Kookaburras – The Bushman’s Clock April 18, 2010

Chris Reid and I just finished talking about the kookaburra on Zoo Knew (Sundays at 7:15 am on CJOB 68) . These birds can be seen in the Tropical House at the Assiniboine Park Zoo.

Kookaburra (aka: Laughing kookaburra): Is sometimes called the Bushman’s Clock because of its habit of calling in the morning and evening. Their call sounds like loud, raucous laughter.

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The (laughing) kookaburra

Food: The kookaburra is a carnivorous bird and is known as a stand and wait hunter.

• The kookaburra eats both invertebrates (worms, insects, snails) and vertebrates (birds, rodents, lizards, amphibians and snakes)
• Small prey is crushed while larger prey is killed by bashing it against at branch or by dropping from a height.

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Size: Length: 45 cm  (18 in),  Weight: 0.5 kg  (1.1 lbs)

• The kookaburra is gray-brown above and gray-white on the head and underparts. It has a dark eye stripe and a barred tail. It has a long, stout (broad), dagger-like bill. It has a large head, a stubby tail and short legs.

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Habitat: The kookaburra lives away from water in woodland and scrub. It is a tree (or wood) kingfisher,  which is the most numerous of the three families of birds in the kingfisher group. The other two families are the river kingfishers and the lake kingfishers.

Distribution: South and East Australia. Introduced to Tasmania and other islands.

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Find out more about the Assiniboine Park Zoo’s kookaburras here: http://www.assiniboinepark.ca/media/animals/pdf/Laughing%20Kookaburra.pdf

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Compiled by Scott Gray, Zoo Education Director

References: Birds of the World (Paragon Publishing, 2005), the National Zoo, http://www.avianweb.com.

(Woody) The Pileated Woodpecker April 17, 2010

Chris Reid and I talked about the pileated woodpecker last Sunday on Zoo Knew (Sundays at 7:15 am on CJOB AM)

• The pileated woodpecker, made famous by inspiring the cartoon character Woody the Woodpecker, is Canada’s largest and North America’s second largest woodpecker species.
• Pileated woodpeckers range is length from 40 – 50 cm (16 to 19.5 in), with a wing length of 68 – 76 cm.
• Pileated woodpeckers are mostly black when at rest but show a burst white underwings when in flight.
• The sexes are similar in appearance, although the males have a larger red crest and a red moustache.

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• The pileated woodpecker is an uncommon species, found in coniferous, mixed and hardwood forests. It prefers dense, mature forest but has begun to frequent woodlots in the past couple of decades.

• Pileated woodpeckers excavate characteristically oval holes in trees to find ants and other wood-boring insects (and their larvae). They will also eat berries and nuts.

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• The pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is related to other Manitoba woodpecker species like the more common yellow-bellied sapsucker, the downy woodpecker, the hairy woodpecker, the red-headed woodpecker and the northern flicker.

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For more on some of the wonderful birds that can be seen (wild) at the Assiniboine Park, please visit: http://www.assiniboinepark.ca/index.php?option=com_birds&task=birds&Itemid=12

To hear this woodpecker’s call, please visit: http://www.assiniboinepark.ca/media/birds/P/Pileated%20Woodpecker.mp3

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Compiled by Scott Gray with references from Peterson Field Guides (Eastern Birds), Manitoba Birds (Andy Bezener & Ken De Smet), and The Field Guide to the Birds of North America (National Geographic Society).

Planning to welcome African cats April 15, 2010

No Asian lions for Winnipeg zoo

Planning to welcome African cats, instead

By: Carol Sanders, Winnipeg Free Press

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WONDERING where the Asian lions are?

Well, the pair the Assiniboine Park Zoo was preparing to welcome this summer aren’t coming.

“Although we did our best to enter the Asian lion breeding programs in Europe and India, we were informed there is a waiting list of dozens of zoos ahead of us,” zoo spokesman Dr. Bob Wrigley said.

“The animals are so rare, and the breeding so carefully controlled among participant zoos, that it will likely be many years before we are selected.”

Now, the zoo is planning to get some equally majestic, albeit less-rare and exotic, African lions, he said.

There are just 350 Asiatic lions left in the wild — all of them in the Gir National Park and Lion Sanctuary in northern India.

The animals were almost wiped out by sport hunting over the last two centuries, the Asiatic Lion Information Centre reports.

When the lion hunt was outlawed in the 1900s, the greatest threat came from the destruction of habitat. Vast tracts of jungle forest were cleared for timber to sell and to make way for the increasing human population. To bolster the endangered Asiatic lion population, co-operative inter-zoo breeding programs were set up. In 1990, two Asiatic lion couples from India were brought to the London Zoo, the Asiatic Lion Information Centre said. Zoos in Zurich and Helsinki received lions in 1991 and 1992 respectively. By the end of 1996 some 12 zoos were participating in the Asiatic lion breeding program. Ten years later, there were 99 lions at 36 zoos, the information centre said.

The Zoological Society of Manitoba was hoping Winnipeg’s zoo might be the first in North America to house Asiatic lions.

Last year, it decided to spend $1 million to convert the unused 20-year-old panda bear enclosure into a home for Asian lions. It was seen as an investment in promoting conservancy and education, and a way to boost zoo attendance. The warm-weather cats needed space to roam and a cosy abode in cold winters. Later this spring, the renovated panda pad will house a pair of African lions, said Wrigley. “…We have made great progress on the lion exhibit — including the indoor exhibit area, a beautiful interpretive space and renovations to the outside enclosure.”

Around five years ago, the zoo had some African lions who had cubs. Nearly half a million visitors flocked to the zoo to see the king of beasts. They are no longer at the zoo. “I believe the new lions will be a real hit,” he said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 10, 2010 B2

White Bison Calf Donated to Sioux Valley Dakota Nation April 3, 2010

The Assiniboine Park Zoo donated a white bison (aka white buffalo) to the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation on Monday, March 29. The 11 month old female and her brown brother (born in April of 2009) were gifted in a ceremony witnessed by Mayor Sam Katz, Chief Donna Elk, Elder Roger Armitte, along with members of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate reservation, Sioux Valley, Assiniboine Park Zoo officials and invited guests. The white bison is considered a strong spiritual symbol denoting renewal. Arvol Looking Horse from Green Grass, S.D., the 19th generation carrier of the sacred bundle and pipe believed to have been given to the Dakota people many centuries ago by the White Buffalo Calf Woman was also in attendance.

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Bison video courtesy of the Winnipeg Free Press: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1529573193?bctid=74714257001)

Read the CBC‘s coverage of the friendship ceremony here: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2010/03/29/mb-white-bison-calf-winnipeg.html

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Blizzard, the Assiniboine Park Zoo’s white bison, came to us in March 2006 and instantly became a huge draw for interested zoo visitors and, more importantly, for Aboriginal people. Here is a press clipping from the summer of ’06.

Top-secret mission brings rare white bison to Winnipeg zoo

WINNIPEG – A rare white bison made his official debut yesterday at the Assiniboine Park Zoo after a top-secret mission to bring him to Canada in recognition of his spiritual significance to aboriginal people.

By The Ottawa Citizen June 6, 2006

WINNIPEG – A rare white bison made his official debut yesterday at the Assiniboine Park Zoo after a top-secret mission to bring him to Canada in recognition of his spiritual significance to aboriginal people.

Blizzard marched solemnly before the cameras, displaying the instincts of a show horse on parade. He arrived in a blizzard in March from an anonymous American rancher and the zoo kept him a secret from the public until yesterday.

His coming is especially significant to First Nations because of a 2,000-year-old legend of the Lakota, a northern plains First Nation, which tells of a mystical maiden who appeared bearing a sacred pipe she used to teach the people to pray.

On leaving, she promised to return some day and usher in a time of great peace. As she moved away, the maiden turned into a white buffalo calf.

Scientists, who say the proper name is bison and not buffalo, say a white calf is born only once in 15 million births. The animals do not have albinism — their colour comes from a rare surfacing of a recessive gene that goes back in time thousands of years.

One of the last was a calf named Miracle who drew pilgrimages of aboriginal people to her owner’s ranch in Wisconsin a decade ago.

Zookeepers are poised for pilgrimages to Winnipeg. Never before has a white bison been linked to Manitoba, which holds the bison as its provincial symbol, said zoo curator Bob Wrigley.

© (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.

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For information on Blizzard, please visit: http://assiniboinepark.ca/media/animals/pdf/White%20Buffalo.pdf

To read the story of the White Buffalo Calf Woman, please visit: http://www.naturenorth.com/Zoo/White_buffalo_rightside.pdf

Markhor – Our Wild Goats March 21, 2010

The Assiniboine Park Zoo introduced a new young breeding male to its herd of female markhor. Here is some information to introduce you to these wonderfully active and agile wild goats with huge spiraling horns.

• The markhor (as well as the zoo’s Alpine ibex) is a member of the goat family, indigenous to Central Asia. There are three subspecies, of which the Assiniboine Park Zoo exhibits Capra falconeri heptneri

IUCN Status: Endangered

• Population: 2,500 worldwide with no sub-population more than 250
• The reasons for the markhor’s decline include intensive hunting (for trophies, meat and the Asian medicine market), disturbance and loss of habitat due to expanded human settlement, and competition from domestic livestock.

Distribution:

• The range of the markhor has historically extended through the mountainous regions from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India (Kashmir)

Biology and Ecology

Head-Body Length: 140 – 180 cm

Weight: Females weigh 30 – 40 kg+ (70 – 90 lb+). Males weigh 80 – 110 kg (180 – 240 lb)

Habitat:

• The markhor lives on dry mountain cliff-sides at altitudes ranging from 700 m (2300′) from November to May up to 4000 m (13,000′) in the summer.
• It avoids deep snow.

• The markhor occupies arid cliff-side habitats in sparsely wooded mountainous regions at altitudes ranging from 700 m (2300′) from November to May up to 4000 m (13,000′) in the summer.

Reproduction and Lifespan:

• Mating occurs during winter
• Births occur from late April to early June
• Birth Rate: one or two
• They live to at least 13 years

Food in the Wild:

• The markhor is a grazer in the spring and summer where it mainly grazes on tussocks of grass. It turns to browsing when the grasses have dried up, eating leaves and twigs.

Fun Facts

• The markhor is a browser and will climb trees in search of nutritious leaves, even as high as 4 – 6 m (15 – 20′) above the ground.
• Markhor horns are in demand for traditional Asian medicine. They are also one of the most desired of all hunting trophies due to length, which can exceed 1.5 m (60″).
• The name markhor is derived from the Persian mar, a snake, and khor, eating. This name is puzzling, since the markhor is a vegetarian, although it has been known to kill snakes.

Zoo Pictures: Markhor

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References:

• www.animalinfo.org
• www.arkive.com
• Nowak, R.M. (1999) Walker’s Mammals of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
• IUCN Redlist

Compiled by Scott Gray

Zoo Enrichment Club March 15, 2010

The University of Winnipeg Enrichment Club members are passionate students from a variety of fields and faculties within the university. The focus of the club is to help improve the welfare of the animals at the Assiniboine Park Zoo through the implementation of various enrichment projects. These projects may include environmental, feeding or sensory enrichment and are created in collaboration with keepers. The club has regular meetings to discuss new ideas and “create” the projects. At the February meeting the club worked on phase one of paper-mache treat feeders and constructed several treat boards for the macaques, squirrels and other animals. Club members are also working on a tunnel system for the meerkats. The Enrichment Club can be contacted at uofwenrichment@hotmail.com

European Bison March 14, 2010

The European bison, also known as wisent, is the cousin of the North American bison. Wisent are currently listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, but their status was much worse nearly a century ago. Due to a combination of habitat loss, war and poaching, the wisent was declared extinct in the wild after the last one was shot in 1921. Thankfully, 56 wisent survived in zoos scattered around Europe and a joint breeding program was quickly set up to save the species. It took nearly thirty years but the European bison began to be reintroduced throughout the forests of Belarus, Poland, Russia, Lithuania and the Ukraine in the early 1950’s.

The current wild wisent population is less than 2,500 as their success is still hampered by a lack of habitat but nearly 1,400 live in 250 zoos and game preserves around the world. We currently have 1.6 (one male, six female) European bison at the Assiniboine Park Zoo.

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Are bison and buffalo the same thing?

No. Bison belong to the family Bovidae, which include wild and domestic cattle as well as buffalo, but there are a number of significant differences between the two.

Bison:

• Live in North America and Europe
• Have long shaggy hair
• Have large shoulders and pronounced humps
• Have short horns

Buffalo:

• Live in Africa (cape buffalo) and Asia (water buffalo)
• Have short thin hair
• Have smaller shoulders and no humps
• Have long horns

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Life Span: up to 27 years

Habitat: Mixed and deciduous forests, meadows

Height (at the shoulders): 1.8 – 2 metres

Weight: 800- 1000 kg

Body Length: 2.9 metres

Tail Length: 80 cm

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Thanks to everyone that listens to Zoo Knew every Sunday morning at 7:15 on CJOB68, where we talked about bison this morning. I hope you’ll take a chance to visit the Assiniboine Park Zoo today or in the near future to view both our European and our North American bison herds. If you’re not in Winnipeg, take a visit to your nearest zoo to find out about all of the amazing animals that live there. Take part in a guided tour or read some of the interpretive signs and find out what your local zoo is doing to save and preserve endangered species. I think you’ll be surprised how much work zoos do! Please feel free to send me your comments or links to success stories.

Musk Ox March 9, 2010

This past Sunday on CJOB’s Zoo Knew, Chris and I talked about one of the best examples of an animal that is adapted to Arctic’s harsh winter environment, the musk ox. In case you missed it, here are some of the things we talked about.

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Currently we have 2.2 musk ox (Ovibos moschatus) on display at the Assiniboine Park Zoo. This includes one bull, two cows, and a young male born last summer.

Diet: Lichens, sedges, mosses, grasses and flowering plants when available in the wild. Their zoo diet is alfalfa, hay and ruminant pellets.

Predators: Wolves and (sometimes) bears

Average lifespan: 12 to 20 years

Height at shoulder: 4 to 5 ft

Average Weight: 225 to 365 kg  (500 to 800 lbs)

• Females average 90 kg less than males

Body Length: 2 – 2.45 m  (6.6 – 8 ft)

Size at Birth: 18 inches high and 25 -30 lbs

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Population and Distribution: Musk ox are considered a species of Least Concern by the IUCN with a world population of <120,000.

• Canadian Arctic: 85,000
• Greenland: 20,000
• Introduced populations also occur in Svalbard, Alaska, Russia and Norway (~10,000)

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Hair: The Inuit call musk ox by the name omingmak, which means “the animal with skin like a beard”.

Musk ox are renouned for their hair. They have a course outer layer of long hair that becomes a long shaggy coat (or skirt). This outer layer can grow to nearly a metre (3 ft) in length for the winter, longer than any other mammal. Musk ox have a second layer of soft woolly underfur. Called quviut (“KIV-ee-it”), it is eight times warmer than sheep’s wool and finer than cashmere.

Musk ox are often mistaken for bison, yak and even cattle (at least they are when I’ve taken tour groups around the zoo). And while these comparisons are superficially understandable, they are in fact more closely related to sheep and goats.

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References: National Geographic Canada, Hinterland Who’s Who, World Association of  Zoos and Aquariums

Compiled by Scott Gray, Zoological Society of Manitoba

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Musk ox Interpretive Sign: http://assiniboinepark.ca/media/animals/pdf/Muskox.pdf (please note that this sign is now a little out of date)

The Inuit call musk ox by the name omingmak, which means “the animal with skin like a beard”.

Animal Shipments February 24, 2010

I’m sometimes asked, by people on one of our guided zoo tours or even when I’m out in the community, where the zoo’s animals go in the winter. Usually this is a question from someone that doesn’t visit very often or only thinks of the Assiniboine Park Zoo as a summer facility. In fact, the zoo is open every day of the year, including holidays, and so the animals stay here year-round.

That’s not to say that animals shipments are rare, in fact, they happen all the time. The fall/winter season is often the busiest time for shipments as babies that have grown up at our zoo over the past summer or two are moved out to other facilities. Offspring naturally leave their parents in the wild, sometimes after just hours, others after a couple of years. And since we couldn’t house all of the animals born at the zoo year after year, some of them are moved to other facilities that have the room for them.

Here is an example of some of the animal movements going on this winter. A herd of 12 markhor are going to a zoo in Ontario; Arctic foxes and a lynx are moving to a wonderful facility in the Yukon;  a dromedary camel, Bennett’s wallabies and reindeer are moving to Ontario; a few red kangaroos are leaving for Ontario and Texas; crested screamers (large South American birds) are heading to Missouri; and some of our pronghorn are learning French for their trip to a zoo in Quebec.

All animals must go through a month of quarantine, both here at our zoo and again at the zoo they are moving to to insure that they all have a clean bill before moving in with new neighbours. And of course their are piles of travel documents filled out (often by several agencies and facilities) and numerous travel arrangements that must be made. Shipping animals to and from the zoo is a lot of work, often taking months to finalize, but it’s worth it when visitors get to see the animals in their new homes.

There will be more animal shipment news in the months to come. Stay tuned.

Scott G.

Cougars at Assiniboine Park Zoo February 22, 2010

Chris Reid and I talked yesterday (at 7:15 am on CJOB 68’s Weekend Wake-Up Show) about cougars on Zoo Knew. With Ayla the cougar‘s recent passing, we felt it was appropriate to highlight these wonderful animals. You can still see Ayla’s partner Max in his enclosure, located in the North American animal area. The Assiniboine Park Zoo is open all winter from 10 am to 4 pm.

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Here are a few fun fast facts that we didn’t have a chance to include in our chat:

• Cougars are the second largest cat in the Americas. The jaguar is the largest.

• Cougars are the largest of the three cats that live in Canada (including the lynx and the bobcat).
• Cougars have the largest range of all terrestrial mammals in the western hemisphere

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A Cat of Many Names:

The cougar’s scientific name, Puma concolor, literally means cat of one colour. Regionally though, it is known by many common names, depending on local culture and legend.

• The Maliseet of New Brunswick call the cougar “pi-twal,” meaning “the long-tailed one.”
• The English name “cougar” and the French “couguar,” now widely used in Canada, were adapted from the Brazilian native name “cuguacuarana.”
• The name “mountain lion” is extensively used in the western United States.
• “Puma” is the native Peruvian name.
• Other names you may have heard include: mountain lion, Mexican lion, deer tiger, mountain screamer, Florida panther, painter and catamount.

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Speed:

• The cougar can run as fast as 55 to 72 km/h (35 to 45 mi/h)
• By comparison, the house cat = 50km and the cheetah = 100km

Diet:

• Cougars are obligate carnivores, like all cats, feeding only on meat.
• Cougars hunt mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, moose calves, and in the west, bighorn sheep
• Cougars will also eat a large array of available prey species if they are available. These include birds and other mammals, such as the beaver, snowshoe hare, ground squirrel, and rodents.

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Big Air:

• Cougars have an exceptional vertical leap (up), reported at 5.4 m (18 ft) .
• Cougars can jump horizontally (along the ground) at nearly 12 m (40 ft) from a standing position.

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References:

• “Great Cats – Majestic Creatures of the Wild“, Zoo Library Reference
• http://www.hww.ca
• http://www.waza.com