Smithsonian National Zoo Smithsonian National Zoo News 2020

From the zoos Facbook:

Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

 

One of the zoos on TV actually mentioned using this on an episode, although they didn't credit NZP specifically. It must be a very labor-intensive project. Just one large animal could require many, many gallons until weaned, and then the bank has to make sure there is simultaneously a donation being made to replace it. Not to mention the space this must require! Many people think one can just easily buy a puppy milk replacer for such needs, but not only are puppy milks entirely wrong in composition from most species, they don't contain the all-important colostrum, which provides health immunity to the neonate. A precious gift from Smithsonian scientists!

Not just to tout NZP. The Bronx Zoo, for instance, has an extensive collection of anti-venoms that it will give/send to anyone with a dangerous bite. There are many collaborative efforts like this at work between zoological facilities.

 

We all know to be skeptical of Wikipedia as a source, because anyone can go in and modify information in any way they want. Librarians say that site is now so heavily used that self-policing and correction of any mischief is usually done within a day.

Lol. Well, I was on the NZP site at Wikipedia looking for the date Amazonia opened yesterday, and the numbers attributed to individual species was uproariously funny! The best was the 90 Von der Decken hornbills that share the small mammal house with the mammals! It was somehow cool.to imagine a building overrun with Von der Decken hornbills! There were 10 American alligators in the Reptile House, and it STILL says that the zoo had another baby gorilla, this one named Gordon born this year!

So a word to be cautious of Wikipedia and never rely on it as your only source, but there is proof that Wikipedia is self-correcting within a day. For those who knew the zoo, though, the numbers were eye-poppingly hilarious!

 

For you history nerds, this 1958 map shows the zoo as it was 60 years ago. Some observations:

1). Look at how much of the zoos acreage has yet to be used. It looks half-empty.

2). The Staples are the Zoo's historic buildings without too many other free:standing exhibits except cages. The Elephant House, SMH, Reptile House, and Monkey House were, of course, all there, with roughly the same yard sizes around them. Note that in front of the Reptile Building was an Antelope Building surrounded by paddocks! Of all the big-ticket animals, there was enough interest for an Antelope House. I note mentally that the forest where it once was is unoccupied and big enough for a pretty sizeable building or exhibit--if you're willing to get rid of the mown field for fundraisers.... Also of note is the Lion House, down around the walk from the Monkey House. This was a very early building, but it surely beat having individuals displayed in raised cages the size of their own bodies in a big circle where L/Tiger Hill now is between the Lion House's demise and the completion of Lion/Tiger. I remember those cages but not the Lion House.

3. The Smokey the Bear grottoes we've been discussing is actually TEN Grottoes for TEN bears on this map. Down by the edge of what will become the sea lion pool are 18 little, supposedly raised cages for wolves and foxes.

4. The Bird House complex is present and looks very developed. The big Great Flight Cage aviary had yet to be built, but the building is surrounded by everything from the trellised walk all the way around to the Rheas. There were more big cages where the GFC would be, but the highlight, a tall wrought-iron aviary with a curved top that featured bald eagles was the first thing you encountered before even walking toward the Bird House. I remember these cages being there even through Asial Trail renovation--once with a capybara!--and wish they had been repurposeded somewhere.

5. Some of the roads that seem to provide an outer loop behind all of the buildings zoo-wide are now gone. I've always wondered if an underground network of roads exist for food and equipment dropoff, perhaps starting with that descending roadway under the Visitors Center?

https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=SIA-SIA2007-0143-000001

 

Thanks for posting the map. Is Think Tank a renovation of the monkey house on this map? Did the zoo have any apes in the 1950s, and if so, would they have been in the monkey house? I don't see any ape exhibits labelled. Presumably the giraffes, rhinos, and hippos were still exhibited in the elephant house at the time of this map?

 

Yes, it is. Still has a monkey species in it, too: Allen's swamp monkey, along with orangutans. The two outdoor enclosures for the orangs and monkeys are also renovations of the Monkey House's former outdoor cages.

 

You know, I don't know if there were any apes exhibited at this time. The Monkey House (yes, today's Think Tank) has a beautiful set of ornate wrought iron cages in front of the building that has held small primates on and off in recent years. But it strikes me that given the small enclosures that were thought adequate back then, that these front two cages would have been considered more than adequate for apes or orangs. Remember, exhibits until the 20th century still featured the Noah's Ark model, 1 or 2 per exhibit. I just took a picture of these last week. Let me look for it. Sorry, they ended up above.

Yes, the Elephant House admittedly held a far greater percentage of African animals. In addition to the giraffe, a rhino, a famous hippo named Happy born on New Year's Eve (who was his mom's 20th offspring at the zoo), pygmy hyppos, and African elephant Nancy and forest elephant Dzimbo occupied the building. And these weren't just later additions:. There were friezes of these animals high above their exhibits done with the building in the 1930s.

 

I remember the Indian Rhinos leaving right before Elephant Trails construction, but did the building ever house any species of African Rhino?

 

Yes, white rhinos were held in the elephant house at one point. Maybe they kept black rhinos in it, but I know they exhibited them in the yard next to the Small Mammal House (old Przewalski's horse), potentially into the '80s, but I can't confirm that.

 

When was the last forest elephant in an American Zoo?

 

Ah, come to think of it, you're right--another Asian species to help even things out. I do think there were friezes of two species on the upper walls with those of all the ancient mastadons and mammoths, but I don't know which species were held over the last 12 decades. What I am virtually positive of is that there was never more than one rhino dating back perhaps to 1980. Furthermore, the rhino left NZP well before Elephant Trails began in 2010. Shanthi's son Kandula was born in 2001, and by 2006, he was a strong male elephant. The rhino's old stall, the first from left to right, was the same size as the rest, about 20 x 20,' and when he was inside, s/he could barely turn around. By around 2007, there was a massive Elephant Restraint Device occupying that stall. Between 2007-2008, I remember Marie Galloway telling me that she was being asked to make room for "a rhino" in the Elephant Trails design, so this was after the previous one had left and still notably only called for one. It took every spare inch to eke out 2 acres for the elephants, so this clearly never came to pass.

With earlier standards of space requirements, it wouldn't surprise me if there had been a "Noah's Ark" pairing at some earlier point. There just wasn't much room in the 1937 building we call The Elephant House because the species was limited to that corner space between the elephants and hippos (although there was arguably almost as much yard space as the elephants shared). The previous elephant house, however, might have allowed for more room, as it had a long barn-like structure at the back.

https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_5970

Elephant House, NZP

 

1992 in Columbus.

 

I don't know, but there was a forest elephant named Dzinga at NZP in 1961. I think Bronx had a bush elephant, which may be the same thing since they mention it as a third elephant species.

We obviously don't have access to studbooks, but are forest elephants even classified in the African studbook?

 

Indian rhino, 1986.

Indian Rhinoceros, National Zoo, Washington D.C.

 

This article explains how the National Zoo plan to deal with the sad but inevitable loss of Ambika (and their other senior females) in the future:

“Ambika is in decent health, despite some dental issues. But the zoo has been focused on such end-of-life issues because of the advanced age of its herd.

Aside from Ambika, the zoo has four other elephants in their mid-40s. The median life expectancy for Asian elephants in zoos is 46.9, the equivalent of about 77 in humans, Amaral said.”

Read the rest of this very comprehensive article here:

As the National Zoo's 'queen' and other elephants age, keepers make plan to deal with death

 

Please don't jinx anything...

(It is sad but inevitable, but at least Ambika's in good health and good hands despite her last set of teeth)

 

In my experience, zoos generally put out these sort of articles as their way of preparing the public that a death is to come. This way it doesn’t come as a total shock when it happens. From what I understand from this thread, it’s Shanthi who will most likely be euthanised soon.

By doing this, the backlash zoos receive from the uneducated is lessened; and the public have time to make the most of visiting an animal they care about.

 

No doubt, this is the fourth notice we've been given to prepare. The first in October led me to make my 8-hour round-trip twice in two months, each possibly my last chance to see Shanthi. As I reported after that first trip, it was no longer only Shanthi; for the first time ever, Ambika looked very fragile and didn't move much. On my New Year's visit, after that first article had been reprinted, despite it being the chosen date to celebrate all five older girls' birthdays, Ambika and Shanthi were in the non-public barn until they emerged a mere few steps from the door into the yard in the late afternoon to be given a cake and presents with a small group of keepers taking pictures. Bozie was in the "quarantine yard" champing at the bit to join her two best friends. The only reason for this separation would be that Shanthi and Ambika would be too disabled for Bozie not to easily steal their treats. I don't think there was even any barrier between the keepers and elephants for this brief step outside. And that day, I saw palpable signs of Komala's arthritis and possible discomfort for the first time. But that day brought some encouraging signs about the future dynamics of the herd, post-Shanthi and post-Ambika, and just when I had resigned myself to seeing them for perhaps the last time, there was a more-positive report on Shanthi's quality of life. She seemed stable and comfortable.

Now this. I'm a longtime dog breeder with a lot of experience with medical procedures and medicine itself. I could really relate to the comment that the staff compartmentalizes, being in clinical mode until after a death, with human emotion emerging then and only then. I've been told I have the knowledge and vocabulary of a veterinary ER nurse, able to focus clinically and not emotionally on the most unpleasant and often fatal issues, and was asked to be in the ER many, many times.. And you do It, because it's in the service of your beloved animal.

But I have to say, even with all this experience, I did not react well to this article. This did not serve our beloved elephants. I know it's helping us to get used to the idea of our elephants' deaths. (There hasn't been one since Toni died in 2004, but she had come from the Scranton Zoo not even a decade earlier, and she was nervous and didn't really connect much to us or the other elephants). We probably really do need this advice, which may have even been recommended by counselors, but this article was too clinical and too graphic for even me. If the chief vet finds the image of our elephants falling over after euthanasia disturbing, imagine how horrifying and emotionally-evocative that is for lay people? I frankly found the descriptions of cartage, dismemberment, and incineration unnecessarily distressing and above all beneath the dignity of our elephants. Such morbid details may be necessary for zoo staff to know and prepare for, but not us. The reason for closed-casket funerals is to spare the deceased from being remembered as anything less than what they were in life. Now that it's been written, we can't un-hear it or fail to envision these details when we should be celebrating their lives. There's joy in a picture of Ambika being lowered in a big sling from the ocean liner that brought her here as a 14-year-old in 1961. However, there is only pain for us seeing images of hoists and forklifts, saws and incineration, or of a beloved elephant falling over. They're magnificent animals who gave us something priceless. Maintaining their dignity should have prevailed over everything else. We should be remembering them as figuratively fallen, not literally falling over. I never thought anything could be more painful than their actual deaths, but thinking of them in this way is just devastating.

 

Toni died in 2006, and came to the zoo in 1989.

 

At that time, gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans were exhibited in the Small Mammal House. Each had glass-fronted, all-indoor exhibits I believe where the mixed-species habitats for lemurs and tamarins are now. Chimps were phased out and gorillas and orangutans moved to the Great Ape House in 1981 to prepare for the renovation of the building. The "new" exhibit did not embrace naturalism and was designed to be easily to clean and hose down. It was certainly an improvement over their old quarters but outdated the day it opened (Woodland Park Zoo's groundbreaking gorilla habitat opened two years earlier) and now an ugly relic of a time past.