Girl Scouts - February 18

Friday night was another girl scouts program, and as usual it was both well attended and a lot of fun. This time, we had 4 staff members, 6 other adults, and 17 girls between 9 to 12 years of age. The focus of the program was on Watching Wildlife, so most of our activities were aimed in that general direction.

Amber Mount, the education director's assistant, started off by telling the girls a little bit about the zoo and their philosophy on life. The mission of The Alaska Zoo is to provide homes for arctic and sub-arctic wildlife in a natural setting for the enjoyment and educational enrichment of Alaskan residents and visitors to the state. They are a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of all wildlife species through education programs and rehabilitation. Since their incorporation in 1968, the Zoo has successfully rehabilitated and placed many orphaned and injured animals in good homes at other zoos and wildlife parks throughout the United States. They are one of the most visited attractions in the state, with an annual attendance of close to 200,000 visitors.

She then spoke a little bit about herself and how she got to be working at the zoo, but I won't go in to that here since I've already covered that in previous postings. It was then time to introduce the other staff members, myself included. We all basically just explained who we were and what we do at the zoo, with perhaps a little information about our personal lives thrown in for good measure. We then had each of the girls, and the adults too, give their names and tell us what their favorite animal is. It's always interesting to hear what they come up with. This group seemed to be made up of "followers" in that they all just repeated the same animals over and over again, with no real new or interesting ones being added. It seemed like they all liked either Horses, Bunnies, or Monkeys. One lady did say her favorite animal was a Caribou - that was unique in the crowd.

Our first activity of the night had Amber talking about personal space and ways to communicate to others to let them know if they've invaded your "space". You can tell them to go away; you can tell them to stop; you can scream; you could even run away. She then applied it to the animal world, asking the girls to come up with a few examples of what an animal might do if you're too close to them. We had a lot of suggestions, anywhere from scratching, growling, and biting, to running away. One little girl talked about what might happen if you were out hunting with an ax... she didn't get any farther than that in her story because all the adults started laughing at the thought of hunting for bear with an ax!

Talking about our Basic Needs was next on the agenda. Amber had the girls come up with a list of things that are necessary for life, either an animal's or a human's life. The girls were able to come up with just about all of the major ones: water, food, heat source, air, protection, and shelter. Once our list was written down on the drawing board, we passed out crayons and paper and had them draw a picture of their homes, listing where each of their basic needs were met (ie: in the kitchen for food, in the bedroom for sleep, that sort of thing). My house that I drew had bookshelves in each room - that's definitely a necessity of life for me! On the back of their pictures, they were to come up with a shopping list of items they'd need to buy. Most of them had things like ice cream, mild, and bread, but oddly enough, allot of them listed tomatoes as well.

We then handed out another sheet of paper; this one with an animal's name printed on the upper right-hand corner (like: polar bear, musk ox, wolf, eagle, that sort of thing) and had them do the same thing for them. It was hard for some of the girls, particularly the ones who got "alligator" or "anaconda". I think Amber should have stuck to animals the girls would be familiar with!

Finally it was time for the main event of the night: the nocturnal tour! The nights are not quite as cold as they had been lately, but we still had them bundle up. It's no fun if you're cold, so we erred on the side of caution. We did, however, take away their flashlights, for the most part. It really isn't necessary for them, and the girls just can't seem to resist the temptation to shine the light in our eyes all the time. For those of you who get migraines, you will understand when I tell you that I really don't like a flashlight shined into my eyes! We stayed out on zoo grounds for a good hour, visiting the polar bear, the wolverines, the ravens, the goshawk, the snowy owls, the Sitka black tailed deer, the arctic fox, the musk ox (my personal favorite), the eagle, and the moose. We always get one or two girls who ask if we can go see Maggie, our African elephant, but unfortunately she is asleep at night and really gets cranky when you wake her up, so we always avoid her area of the zoo. By the time we got back to the education building, we were all ready for some hot tea, hot coco, and snacks. Nothing like a brisk hike out in the cold night air to work up a hearty appetite!

While the girls ate their snacks, Amber handed out an evaluation form to the adults attending the program. This form is intended to help us create better educational programs, asking for any advice they might have, and for an evaluation on our performance that night. We always get good reviews, so I’m never sure exactly what good the form does for us. But it’s always nice to know you’re appreciated, even if they never really have any suggestions for us on how to make it better.

Finally it was my turn, and I got to do my Creature Feature portion of the program. The animal I chose this time was actually a group of animals rather than just an individual one. I talked to the girls about Crocodilians, which includes crocodiles, alligators, caimans, and gharials. There are 25 species total in the group: 2 species of Alligators, 13 species of Crocodiles, 13 species of Caiman (which are actually a sub-group of alligators), and 2 species of gharial (a relatively rare type of crocodilian that lives over around India).

One of the most important things to know about the crocodilians, in my opinion, is how to tell them apart. The gharial (sometimes known as gavial) is an easy one to identify because its snout is extremely long and narrow. The males have a big fleshy lump at the end of their snout, so they are easily differentiated from the females, as well. The caiman are not so easily identified because they look pretty similar to an alligator, except they have small bony scales, called osteoderms, embedded into the skin of their bellies.

However, there are two major differences between alligators and crocodiles. First, the alligator has a broad, flat, rounded snout – pretty much a "U" shaped snout – while the crocodile has more of a "V" shaped snout. (Don’t you love that word? "Snout" meaning: the projecting part of a vertebrate’s head, consisting of the nose and mouth.) Second, the teeth on the lower jaw of an alligator are not visible when its mouth is closed, while they are visible in a crocodile when its mouth is closed, particularly the 4th tooth on each side. Of course, if you’re actually close enough to an alligator or crocodile to see its teeth, you probably won’t be wondering whether or not the teeth on the lower jaw are visible or not! At least, I wouldn’t be.

The crocodilians are the world’s largest living reptile, and used to live along side the dinosaur, back 110 million years ago. In fact, scientists have recently dug up a skull of a Sarcosuchus Imperator (better known as "SuperCroc") that was 6 feet long. Estimating it’s entire length by the length of its skull puts the SuperCroc at over 40 feet long! Nowadays, of course, they aren’t quite so big. The largest one on record today is a salt-water crocodile measuring 23 feet long, while the smallest one is an African dwarf crocodile measuring only 5 feet long (I got to see one of these just this weekend at a reptile show in Anchorage! Very cool!)

A very important thing to keep in mind when observing the crocodilians is: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THEIR SPEED! They look very lumpy and awkward on land, but are actually capable of short bursts of speed, up to 10 mph even! They are unable to maintain the speed for long, so can be easily outrun if you’re paying attention. They actually have 3 main gaits: The first is called the belly crawl, which is fairly slow and used mainly in the mud where it’s easier to drag one’s belly down to the water’s edge. The second is called the high walk, where they pick their bodies up off the ground and walk just like a dog or cat would. They use this gait mainly for navigating obstacles on their way to the water’s edge. The third gait is the most unusual, and puts the funniest picture in my head when I think about it. It’s called a gallop, and is used for those short bursts of speed I spoke of earlier. In this gait, the gator is actually running, using both front legs first then both back legs (similar to a cheetah or a bunny’s hop) and at times the entire animal is airborne!

The crocodilians are unusually attentive parents. They typically build a nest on land consisting of mud and vegetation, where they will lay from 25 to 80 eggs. Oddly enough, the sex of the babies is determined by the temperature of the nest: warmer temperatures produce females, while cooler temperatures produce males. Both parents protect the nest quite vigorously, and when the babies are ready to hatch out of their shells, the parents actually help them by taking the eggs into their mouths and gently crushing the shells so the babies can crawl out. They then take the babies to the water and protect them for another two years, till they are big enough to defend themselves.

While I passed around the photos I had (thanks again to my friend Cyrinda who donated pictures of her Everglades vacation), Amber actually left the building and went to get a special guest visitor for the girls. She came back just as I was ending my talk, and had Liz and Trini with her.

Liz is a fellow zookeeper and Trini is our silver fox! Trini is 7 years old and came to us as a pup when she was confiscated from a family who was trying to raise her as a pet. It is illegal to own a fox as a pet so the Fish & Game not only took her from them, but also fined them rather heavily for it. A silver fox is actually the same thing as a red fox; they just have a different color variation (like I have red hair, and you might have black or blond hair, but we’re still both humans). In fact, a red fox vixen (or female, as they are called) may have a litter of pups with both red and silver hair colors, although they are typically regional – meaning that reds are typically found in one area, while silvers are found in another area.

Liz spoke to the girls for a bit about foxes, but then had to take her back outside due to the heat inside the building. The girls got to go outside in groups of 5-6 to pet Trini, while the ones inside waiting their turn got to meet Yaz, the ball python, and some of the millipedes we have. And that was our show for the night.

In other news around the zoo, the three porcupine (Daisy, Petunia, and Porky) have been moved into their new enclosure and are happily coexisting finally. Porcupines are normally a solitary animal, so I really wasn’t sure how they would take to living together, but they seem to be adjusting well. They haven’t figured out that two porcupine don’t fit thru the doorway at the same time yet, however. I went to visit them the other day and found both Daisy and Petunia trying to stuff themselves into the door to their shelter (they have 3 shelters in their enclosure, but of course they all want to use the one the other guy is using, whichever one that happens to be at the moment), and let me assure you: they don’t fit. But give them credit; they were certainly giving it a good try! How they didn’t stick each other with their quills, I don’t know.

Ike, the new bald eagle, had to go back to the infirmary a while ago. He had been out in the exhibit with our female for a while, but ended up aggravating his amputation to the point where it got all "goobered up" to quote their handler. Ike is a very impressive bird, but has not adjusted well to not being able to fly yet. He keeps trying but ends up in a tangled heap on the ground, which is not good for his healing wounds. The zookeepers are actually planning to train him to the glove so they can get him out and about soon. I can’t think of anything more intimidating! Can you imagine a HUGE bald eagle on your arm, staring you in the face just waiting for a chance to bite your nose off?

And last but certainly not least; the zoo has acquired three sugar gliders! Sugar gliders are tiny gliding opossums from Indonesia, New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia. They also happen to be illegal to own in Alaska, so they were confiscated from their owners and given to the zoo. We don’t know yet what we will do with them, but we are hoping to add them to our collection of critters in the education department. I will let you know more about them as I learn more myself!