Just Like Me -- KCZoo Preschool Program

Preschoolers like to get their hands on many different things. Well, in our program called “Just Like Me” we try to exercise all of their five senses. A story is used to focus the preschoolers’ attention and then compare our five senses to unique animal senses. Like this chinchilla pictured. We are focusing on the sight sense. Chinchillas have huge eyes to see well at night when they are normally awake.

Make Less Trash

In our after school program, the topic of the day focused on the 3 Rs. The first is reduce, by purchasing products that have less packaging we are creating less trash. The second is reuse, when we reuse things like clothes or toys by donating them to Goodwill or better yet purchasing from thrift stores we cut down on new clothes and toys that need to be made. And the final R stands for recycling. Our after school students were very familiar with recycling and how important it is to help cut down on trash that goes into landfills. To celebrate recycling, we made trash mobiles with some discarded items. Just in case you were wondering, we did clean everything before our students began creating their masterpieces.

Toad Breeding at the Kansas City Zoo

Two years ago, the Kansas City Zoo joined up with a small group of other zoos who are devoted to helping the Wyoming Toads. These toads were declared extinct in the wild and this dedicated group has spent the last decade breeding and reintroducing toads and tadpoles back into their native habitat.

The keepers at the Kansas City Zoo started the breeding process with the toads held here. For the next month, several pairs will spend time in an induced hibernation. After this time, the toads will come out of their hibernation, and spend a few days eating before mating. Hopefully, this breeding will be successful and tadpoles from the toads at our zoo can be sent back up to Wyoming to be released.

KCZoo School Group Fun

Food Chains
In our After School Program, the topic of the day was food chains. Food chains are very important in each ecosystem, it is when one animal eats another to survive. If one animal completely disappears, then the food chain is broken. So we wanted to find out if any of our after school students knew what a food chain was. One child answered with a lot of enthusiasm, “Like McDonalds and Burger King.” Hmmm…close but not quite what we were looking.


Poop
We all know that pooping or as the scientists call it defecating is very natural and necessary part of life. Yet people are both fascinated and grossed out by it when our Zoo animals do it. We decided to take it one step further and put it in a jar. We had our after school students try to match the poop to the correct animal. It wasn’t too hard, especially if you think about the size of the animal and what it eats.


Spring has sprung
Spring is supposedly right around the corner even though the weather is having a tough time catching up. You will see trees budding and the shoots of flowers breaking through the ground soon. But what about the plants at the Zoo? In our Zoo Learning Center we have many different kinds of plants.

Snakes Alive Opens Thursday, April 1

Snaking Across State Lines

Snakes Alive at the Kansas City Zoo is opening Thursday, April 1. Public is welcome to the ribbon cutting at 10 a.m.

In creating our Myth-buster graphics in Snakes Alive we searched for these best snake images to use. Robert Makowsky was kind enough to let us use his image of the Amazon Tree Boa. This specimen was caught in Peru in the limbs over a small tributary of the Amazon. After the snake was photographed it was immediately released in it original location.

Robert Makowsky is with the Department of Biostatistics at University of Alabama at Birmingham. Thank you Robert!

Slither, slide, walk or run to the Kansas City Zoo to busta-myth about these glistening ornate patterned creatures. Did you know snakes don’t have eyelids or ears and their “noses” are also found on the roof of their mouths? Starting April 1 – you can find out this and more at Snakes Alive.

Camels are Breeding at the Kansas City Zoo

Camels are breeding at the Zoo!
Dromedary Camel, Camelus dromedaries

In mid February, the Zoo received a male camel with the intention of breeding with two of our females. He has until late April to get to know his female companions; we are very hopeful that these two females will become pregnant.

Camels typically breed from January to May. Male camels come into what is called “rut” which is another way to say that he is ready to breed. During rut, males become very aggressive towards other males; they secrete a bad smelling substance from glands on the back of their heads and will inflate the back portion of the roof of their mouth and push it outside the mouth. None of these things sound very attractive, but thankfully the girls are still interested in him.

The camels are breeding in an off exhibit yard, but when the girls aren’t with him you can see them on exhibit in Australia. Camel gestation period is approximately 12-13 months, and they typically have one calf. Come out to the zoo and see our beautiful girls, and make sure to check back next spring to see if we have any new little camels running around the yard.

Rebecca Prewitt, Discovery Zone Animal Supervisor

KCZoo Polar Bear - Training from Toledo Zoo

I recently returned from a trip to the Toledo Zoo where I had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Nikita, the polar bear that will be joining us at the Kansas City Zoo. He is going to be an awesome addition to our animal collection. Nikita is currently 3 years old and he weighs over 800 lbs already! He is very playful and wants to investigate anything new.

His favorite toy to play with is a 55gallon plastic barrel. I watched him play with this barrel for over an hour. He took it all around his exhibit, in the water, out of the water, everywhere. Polar Bears (and Nikita especially) are very strong and destructive. It only takes him about three days before his beloved barrel is torn in half and he needs a new one.

In the wild polar bears mainly eat seals. In the zoo Nikita’s current diet consist of fish (trout and capelin), a dry food, and a nice dollop of beef lard! He also gets some fruits and vegetables as enrichment. One of his favorite enrichment foods is cantaloupe, especially if it is frozen first.

I really enjoyed my trip to the Toledo Zoo. Everyone there was really great, and gave me lots of great information about Nikita and about polar bears in general. I can’t wait for Nikita to come to the Kansas City Zoo and for everyone to meet him.

Andrea O’Daniels
Zookeeper

KCZoo Prickly Cute Porcupines

Prickly Cute, Utterly Adorable


KANSAS CITY ZOO - A male and a female Prehensile-tailed Porcupine have created quite a stir in their new exhibit at the Tropics at the Kansas City Zoo. Climbing from end to end exploring and hanging upside-down by their tails, these stout barbed mammals use their tail for grasping branches and bare soles (callused pads) for tree climbing.

Their bodies are covered in short spines mixed with course hairs. The quills will lay flat until they are disturbed or frightened; they provide an impressive defense. Quills easily fall out so it is very difficult for animals to touch them without getting a quill embedded in their skin.

Named for their long prehensile tail, it becomes their fifth hand helping them navigate through the forest canopy. Although they tend to move slowly, they are very agile and can climb quickly as needed. The last third of the tail is spineless on the upper side which helps them spiral their tail around branches for a stronger grip.

Enhancing their cuteness is their round squishy looking nose; its bulbous form is covered with short white hairs. But do not be deceived with their adorable looks, when excited or feeling trapped, they will stomp their hind feet and may sit on their haunches, shake their spines and growl deeply or emit high pitch cries. Does this sound like anyone you may know?

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Kansas City Zoo is open daily from 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. Admission is $11.50 for adults and $8.50 for children ages 3-11, and, as always, FOTZ members are free. Call (816) 513-5800, or visit our web site www.kansascityzoo.org for more information.

KCZoo School Field Trip Assistance

It's school field trip time and the Zoo's Education is seeking Facilitators. Facilitators help school groups enjoy their visit to the Kansas City Zoo.

They are dressed in bright colors so you can’t miss them. They assist the groups in an easy arrival to the Zoo; they can store your lunches and help with a simple and stress free exit from the Zoo too. You might see them wandering around in the Zoo, if so, try to stump them with hard animal questions.

KCZoo - Orangutan Update

Catching Up with Kalijon

As many of you know, our female orangutan “T.K.” gave birth to a baby around 9 months ago. Although keeper staff worked hard to train T.K. to perform various maternal behaviors, providing her with the skills necessary to raise her own infant, T.K. did not adequately care for her baby.

Zoo staff set out to raise the infant female, named “Kalijon”, until she became old enough to introduce to a surrogate orangutan mother. Thus began four and a half long months of caring for Kalijon. Staff and volunteers worked with Kalijon 24/7 taking turns staying at the orangutan building night and day so she would grow up completely familiar with the sights, sounds, and smells of other orangutans.

When Kali was old enough, she was introduced to our female “Jill” who is an experienced mother and was already trained to bring an infant to the stall mesh so keepers could provide bottles of milk. To make a long story short-surrogate mom and baby are now inseparable!

I have to say, no one would ever imagine that these to are not biological mother and daughter! They stay in close contact with each other the majority of the time. However, as Jill is a very experienced mom, she is willing to allow Kalijon a lot of freedom to climb around and play like she loves to do. Kali has a mouth full of bright white baby teeth now so her grins are extra special to behold. Those choppers are also allowing her to eat lots of produce and primate chow biscuits, so it won’t be too many more months before she is done with milk all together. Hard to believe!

Her bushy red hair just keeps getting longer and crazier. Her arms are still very small, so she can reach out through the mesh to examine her keepers. She especially likes to pull up the cuffs of our shirt sleeves to feel around inside them. And if you are wearing glasses or a hat, she will try to snatch them! If Jill comes over and tries to stick her fingers out towards us, Kali will sometimes tug Jill’s hands back from the mesh as if she doesn’t want to share our attention with her mom.

If you haven’t yet been out to see Jill and Kalijon together, you REALLY should. They can be seen in the dayroom (their indoor exhibit) on Tuesdays and weekends until 12:30. Jill is very good about bringing Kalijon to the viewing windows where all can see what a good mom she is to her beautiful adopted daughter. Our hard work combined with Jill’s mothering skills will give Kalijon the best possible chance of being a successful mom herself someday!

Heidi, Animal Supervisor

A Possible Love Connection

We have a new addition to our Austral-Asia family. Her name is Wen-Dee and she is our new red panda female. Wen-Dee comes to us from the Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Lincoln, Nebraska. She has had cubs in recent years and she is here to find that love connection with our male Fagan.

Red pandas are endangered in the wild from predation and habitat destruction. The red panda breeding process also makes it difficult for them to increase their numbers. Red panda females only cycle one time per year. This means that they only have that one chance to get pregnant. Red panda breeding season can happen December until early March depending on the pair. So keep your fingers crossed that sometime this summer we will hear the patter of little “paws”. You can find the red pandas on Tiger Trail.

Cinnamon, Austral-Asia Animal Supervisor

Ed Zoo Cation

This week the Director of Education and I are heading to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in San Diego, California. Scientists from all over the country will be in attendance in addition to fifty teams of informal educators from zoos, museums and libraries around the country. We were invited to attend as part of a campaign to expand public literacy about climate change.

The evidence concerning climate change can be a challenge to communicate due to the intense debate surrounding the issue, but with the new polar bear exhibit coming this summer the Kansas City Zoo is committed to the challenge. Informal educators are the focus of the AAAS campaign because, compared to formal school educators, we can more readily reach out to adults directly.

Bryan, Youth and Family Programs Coordinator

Ed-ZOO-Cation

Each day, as Zoo Education Programers, we learn too!

Kids are so clever. We were at a school in the Kansas City area presenting the program “Fur, Feathers, Scales and Slime.” In the program we talk about the different coverings that animals have, like mammals have fur, birds have feathers, etc. The instructor asked the students if birds had to be able to fly if they were called a bird. The kids answered together “no.” So the natural next question asked by the instructor is “what birds cannot fly?” There was one student who was waving their raised hand excitedly. The instructor called on him certain he had the correct answer and he replied “dead ones.”

Kelly, School & Outreach Coordinator

Kansas City Zoo Animal Insights

Welcome to the new Kansas City Zoo blog. This will be a great place for zoo enthusiasts to learn a lot about the animals here at the zoo, and the people who work with them. I am the supervisor over the African Savannah area, and since I have the honor of kicking of the animal department’s contributions, I thought I would share a little bit of what we are looking forward to in 2010.

If you are at all familiar with our African Plains exhibit you have surely noticed our large herd of scimitar-horned oryx. This species has been extinct in the wild for almost 25 years now, but has a very large captive population, and we have been working with them here in Kansas City since 2002. Between then and 2007 we had 21 oryx births, and many of those offspring are now scattered in zoos around the country in breeding herds of their own. One of our crowning achievements with this species was to be able to send one of our animals to Tunisia to be part of a re-introduction project in 2006 (pictured here as it released into a boma in Africa). Now, after a 3 year hiatus, we are breeding oryx again. A new male was acquired according to Species Survival Plan recommendations last summer and was introduced to our herd in August. With 12 breeding-age females in our current herd, there should be plenty of calves to watch on exhibit starting as early as May of this year.

We are hoping for a few more exciting events as well, including another zebra foal later this summer and possibly endangered black-footed cat babies in our kopje area. We are looking into adding another species to our plains exhibit but will have to wait and see what happens. In any case, the African Savannah has always been a pretty dynamic area, so come on out and see what’s new all year long.

Tim Wild
Animal Supervisor-Savannah