Category: Primates
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I had heard that the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans was a really great zoo. The people who told me this (not zoo aficionados) were never able to say what was great about it. They didn't mention rare species, successful breeding programs, or brilliant enrichment schemes. It was just really great. I recently got to…
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The experimenters were trying to enliven the lives of zoo animals while simultaneously gathering data. As often happens, not all the data they gathered was in the categories expected. As Hal Markowitz recounts in Behavioral Enrichment in the Zoo, date (1981), he was trying to set up a game for mandrills (Papio sphinx) in a…
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A certain member of the minor Scottish nobility has accused me of being “a bird person.” I deny it. Just as I refuse to choose between being “a cat person” or “a dog person,” I refuse to limit my interest in animals to, say, Class Aves (birds), Class Mammalia, or Class Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes). I…
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It was sad about the Arakan forest turtle (Heosemys depressa). It hadn't been seen since 1908, when a British officer in Myanmar (then Burma) found all of one specimens. Clearly extinct. Farewell, small drab turtle. However, in 1994, “conservationists found a few specimens in a food market in China.” Not extinct. This is the easiest…
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We have been asked how to repel macaques. Or rather, we have noticed that someone arrived at this website by searching for “how to repel macaques,” which we took as a cry for help. Unfortunately, there was nothing here about how to repel macaques. Nor is there an obvious site to refer the thwarted searcher…
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To attract wildlife, we've historically offered water, food, and salty snacks. Hunters and ecotourists can both be found hanging around waterholes. Some people put out bird feeders to watch birds. Others put out cheap corn to attract deer year-round so they'll be available in hunting season. Animals have always been drawn to salt licks. That…
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A few years ago, Terri Nelson and I went to the San Francisco Zoo, and came upon the Nocturnal Gallery. This is closed now, but it was a little building with glass-fronted cages with small primates. It was dark inside, with double doors so people entering wouldn't let in daylight. There were dim red lights.…
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I was reading Tupai: A Field Study of Bornean Treeshrews by Louise H. Emmons because that is the kind of thing I like, and learned about the absentee maternal system found in some treeshrew species. First I should say that treeshrews are the same as tree shrews, and the closing up of the word is…
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