Since pandas are solitary animals, if the male and female pandas were put together at the wrong time, the pandas would fight. Also, pandas can only get pregnant two to three days out of the year. The scientists at CRES had to closely watch the panda’s hormone levels so that they could breed the pandas.

In 1999, Bai Yun gave birth to the first panda in North America to make it to adulthood. This was quite an accomplishment. Pamela Crowe, who works at the Giant Panda Research Center, told us just a small bit about the volumes of research that have been accomplished in the nearly ten years they have been in San Diego. Twice a day she goes out to the panda enclosure and observes the pandas. The cumulative data from these observations both here and at the Wolong facility in China, and the analysis of the information, have led to major changes in the way pandas are cared for in zoos and major increases in the number of panda babies.
Thanks to the work of the San Diego Zoo, CRES, and China, the pandas are still around for everyone to enjoy.

-Hayley, Zoo InternQuest, Real World,

Saving pandas
Pandas are one of my most favorite animals, so ending our Zoo InternQuest experience with a visit to these cute, furry bears was awesome. We met with Pamela Crowe, a research animal technician, who observes these rare mammals at the Zoo. Ms. Crowe makes observations about the pandas’ behavior, using charts to show their behavioral trends over time. When making these observations, an ethogram, which is a chart that names a behavior on one side and defines the behavior on the other side, is used. The definition of the behavior cannot include the word for the behavior itself (it’s kind of like the game Taboo!).This makes it possible for anyone observing an animal to match a behavior seen to one on the chart.

When we agreed on the definitions of the panda behaviors, Ms. Crowe took us outside to observe the young male panda, Mei Sheng, in his exhibit. We recorded all the behaviors we saw performed. And boy, was Mei Sheng active! He climbed up and down the trees, walked all around the exhibit, ate and drank, and made a vocalization called a bleat, which sounds just like its name. It was then that I realized just how hard it is to record every behavior an animal does, especially if that animal is being active.

Watching and recording the behavior of Mei Sheng was fun, but for Ms. Crowe this exercise has applications to conservation as well. Meticulously banking data on the behavior of the pandas at the Zoo can help researchers and scientists apply that information to the behavior patterns of pandas in the wild. It might make it easier for field biologist to find animals to observe in the difficult terrain of the mountains where pandas live. Perhaps understanding their communication behavior can guide the establishment of boundaries for parks and conservation corridors so the bears have enough territory to sustain a good population. There is still so much to be learned about pandas that all the data accumulated is very important. I believe this was a very fitting way for the Zoo InternQuest experience to come to a close, with the message that there is always more to be learned about an animal, and that the more knowledge is gained, the higher an endangered species’ chances for survival are.

- A.J., InternQuest, Conservation Team

Panda-rific Profession
Research animal technician Pamela Crowe has been working at the Zoo for five years and she both loves and appreciates her job. One of the most important parts of the job of a research animal technician in this division of Conservation and Research for Endangered Species (CRES) is doing behavioral observations with an ethogram. This is done to record and report on panda behavior in a controlled setting. The work done here has helped increased the amount of information about pandas greatly over the past 10 years that pandas have been here in San Diego. It was a little difficult for me at first to record the panda’s activities. It took a while for me to get the hang of it. In the end, I discovered how much fun it could be to stand quietly and record the panda’s behaviors.

Ms. Crowe’s career as a research animal technician started with her earning a bachelor’s degree in biology at San Diego State University. During college and after she graduated, she had several volunteer and paid positions in different fields to figure what type of animal-related career she wanted to pursue. One of her volunteer programs was at the San Diego Zoo recording the behaviors of pandas. She realized she loved it and remained a volunteer for three years.

Later, because there were no jobs working directly with pandas, she applied to work as an administrative assistance in the Giant Panda Conservation Unit of CRES. Her patience and persistence paid off and she was able to move into her current position. In addition to observing the pandas, she trains volunteers to be observers, compiles the data in order to write behavior reports, creates graphs that reflect the results, and contributes to scientific papers about pandas.

A research technician is part of a team, Ms. Crowe emphasized. She, along with many other observers, keepers, and scientists, have been gathering the information that hopefully will help put pandas back in the wild and help their population grow.

-Elizabeth, Zoo Internquest, Animal Careers Team

But how do you define a behavior like resting without calling it “resting”? 

Mei Sheng put on quite a show for the interns. It was hard to keep up with all his activities!

Pamela Crowe, Research Laboratory Technician, taught the interns how to be good observers.

Like all of the other animal care staff we have encountered, these keepers feed and check up on each of the animals under their care. This can be a challenging job because every animal in the exhibit must be accounted for. Did I mention that the exhibits at the Wild Animal Park are huge? It can be difficult to identify sick animals as they avoid showing signs of illness in order to avoid the attention of predators. Each animal has an ear tag and a system of ear notches so the staff can tell one little brown animal from the next. Keepers maintain detailed records for every animal in the enclosures. These records include daily accounts of individual animals and are compiled in a “Red Book.” Every enclosure in the Zoo and Park has one. It’s an old-fashioned way to communicate, but keepers read through the records at the beginning of the day and record what happened with their animals at the end of each shift so that everyone stays well informed.  

This is a high-energy and exciting job with a lot of hands-on time with the animals. In order to work as a keeper, you must have a large amount of hands-on experience with animals. Tammy Batson began as a student of veterinary medicine at University of California, Davis, but soon realized that it was not her calling. She became an exotic animal trainer, working first at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle and then at the San Diego Zoo as a tour bus driver. This taught her many things about animals that she had not previously learned and opened up new opportunities with the Zoological Society of San Diego. Getting as much experience with animals as possible, both domestic and exotic, and to receive as much education as possible is her personal recommendation. After spending a few hours in the back of a keeper truck, I understand why Ms. Batson (and our driver/animal keeper Torrey) have so much love and enthusiasm for their jobs. 

-Ariel, Zoo InternQuest, Animal Careers Team 

Inter-species Enrichment
The extra-large exhibits at the Wild Animal Park allows for a new flexibility in captive populations. The vast amount of space can house larger numbers of animals, and multiple males can even coexist in the same enclosure. This happens because each male is able to stake out territory, thus preventing serious violent conflict. This situation places animals in a relatively stress-free environment, where they have the space to roam freely.  Extra space also relieves any strain put on the Park due to reproduction, giving more species the opportunity to breed. This is obvious at the Wild Animal Park, which has had an astounding number of births over its 35 years of existence.

Multi-species exhibits also provide a form of enrichment for both animals and people. In a naturalistic environment, animals can develop social hierarchies and can interact with other animals from their place of origin. This preserves natural instincts and encourages normal behaviors. It also adds new variables to behavioral studies, as biologists can observe a species’ social characteristics among its own group as well as its interactions with different animals.

This atmosphere increases the public’s awareness of conservation, as more people can appreciate wildlife in a natural setting. And, in the spirit of the “Real World” theme of this blog, it’s fair to say that in the real world, most people will not take a safari trip to Africa. When they come to the Wild Animal Park, this experience is as close as they can come to seeing animals in the wild. In a sense, it redefines the meaning of the word “zoo” and it humbles us all as we view the beauty of the natural world. 

-Megan, Zoo Internquest, Real World Team,  

Rhinos of All Kinds, Oh!
Our last week as interns turned out to be very exciting! After hopping into the back of a pickup truck, sitting on some hay bales, we drove out into some of the large animal enclosures at the Wild Animal Park. This reminded me of my African safari last summer, except with a lot more rhinos. In Africa, I was lucky to view one rhino sitting alone in the middle of Ngorongoro Crater, while at the Park, they were running all over the place and even bumping against our truck. Turns out that the Wild Animal Park has the largest population of captive rhinos in the world!
 
We encountered endangered white and Indian rhinos as well as black rhinos, which are critically endangered. The breeding program at the Park is amazing. When the number of southern white rhinos in the wild fell below 2,000, there were 50 of them being raised in San Diego. This captive breeding program is so effective that in the case of the Indian rhino, the keepers must separate the dominant male from the females in order to limit the number of babies they produce.
 
This is vastly important to wildlife conservation because if the number of wild rhinos drops to critically low levels, then the Wild Animal Park will be able to reintroduce their rhinos back into the wild to augment the declines. Also, by allowing the public to view these amazing animals, the Park is spreading the message that rhinos are endangered and that they need our help in order to stop poaching in the wild. reintroduce their rhinos back into the wild to augment the declines. Also by allowing the public to view these amazing animals, the Park is spreading the message that rhinos are endangered and that they need our help in order to stop poaching in the wild. 

- Sarah, Zoo InternQuest, Conservation Team

Intern Marion gets to know one of the Wild Animal Park’s giraffes up close and personal.

As we drove up, the rhinos realized we had food for them and trotted over to say hello.

We saw many exotic deer in the exhibit, some of which showed more interest in grazing than in a bunch of interns in a truck.

There is more than one kind of pathology and more than one way to help animals with the kind of work pathologists do. Clinical pathology involves investigating samples (tissue, blood, feces, and more) from sick animals, in order to advise the clinical veterinarians on diagnosis and treatment. The job also requires a lot of work in researching exotic and endangered animals (all the way down to the cellular level), in zoos and sometimes in their original habitat, in order to find out what the animals’ normal functions should look like. The most difficult and exciting part of the research, according to Laura Keener, M.S., manager of the Clinical Pathology labs at the Zoo and the Wild Animal Park, is learning about and understanding poorly understood diseases, or even previously unknown diseases. She said it’s especially difficult working with species of animals she has never seen before. They can use information about related species to help them guide their investigations of what might be causing an animal to be sick.

Both Ms. Keener and Dr. Pessier said that the main focus of their job is to maintain the Zoo’s collection of animals and ensure they are all healthy. They work in collaboration with clinical vets, nutritionists, and animal care staff in order to achieve their mission.

-Elizabeth, Zoo InternQuest, Animal Careers Team

Veterinary Pathology- A Race Against Extinction
Dr. Allan Pessier, a veterinary pathologist, is attempting to understand and stop the spread of a fungus, chytridiomycosis, that is wiping out frogs and other species of amphibians in Central America. This tropical strip of land is home to myriad unique frog and amphibian species that are in grave danger of extinction because of this pathogen. The rockhopper frog, native to the El Cope region in Panama, disappeared after it had been in contact with the fungus for only one month. Disappeared means there were absolutely no more living frogs in a forest where they had previously been uncountable.

Dr. Pessier called it a “disease wave” moving rapidly from the northwest to the southeast of Central America. The contribution to conservation that a veterinary pathologist makes was not immediately obvious to us. The field biologists who spend time in the field were actually sending him boxes of dead frogs in the mail so he could test them for the presence of this fungus. By looking at the already dead frogs it is possible to document more about the fungus, perhaps finding methods for slowing it down or treating it. To make detecting the fungal disease faster, Dr. Pessier traveled to Panama ahead of the disease wave with new equipment that can diagnose the fungal disease faster and in the field. With a quicker diagnosis it may be possible to treat still living individuals who will make up captive backup colonies. If the wild population of a frog species is completely killed off by this fungal outbreak, these backup colonies may become the last refuges of the species. He left the field equipment there and trained people in the native country to use it. That will make it easier to see where the amphibian population is being hit hardest by the fungus, thus where the need for conservation is greatest. Hopefully, with the new technology provided by veterinary pathologists, and speedy conservation efforts for the healthy frogs, many species native to Central America can be saved from extinction.
If I go to the rain forests of Central America one day, frogs are animals I definitely want to see.

A.J., Zoo InternQuest, Conservation Team

Here’s more information about Dr. Pessier’s efforts in Panama to help amphibians.

Technological Advances
Through necropsies (the name for animal autopsies) and exploration with a microscope, scientists including Laura Keener, M.S., and Allan Pessier, D.V.M., detect and diagnose the cause of illness or death in zoo animals. By accumulating this data, these members of the Wildlife Diseases Laboratories Division of CRES can apply the information to wild populations, as well as the populations of animals in zoos around the world.

By finding the root cause of an ailment, it may not only be cured, it may be prevented. Technological improvements are making this even more reasonable, and the devises used to gather and process medical info (medical analyzers) continue to shrink in size and increase in capability. Point of care analyzers, like the little devise used by many people with diabetes, can calculate the amount of glucose in a blood sample. Other point of care (POC) devises record temperature, pulse, and oxygen saturation. These are becoming more widely used by doctors and veterinarians. Of course, modern technology creates new opportunities for diseases to spread.

Travel has become more efficient, cheaper, and easier, but this gives contagious pathogens a free ride. This has serious consequences for both human and animal populations. Recently, nations around the world have had epidemic scares. Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and avian influenza have reminded us that we are vulnerable, and we must use our technology, as well as good logic, to protect the health of humans and animals alike.

Despite recent technological innovations, much of the field of veterinary pathology remains relatively unexplored. Parts of the puzzle are missing, and there is a lot that we do not know. This is especially true for reptiles and amphibians, and cytologists (scientists that study cells) cannot even label certain types of their white blood cells. However, these gaps in knowledge provide opportunities for the next generation. It simply shows that scientists have not discovered everything, and there are endless hypotheses that are yet to be proven. This will undoubtedly motivate tomorrow’s scientists, as they plunge into unknown waters and discover things that will change this planet’s fate.

-Megan, Zoo InternQuest, Real World Team

Clinical pathologist Allan P. Pessier studies the different diseases and health circumstances of animals by analyzing blood, feces, the ‘enviroment,’ etc.

The Pathology Lab is where most of the work is done. The pupose of this lab is to sceen for parasites, test samples of animals, and diagnose diseases.

Eric Becht, a Clinical Laboratory technician, shows the Internquest interns a sample from a dog populated with parasites.

The veterinarians are very similar to human doctors, which are called physicians, in their daily routine, though Dr. Mercado says that there is really no set routine because each day on the job is very different. The day begins with a meeting with all of the vets to review the patients of the day. Before examining their patients, the vet must check all of the previous records for each animal. Most of the animals are examined out in the field to reduce stress on the animal. But if it is necessary, the animal is brought into the hospital for examination. If there is an extremely challenging case, Harter Hospital has the resources to stream live videoconferences with other veterinary specialists from the San Diego Zoo and University of California, Davis.

Dr. Mercado is a veterinary resident; this means that he is working to complete a specialty degree in zoological medicine. The residency program lasts for three years, with each resident spending one year at the Sacramento Zoo/University of California, Davis, the San Diego Zoo, and the Wild Animal Park. Dr. Mercado is in his third and final year of the program. To receive his specialty degree he must first pass the Boards, two days of intense testing. He has already completed a D.V.M. from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC), Mexicali and a master’s degree from University of California, Davis. According to Dr. Mercado, it is essential to have a firm base in domestic animal medicine in order to make the leap to exotic animal medicine. It also takes a lot of persistence, patience, and determination to get into this very exclusive field. However, it is worth all of the hard work because of the many rewards and in knowing that the animals are well cared for.

-Ariel, Zoo InternQuest, Animal Careers Team

From Then to Now, Gathering and Keeping Track of Info at the Veterinary Hospital
At the Wild Animal Park, the Paul Harter Veterinary Medical Center aims to keep up with rapidly changing technology. Whether it is digital X rays or a mobile ProPaq machine that assesses vitals such as heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen level, Harter Hospital is well equipped to handle anything that comes its way. This hospital utilizes some of the very latest medical technology available. Nowadays, instead of using old X-ray machines where images are examined on a light box, X rays are looked at digitally with the help of a computer. This allows veterinarians to zoom in on particular regions of the body and easily make the image contrast lighter or darker. Also, all of the animals at the Wild Animal Park and the San Diego Zoo have been microchipped. This allows vets to make a positive identification and access each animal’s medical history. Even though the hospital is completely high tech, the staff is still using old-fashioned filing cabinets for their record keeping efforts! This is largely due to a lack of innovative computer programs able to store the enormous amount of information that vets need to keep for their animals. In fact, there is a handwritten file detailing the medical history of each and every animal housed at the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park.

Except for the file cabinets, it was amazing to see how high tech and well planned the whole place is! There are surgery rooms, X-ray rooms, intensive care areas, and recovery rooms. There are large padded rooms for the animals during recovery and surveillance cameras all around so that the keepers and doctors are able to monitor their patients 24/7. This animal hospital is the largest in the world, and the animals here get top-notch care. If I were an animal in trouble, I know where I would want to be!
- Hayley, Zoo InternQuest, Real World Team

Veterinary Care for California Condors
Originally from Mexico, Dr. Mercado has been a great asset to the California Condor Recovery Program occurring in Baja California. His involvement ranges from examining birds before release to caring for animals that may have ingested something dangerous after release. The CRES team and their partners in Mexico are attempting to bring the population of these endangered birds up to a stable, self-sustaining number by monitoring and steadily releasing condors into the wild over the next few years. Because these birds are recovering from near extinction, it is equally important that researchers document behavioral changes and effects of certain release options in order to increase the success of reintroduction efforts.

Sierra San Pedro Martir National Park in Northern Baja California is the place where the condors are being released because of its remote location and minimal human impact. The condors are bred in captivity, so it is difficult to predict success when measuring the rate of survival and conformity that the birds experience upon being introduced to their new habitat. But the biologists are expecting good results!

According to Dr. Mercado, this innovative condor recovery program is also benefiting the Mexican community by providing employment to Mexican researchers, biologists, and students. Through this program, the San Diego Zoo is able to spread the knowledge of conservation not only in Mexico, but on a global scale as well. The recovery program also includes reintroduction sites in central California and at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The world population of California condors is quickly approaching 300 individuals, which will likely continue to increase with the efforts of this program.

- Sarah, Zoo InternQuest, Conservation Team

The interns were awed at the size of the surgery room, and the various devices used to transport large animals in and out. We were dazzled by all the technology available to better the lives of our captive animals.

We visited the open-air recovery pens for hoofed stock animals and saw different animals in various states of recovery. This red deer was recovering from an injured hoof.

An important part of veterinary medicine is being able to retrieve the injured or sick animal and bring it back to the hospital. Dr. Mercado showed us the gun they use to bring the animal in, with as little discomfort to the animal as possible.

Hormones can be extracted from animal feces and urine. Collecting these samples makes it possible to track the hormones of animals in the wild. Also, it is not necessary to take blood samples from many animals now.

But how do you get the hormones out of there? First you pulverize the “raw material.” Then you dilute the sample with water and the hormones are released into the solution. Intern Megan then uses that to test for hormones.

Bap Rang, the charismatic binturong, sat with the interns for a photo session.

Animal trainer Britta Wilson and Sven, the happy-go-lucky golden retriever (and best friend to a cheetah) greeted taught the interns the basics of animal training.

Not all animal ambassadors are high energy animals like Sven. The slow moving, two-toed sloth showed us much enthusiasm when we visited with food for her. Meeting unusual animals up-close can help people feel connected to animals and care about their conservation.