Smithsonian National Zoo Smithsonian National Zoo News 2020

A Brown Kiwi chick was hatched on April 28!
And Kiwi Makes Four: A Bird Baby Boom at SCBI

 

Six black-footed ferret kits were born on mothers day at SCBI.

Six Newborn Black-Footed Ferret Kits Can Be Viewed on New Webcam

Two bison died at SCBI (this was the pair that lived at the zoo prior to Asia Trails construction).

Two Elderly American Bison Die at Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

 

Posthumous champion chick!

Sadly, this is after both its parents - wild caught and the first imports after decades in 2010 - unexpectedly died in a major blow to the overseas northern brown kiwi breeding program.

 

It's that time of year when giant pandas and red pandas dig into their favorite food--fresh bamboo shoots!

Melodious Munches: Pandas and Bamboo Shoots

 

Nifty little article about the how to zoo builds relationships between the elephants in it care. It specifically focuses on Rani and Bozie buts it a fun quick read none the less.

How Do You Encourage Elephants to Build Positive Relationships?

 

Really nice article. Looks like Bozie and Maharani have become real friends. This could affect Rani getting pregnant. But I saw on webcam that Swarna is also associated with Bozie and Rani. What is her relationship with Bozie?

 

Would someone mind breaking down the size of Elephant Trails to me? How many yards there are, how big each yard is, how many indoor stalls there are, how big the stalls are (or how big the house overall is if the stall size isn't known)?

Thank you!

~Thylo

 

There's four exhibits, one main yard, one that connects to the Elephant Community Center, a smaller one they left untouched from the renovations, and an 800 foot long deadended trail. The indoor portion, the actual exhibit itself is around 10,000 square feet.
Main yard: 29,450 sq ft
Middle: 22,700
Smaller: 15,000
In total the entire complex is 1.7 acres. I cannot give you answers for the stall questions.

 

From the buildings site plans I can see 5 stalls. Two of them connect directly to yard 3 and the other three to what looks like a mini outdoor paddock which is out of public view on the side of the barn. Connected to yard two is the ECC which like Moebelle stated is roughly 10000 sq ft. Opposite of the barn I believe is two other stalls one of which connects to the ECC and the untouched yard of the renovations(This is where spike is housed). I do not know the overall total sq footage unfortunately.

From the information I've been given when speaking with keepers, I believe Swarna is more of a floater. She can be housed with with all of the zoos elephants no matter the pairing. The most common pairings I have seen on my visits have been:

Swarna, Shanti, Bozie, Ambika (now deseased)
Swarna, Maharani, Kamala
Swarna, Maharani, Spike
Swarna, Spike
Maharani, Spike
Shanti, Bozie, Ambika
Maharani, Bozie

I believe the more recent pairing of Bozie and Maharani might be an effort to try and integrate the two social groups. That or an attempt to test whether or not Bozie would be able to live with the Calgary girls if Shanti's condition were to deteriorate and she had to be euthanized. That being said, is there any news as to whether or not Rani is even still a viable breeding candidate? I feel she is sadly approaching the age at which most zoos stop trying to conceive calfs.

 

Mook, the zoo's elderly clouded leopard was humanely euthanized May 20,2020. This leaves the zoo with just two clouded leopards, juveniles Jilian and Paitoon.

Elderly Clouded Leopard Dies at Smithsonian’s National Zoo

 

I assume some rearrangement will occur soon in order to have a potential breeding pair on exhibit.

 

I believe all their breeding pairs are always managed at the Front Royal facility, leaving the exhibit for non breeding individuals and now, in this case, the two cubs.

 

Yes, this is how they manage the carnivore species kept at both facilities. They're mostly shy breeding species (cheetahs, maned wolves, etc) so breeders at kept at Front Royal, with bachelors, older females, etc kept at the zoo, along with occasional cubs for visitors to see.

 

That's sad. I hope or doubt the zoo will get more clouded leopards soon.

 

The zoo still has Clouded Leopards on-exhibit.

~Thylo

 

Their names are Jillian and Paitoon and are both 1 year old.

 

The zoo is planning to deconstruct, and eventually reconstruct the Reptile House portico, and are accepting public comments through June 26.

Conserving Architectural Heritage: Deconstruction, Storage and Reconstruction of the Reptile House Portico

 

This is a great article about behavior among the Zoo's five female elephants. It confirms a lot we already knew, that Bozie is the dominant one and that she and Shanthi are bff's. What may be more surprising is just how submissive Rani really is. All that carrying on and drama we saw her exhibit for so long really must be based on a degree of insecurity, and it's consistent with her getting so aggressive after being separated from Komala for two nights. She's a big little girl who depends on having her mom around, even if it's unpleasant attention she gets. It's really nice to see that she has such positive relationships with Bozie and Shanthi now.

Of course, what is glaringly absent here is much about how Komala can fit into this. We know she's aggressive, and if she's not with Bozie or Shanthi yet, howdy tests must not be promising. Swarna is clearly a submissive animal, but if there were a bet on who's the most submissive in the group, my money would be on Shanthi, who rarely even looks people or other elephants in the eye.

That was the case when it was just her with Ambika too, and lest we remember Ambika as she was at the end, when there was a showdown for dominance when Bozie first arrived, it was 62-year-old Ambika who prevailed. What a confident, secure, happy elephant Bozie must be to have had the power to overpower Ambika for her final years, but have no interest thereafter in using it. The videos here are priceless, one showing playful Bozie trying to convince Rani to have some fun. Bozie really is the key to everything good for these girls.

How Do You Encourage Elephants to Build Positive Relationships? | Smithsonian's National Zoo
How Do You Encourage Elephants to Build Positive Relationships?

 

It's hard to believe it took nearly a century for someone to realize that the portico, normally a decorative feature, was structurally supporting the walls. It's very visible in the square stone pieces above the carved toad in the lower picture. This truly must be a matter of structural integrity and danger to zoogoers for this to be getting this much attention and funding.

It's equally hard to fathom how the preservation board could deem long-term covered storage of the surviving portico elements to have a more "adverse effect" than bearing too much of the structural load of the building and being outside weathering the elements.

 

The descriptions given are largely correct, although the zoo has always claimed that the exhibit is 2 full acres. It was even rumored at the time that the trail was added to get the total up to a point at which it could be rounded to 2. With the advent of the annual "worst zoo for elephants" list back then and the powerful activist pressure that resulted in so many zoos closing their elephant exhibits, being able to expand the exhibit significantly enough to withstand their scrutiny was a clear priority.

The yard described as a paddock on the side of the barn is used on occasion, primarily when separation is needed for shifting, which can be a complex operation since the yards are all lined up in a row like a "railroad flat" apartment and up to three must be empty to move animals down into the large yard that ends at the Outpost. However, this yard also serves two other important functions, as the quarantine yard and the entrance point by which animals or very large items can get into the exhibit.

I'm not sure how much the architectural plans reflect what was actually built, because the project ran out of money, and several features weren't completed. This is especially true of Spike's yard and the "male" end of the building. Much of the strengthening of the exhibit's bollards, etc. had been done for Kandula, so it's pretty accurate to say that this is the area where work stopped and was not completed. The space was designed to accommodate two males, but it's really an unknown how the interior ended up being configured. This end of the building is comprised of what used to be the rhino stall, a small office, the two hippo stalls and pools, and a room for hay storage. An exterior pathway down to the Outpost was never realized, and Happy's old outside hippo yard and pool remain untouched to this day. The path was a terrible thing to lose, for it meant visitors will always now have to walk a long, long way just to get to the Outpost training sessions. I never heard what was actually completed inside, but in 2017 on World Elephant Day, Debbie Flinkman told me that they needed to "do the work" inside to make housing a male easier. I remember raising the point that this alteration would effectively eliminate the capability of housing two males, and she replied that it made more sense to meet the current needs and worry about accommodating two males if and when that need arose. Part of the space is visible, the old rhino yard/ERD section that extends into the ECC, but it's hard to imagine what the rest of the interior actually looks like. While the original plans needed to be signed off on by the landmark preservation committee, their rules apply mainly to the exterior structure of a building, so it's possible that interior walls could have been moved or changed either when the building was renovated and/or 3 years ago.

The description of the barn's interior is accurate. I've been in the barn, and I would estimate that the stalls were the equivalent of perhaps 4 elephants in length. Several are roughly square, but I think there is one I did not see that is narrower, perhaps one intended to be a birthing den. I'd estimate that the old stalls were at the most 15-20' square, and the new ones are at least twice as large. The stalls are on the outside walls of the barn so as to allow access to the quarantine yard, and there is a very wide corridor for vehicles and staff to use on the inner side of the barn. There are varied substrates, including one stall with a huge sand pile, and a large kitchen. There is also a large space where the barn would touch the original building that I did not see, but would imagine contains offices, storage rooms, bathrooms, and the like.