by White, Betty
They are on exhibit and reproducing in several major zoos today. It’s amazing to realize they have been known for only a little over one hundred years.
The L.A. Zoo received its first okapi in 2005.
I felt most privileged to get this up close and personal with Jamal!
Nubian Ibex
This amazing photo captures the ibex’s uncanny ability to scale walls—it looks like its hooves are on nothing! And that’s practically the case. This is what they do to escape predators.
When you look at this incline in real life at the zoo, it is just that perpendicular—you can’t believe anything could stand on it!
This photo won Tad Motoyama first prize in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums photography contest.
FAMILY MATTERS
Chimpanzee family
The exciting zoo season is spring, when our babies begin to arrive.
In 1987 it was hard to imagine that this wide-eyed youngster would grow into our imposing silverback, Kelly.
Kelly
Kelly is a twenty-five-year-old silverback gorilla and the dominant male in one of our two separate groups of gorillas at the L.A. Zoo. Kelly weighs a daunting four hundred and fifty pounds, which is a far cry from when he was a newborn baby at the zoo in 1987.
Kelly and Evelyn were supposed to breed, but that didn’t happen. Then it was hoped that Kelly would mate with another of our females, Rapunzel. A baby gorilla is a true crowd-pleaser.
We waited and waited, but nothing was happening, and we wondered if there would ever be chemistry between Kelly and the ladies.
In 2003 we began building our new gorilla exhibit. So that the animals wouldn’t be upset during the construction, we sent them on loan to the Denver Zoo.
Well, I don’t know whether it was the altitude or wine and soft music or what, but Kelly and Rapunzel soon hit it off and she had not one but two mile-high babies during their Denver stay. Her second baby, Glenda, was about two years old when she came back to the L.A. Zoo with her mother and father. She turned six in May 2011.
Evelyn, meanwhile, never bred, but she has become our beloved elder stateswoman. At thirty-six years old, she gets grudging respect from the younger girls, and even from Kelly.
Here is Kelly in all his glory at age twenty-one.
Evelyn and Glenda
So many of the males can’t be trusted with a baby . . . unlike Kelly. Here he is enjoying gentle play with his daughter, Glenda.
Glenda is not above using her mom, Rapunzel, as an accomplice.
Evelyn
Kelly: I can do it. Glenda: Well, I can, too!
It was a great surprise to discover that apes actually use tools. Here’s Rapunzel proving it.
Camel Family
Years ago at the L.A. Zoo, we had a group walk as a fund-raiser. When we got to the camel exhibit, one of our two females—hugely pregnant—was starting labor. No way could I leave until that baby was born, so I pulled out of the walk and just hung out with the keepers. It was almost an hour before the mother finally dropped that little package to the ground.
As with most hoofed animals, a baby must get up and be able to run as quickly as possible so as not to risk being trampled or taken by a predator.
This little guy kept struggling to get those long legs in line to support himself. He would no sooner get one set when it would fold before he could get the other three in order.
Finally—at long last—he made it to his feet and stood by his mother. He was teetering a bit, but he was on all fours.
Just then our other female camel wandered over like an affectionate aunt and, as if to say, Oh, what a beautiful baby! she touched him lightly with her nose.
SPLAT!!!
Down he went, and had to start the whole process all over again.
These handsome fellows are Bactrian camels, characterized by the two humps. (It’s the dromedary that has only one.) The animals pictured here are exceptionally beautiful examples, with their firm upright humps. Often those humps will sag and tip over in adults. I know the problem.
Bactrian camel
Wild Bactrians come from the inhospitable steppes of Central Asia, although most of these creatures are currently domesticated. Just think how long and how closely they have been working for humans. In some areas, people couldn’t make it without them.
Markhors
Markhors are a type of wild goat found in the mountainous regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. There are fewer than seven hundred and fifty of these animals living in the wild today.
MOMMIES AND BABIES
Giraffes
Giraffes, indigenous to Africa, are the tallest mammals on earth. The males can get up to eighteen feet tall, the females up to fifteen feet! Challenges begin early for baby giraffes, who face a near-six-foot drop to the ground in their first seconds of life.
Getting those long legs untangled and struggling to her feet, our little Harriet found a safe shelter under her protective mother.
Those first few moments are always anxious ones, and it is a great relief when the newborn stands and finally stretches that little neck to nurse. Remarkably, within hours, these nearly six-foot-tall newborns are running around under their own steam!
Tigers
A little horseplay—or tigerplay.
One thing can lead to another . . .
. . . or even three others.
Our Sumatran tiger Lulu is pictured with her second litter, and she has been a terrific mother.
This isn’t always the case. Some years back we had a tiger who wanted no part of motherhood. One morning she gave birth to three babies and would have nothing to do with them—she left them completely alone.
The keepers knew the tiny kittens couldn’t make it on their own and time was of the essence. One keeper managed to divert the mother’s attention long enough for the other keeper to scoop up the kittens and rush them to the zoo nursery.
As luck would have it, I happened to be there at the time, talking with a nursery keeper about a zoo special I was preparing to produce. By now the kittens were in real need of help, as they were cold and fading fast. We each took one of these little creatures, which just fit into our hands, and began to rub—hard. We rubbed and rubbed until, at last, their color began to normalize and a hasty formula could be put into baby bottles to get them some help for inside as well. Thankfully, all three made it.
In retrospect, I’ve always been amazed by the fact that although tiny puppies don’t look anything like the dogs they will grow into, and even lion cubs are certainly different from the adult animal, these little guys were absolute replicas of Mom and Dad. They were already perfect tigers—only in miniature.
Sultan and Rani
Mountain Tapir
The highly endangered mountain tapir is native to South America. A baby tapir looks very much like a rattlesnake watermelon with stripes for camouflage that soon disappear.
Yellow-footed rock wallaby and joey
Colobus monkey and baby
This is the red river hog from Central Africa, with three of her litter of five.
Flamingo with her chick. As he grows up, his feathers turn pink.
White-faced whistling duck
Here’s Cleo and her son, Kelly.
Chacoan peccary and babies, found in Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina
Our beautiful lady with her newborn in the nest box.
Snow Leopard
Aptly nicknamed “ghost of the mountains,” the snow leopard is perhaps the most beautiful and certainly the most mysterious of all the big cats.
Because they live in such difficult terrain in the wild—the rugged Himalayan plateau, the high country of Mongolia and Pakistan—studying them has been almost impossible. Finally, the placement of motion-sensitive cameras has provided scientists with a wealth of snow leopard images to study.
Black-necked swan and cygnet
The baby koala at the Cleveland Zoo. I think this says it all.
KID
S WILL BE KIDS
Mountain lion cubs have spots when they’re young.
No matter what the species, youngsters love to play. . . .
Baby Peninsular Pronghorns
These newborns still have to get their legs sorted out.
The peninsular pronghorn is another animal, like our California condor, that we are trying to bring back from a critically endangered status. Peninsular pronghorns are endangered. Once numbering in the thousands, there are now approximately two hundred and fifty in the wild. Since 2000, the Los Angeles Zoo has participated in the Peninsular Pronghorn Recovery Project. Our breeding herd is a collaboration between our zoo and several other zoos and Mexican wildlife organizations.
These baby pronghorns act just like the hungry kids they are.
Our Glenda in a fun mood.
Even the remote snow leopard is prone to occasional attacks of adorableness.
You learn it as a kid!
AIRBORNE
A pair of macaws in flight
From our feathered to our furry friends, the sight of an animal in midair is breathtaking.
Cheeks the Cockatoo
The L.A. Zoo has a great bird show that starts with a keeper coming out and asking, “Anyone have a dollar?”
Everyone takes a bill out and waves it in the air, and suddenly Cheeks, who is a free-flying cockatoo, comes out of nowhere and takes it from the hand of one of the visitors. It’s a thrilling moment. He circles then redelivers the dollar to its owner to start the show. Here I am, having my money returned.
Red-tailed hawk
Of course, you don’t really need feathers.
Speke’s gazelle
Markhor kids
Sea lion
Baby giraffe
CAMOUFLAGE
Ornate horned toad
The marvelous array of colors and shapes and stripes and patterns that each animal wears is specifically designed by Mother Nature to help that animal blend in to his environment and virtually disappear.
It is a matter of survival . . . whether that be as the predator or as the prey.
The following are some extraordinary examples.
African Wild Dogs
African wild dogs probably take the prize as masters of camouflage.
Also known as cape hunting dogs or painted wolves, these animals are not domestic dogs gone wild, nor are they wolves, nor hyenas. They are a genus all their own. Unfortunately, their problem is familiar—their native habitat in Africa is growing smaller, and their population is following suit.
Observing these animals at the zoo is great if they are standing on grass, but, as you can see, if they are against the rocks, they become virtually invisible.
Where is he? With that broken pattern, he can disappear against almost any background....
Tigers
Why do tigers have stripes?
Wouldn’t it seem that a huge orange predator with vivid black stripes would be easy enough to spot in time to frighten off potential prey? However, in the changing lights and shadows of the jungle, a tiger can almost disappear.
Despite their remarkable camouflage, the number of these magnificent animals in the wild continues to dwindle alarmingly. Save the tiger, indeed.
As you can see, even in a zoo environment, our beautiful Sumatran tiger manages to play his own game of hide-and-seek.
Grevy’s Zebras
Meet Frances, Lewa, and Akina, three members of our group of Grevy’s zebras.
In the wild, due to loss of habitat, competition with livestock, and poaching, these represent another diminishing population. Former vast herds have come down to less than two thousand animals in their natural African environment.
Grevy’s are easily distinguished from other varieties of zebras by their close, narrow stripes and their pure white bellies, but telling individual animals apart can be a challenge unless you know that no two zebras are marked exactly alike. Like human fingerprints—or snowflakes. Look closely at these beauties and you’ll see the subtle differences in their stripe patterns. When these guys get in motion, when they’re running, they just disappear.
Growing up, I used to wonder who checked all the snowflakes to know that no two were alike. I’ll take their word on zebras.
No, the stripes won’t come off.
Chameleon
Camouflage is his business.
Bongo with his zoo friend—a yellow-backed duiker.
The Bongo
The bongo is an antelope, and ours is the eastern mountain bongo . . . very rare and found only in the mountains of Kenya. The L.A. Zoo got its first bongo in 1975.
The day our bongo arrived, Dr. Thomas called me and asked, “Would you like to meet him?” I was astounded, because I knew the animal had to go into a period of quarantine before it could be put on exhibit. Of course I couldn’t get there fast enough.
Warren took me backstage, and I met our gorgeous new guy. As I petted him, Warren said, “Put your hand on his side.” I did . . . and realized “he” was pregnant!
We had our bongo—two for the price of one!
In nature, these animals live in wooded mountains where the bright color may not seem the best camouflage. But when he’s in motion, it’s no problem.
More important—especially to him—it is his color that attracts the females.
Our jaguar in dappled sunshine.
SLEEPY HEADS
Sometimes zoo visitors are disappointed when they come to an exhibit to find the animals asleep, and they quickly move on to the next exhibit. If you want to be sure to see a wide-awake animal, you should get to the zoo early. So many animals are nocturnal hunters or gatherers. In the wild, they would sleep in the day as well.
Of course there are those of us zoo nuts who find animals fascinating even when they are snoozing. It can be a great opportunity to see them in detail without distraction. It may also be a good time to talk to the keepers and discover the deep bond that can exist between these caretakers and their charges.
Meet some of our sleepyheads.
Harriet
What looks like a comfortable nap here would be far too dangerous in the wild for this youngster. Perhaps “comfortable” is not the right word, as it takes quite a bit of folding to get into this position, but here at the zoo, our Harriet has no need to worry about predators as she snoozes.
We even sleep adorably.
NOSE TO NOSE
This category really speaks for itself....
Flamingos
Nubian ibex
Daddy takin and baby
Aldabra tortoises
Okapi
An apology is necessary after my visit to the Cleveland Zoo: I’m sorry I got lipstick on your giraffe.
And to the Sacramento Zoo: Ditto!
Koko
Some of your close friends are hard to explain. This is Koko, the famous signing gorilla. In the background is her mentor, Dr. Penny Patterson.
Harbor seal at Georgia Aquarium
MY MISUNDERSTOOD FRIENDS
Three-banded armadillo
I remember the first time I ever saw a snake.
We were packing into the High Sierras on horseback. My dad was absolutely petrified of snakes. He could look at them and just go bananas. Well, the very first time we made a pack trip into the mountains I was four years old. I rode on his horse in front of him, my legs sticking straight out the sides. We were riding along these switchback trails over the passes, and as we came back down the other side of one particular mountain, here’s this snake coming up the path. I was fascinated. My father, however, nearly jumped off—no, he stayed on—the horse, for good reason. I vividly remember that moment and my father’s panic.
Later in my childhood we did a driving vacation through Idaho, and I remember stopping to look at the view of a beautiful meadow, and my father said, “There are thousands of snakes out there!” And I had visions of parting the grass and seeing it teeming. There were probably one or two out there, but to him there were “t
housands.”