Atlanta. Giant pandas can be very finicky about their bamboo, and the type of bamboo near the Chengdu Research Base is different from the species that was available in Atlanta, the zoo said.

Zoo officials expect it will take her about a month to get used to the new bamboo. So far, her new keeper has offered Mei Lan at least five different species of bamboo. “Mei Lan liked one of these better than the others, but so far she doesn’t have a clear favorite,” the zoo said.

Mei Lan’s Atlanta keeper, Heather Roberts, has decided to stay a little longer to help Mei Lan continue to adjust to her new home. We hope she’s ready to tackle global warming.

Jantan, a Sumatran orangutan who arrived at Zoo Atlanta with his mother in 1991 and was known as J.T., died Monday evening from complications of a long illness, the zoo said. The ape was 20.

J.T. died Monday of a respiratory illness.

“The Zoo Atlanta family is deeply saddened by the loss of J.T., both as an individual and as an ambassador for a critically endangered species,” Dr. Dwight Lawson, Senior Vice President of Collections, Education and Conservation, said in a statement.

The zoo’s Animal Management and Veterinary Teams had been treating the great ape for health complications caused by a respiratory illness that began a decade ago. In 1999, J.T. began exhibiting early symptoms of chronic infection of his air sacs, ultimately leading to chronic respiratory infections, a significant cause of death in orangutans, the zoo said.

J.T. underwent years of medical therapies, including two surgeries and consultation with veterinarians across the country. Dr. David Shaz, Assistant Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Emory Crawford Long Hospital, and Dr. Allan Pickens, Thoracic Surgeon at Emory Crawford Long Medical Tower Thoracic Surgery, joined the Zoo’s Veterinary Team in attempting to resuscitate J.T. following a sudden decline on Monday.

Born April 4, 1989, at Emory University’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center, J.T. had spent the last several years in the company of his great-aunt, 39-year-old Biji, with whom he enjoyed a close personal bond, the zoo said. He is survived by one offspring, male Bernas, born July 27, 2002, at Zoo Atlanta.

A necropsy will be performed at Yerkes, the customary procedure for all animal deaths at Zoo Atlanta, regardless of  age, the zoo sad.

Zoo Atlanta has the nation’s largest zoological collection of orangutans, with nine of the primates. Native to the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, Sumatran orangutans are among the Zoo’s most critically endangered primates. The species is threatened by habitat loss, predominantly because of clear-cutting of forests for palm oil production, and risks extinction within 10 years without targeted conservation efforts.

Healthy orangutans can live up to 50 years.

We hear from Zoo Atlanta that Mei Lan, the zoo’s 3-year-old giant panda who moved to China last week, has been having a rough time in her new home. The first couple of days, keeper Heather Roberts reported that the panda didn’t eat much and was easily startled by sounds around her.

But there are signs that she’s starting to adapt to her new surroundings at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

Zoo Atlanta Curator of Mammals Rebecca Snyder has a poignant message for Mei Lan’s fans on the zoo’s Farewell Mei Lan page (where you can also see blog posts chronicling her birth and three years at the zoo):

I am sure that Mei Lan’s fans are worried about her and that it’s difficult to read that she is not entirely at ease in her new home. Of course, we would all have liked to see Mei Lan adjust immediately to her new home as though nothing had changed. But that would not be a normal reaction and we did not expect her to adjust immediately.

Traveling to China is a big change. It’s a long journey, there is a 12 hour time change, the food is different, the language is different, the sights and smells are different. It takes a person at least a few days to adjust to that. So, we should expect it to take Mei Lan some time to adjust as well. Most people prefer to travel with a friend, rather than alone, because all those changes can be stressful and it’s comforting to have a friend along. We sent Heather with Mei Lan to be her friend and to help her with the changes. We also sent one of our veterinarians, Dr. Sam Rivera, to Chengdu to make sure Mei Lan remains healthy. She is healthy and she will adjust, but it’s going to take a little time.

Mei Lan boards the FedEx "Panda Express"

As journalists, local dignitaries and a throng of FedEx employees saw giant panda Mei Lan get hoisted in her cage onto the FedEx plane bound for a breeding center in China, I wondered how her parents were doing back at Zoo Atlanta. Would they miss their 3-year-old daughter, or notice she was gone?

Dr. Rebecca Snyder, the zoo’s Curator of Carnivores, informed me that panda parents do not suffer empty-nest syndrome. Once their cubs are weaned, at about 18 months, the bears go their separate ways. At the zoo, which replicates the conditions of the wild, Mei Lan has been living independently for almost two years. Her parents were not expected to react when she didn’t show up for breakfast.

“Her mom moved on a long time ago,” Snyder said.

It was tougher for the humans to say goodbye, but the mood at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport was mainly of excitement and awe at the logistics to send a giant panda back to China. Mei Lan received the fanfare of a president, starting with the police motorcade that escorted her 1,300 pound steel crate and an even larger trailer full of food to a plane decorated with panda decals applied by FedEx employees in Memphis. At around 7 a.m., a hydraulic lift hoisted the trailer onto the 777 freighter, the newest member of the FedEx fleet and the world’s largest twin-engine cargo plane. The plane would soon leave for Washington Dulles International Airport to pick up her cousin and fellow traveler, Tai Shan, for the 14-and-a-half hour flight to China.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said the city should not be sad, but proud of its role in protecting the endangered panda species. As a result of diminished habitat, there are only about 1,600 giant pandas in the wild, all of whom live in China, “and we have a responsibility to protect them,” Reed said.

On Mei Lan’s last day in the U.S., media crews, families and tourists came to say farewell to the first giant panda cub born at Zoo Atlanta. The attention seemed to matter little to the beloved bear, who slept and ate the day away as she normally does, her backside to the cameras.

Zoo volunteers talked to visitors about the journey that three-year-old Mei Lan will take Thursday back to China, where she will be part of a breeding program there to bolster the endangered species.

Mei Lan is very genetically valuable, they said, because she is only one generation removed from wild pandas. Mom Lun Lun and dad Yang Yang, who will remain at the zoo — each had fathers who were born in the wild.

Her parents have been at the Atlanta zoo since 1999, on loan from the Chinese government. The zoo recently signed a five-year agreement to extend their stay. Mei Lan’s 17-month-old brother, Xi Lan, will remain in Atlanta for at least a couple more years.

Visitors on Wednesday had lots of questions about the panda’s journey:

Q: What will happen Thursday?

A: Before dawn, Mei Lan will leave the zoo in a FedEx truck to the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Following some remarks by a Zoo Atlanta representative, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, airport general manager Ben DeCosta and a FedEx representative, Mei Lan will be loaded on a FedEx 777 cargo plane to Dulles International Airport. There, she will join her cousin, Tai Shan, the first panda bred by the National Zoo. Together they will make the 14 1/2 hour flight to Chengdu, where they are headed for separate breeding centers.

Q: Who else will be on the plane besides the pandas?

A: A keeper from Zoo Atlanta and a veterinarian from the National Zoo.

Q: What will Mei Lan eat on the plane?

A: She’ll have her full daily regimen, 40 pounds of bamboo, biscuits and fruit.

Q: Will she be sedated?

A: No.

Q: Will she have an aisle or window seat?

A: Neither. She has a special crate designed with plenty of room for her to walk around. But she’ll probably spend most of the time sleeping, as that’s how pandas spend about 13 hours a day.

Q: UPS is based in Atlanta. Why isn’t the company shipping her?

A: UPS brought Mei Lan’s parents to the U.S., but the company has cut back on such in-kind donations and is focusing its philanthropy elsewhere. FedEx has donated the trips this time.

Q: If Mei Lan was born in the U.S., isn’t she an American citizen? Why must she go back to China?

A: All giant pandas outside China are on loan from the Chinese government — even those born on U.S. soil. China used to give pandas to countries as acts of diplomacy, such as Chairman Mao Zedong’s gift of two pandas to U.S. president Richard Nixon in 1972. But since 1984, China has only offered pandas on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to $1 million per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the Chinese government. In addition to the National Zoo and Zoo Atlanta, China leases pandas to zoos in Memphis and San Diego.

For answers to more questions about the journey, check out the live chat that the Washington Post hosted Friday with Dave Lange, managing director of aircraft charters at FedEx.

This was my favorite question:

Will the Tai Shan shipment receive a FedEx tracking number, and if so can it be tracked via the tracking website?

(Dave Lange: Tai Shan and Mei Lan will be traveling on a International Air Waybill but not tracked in the traditional FedEx manner.)