Volunteer Updates and Opportunities
FOL Preview Night for Volunteers – Thank You!
We had such a wonderful showing of Volunteers last night for the Volunteer Preview Night! We enjoyed cookies, hot chocolate/tea/cider and a pinecone craft during the debut of our beautiful lights display! It was so good to see so many of you and your friends/family! It was a great way to kick off the holiday season!
An extra Congratulations to our Raffle Winners! Debbie Dryden won the tickets to Fiona: The Musical and Kassidy Schmidlapp won the 6 FOL Tickets!
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Enter to Win 4 Tickets to Fiona the Musical (Dress Rehearsal)
Were you bummed that you missed out on the Fiona: The Musical Tickets raffled off at the FOL event? There is another way to WIN…I have 4 additional tickets to give away to the Dress Rehearsal performance of Fiona the Musical on Saturday 11/25 at 7:00pm. If you would like to enter to win, please complete the form by Midnight on Sunday night (11/19). The winner will be contacted with further instruction on Monday morning!
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CZBG Cold Weather Uniform Options available for Purchase through PromoSpark
Our uniform partners at Promospark have added some new cold weather items to the self-pay online shop for the holiday season. Orders placed in November will arrive before Christmas. Click on the link below to start shopping.
All orders will require you to pay for them at the time you check out and the items are non-returnable.
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Sensory Santa Volunteer Opportunities
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Macy’s, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital are partnering to offer sensory-friendly Santa visits. Visitors with sensory sensitivities and/or developmental disabilities can reserve 10-minute meet & greets with Santa, who has received training on developmental disabilities from Dr. Jen Smith of the Children’s Hospital Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) program.
This year we have more days and more slots for families than we have ever had before! We have so many slots in fact, that we need to recruit a few more friendly faces to volunteer and help this experience move smoothly.
The shifts start on 11/29 and will run on certain days of the week from 1pm-3pm. To be a part of this role, you will need to review a training video put together by our Access for All Manager, Annie DeGrood. If you are interested in assisting with this opportunity, please reach out to me by e-mail for additional information.
Zoo Updates
Festival of Lights Season has Begun!
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Hub for Community Gardens
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CZBG featured in CONNECT
Click on the link below to learn more about how cultural attractions drive community impact through food, retail and admissions in this AZA feature. We can be so proud of how this organization gives back in fun and unique ways!
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Our Solar Panels (and Sheep) are in the News!
Click on the link below to learn more about our Solar Panel Project and how the plan includes grazing sheep!
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ZooTales Podcast
Ian, Manager of Garden Operations at Greenacres Foundation, teaches us about farming and the importance of locally grown food in this new episode of Cincinnati Zoo Tales! Listen here:
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E-Book Deal – Fiona Style
Take advantage of this November eBook deal through 11/19: You’ve Got This, Fiona & Fiona, Love at the Zoo for $2.99/each! The deal price will be available at all major eBook retailers.
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The Zoo Levy Passed!
Thank you to Everyone who helped us during this Tax Levy Season! Now that the election season is over, are you trying to figure out what to do with your signs?
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The Giving Tree
If you are interested in contributing, you can see the available options by clicking the link below.
Click Here to Access the Amazon Wish List
Plant & Animal Updates
Elephants have arrived from Dublin
Our elephant herd just got a lot bigger! Four Asian elephants, two adult females and their young male calves, arrived at the Zoo on Sunday, and are settling into their new digs in Elephant Trek, the largest habitat that the Zoo’s ever built.
The new elephants, SheRa, Kabir, Anak, and Sanjay, came from the Dublin Zoo on a joint recommendation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Asian Elephant Species Survival Plan® & its equivalent in the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria the Endangered Ex-situ program
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Bowyer Update
Buttonbush seed collected at Bowyer Farm over the past few weeks will serve an important purpose in the coming years. While some of it will be used for propagation in the native plant program, the majority will be spread along ponds and wetlands at Bowyer Farm. In the coming years, these plants will provide many benefits to wildlife. This includes providing cover for many of the waterfowl who nest and raise young in the vegetation surrounding the wetlands and ponds every spring.
(Words by Dani Parisi. Photos by Casey Coovert.)
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Okapi Update
Kuvua the okapi is at the end of her long 15-month gestation. She is due in about a month. Okapis are from the most remote rainforests in central Africa. They are endangered and almost impossible to observe in the wild, so seeing these beautiful animals at the Zoo is a real treat
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New Addition tot he Cat Ambassador Program
This little cutie has a name! Say hello to Violet (for African violet). Violet is a month-old cape porcupine. She will eventually be one of the ambassador animals in the Cheetah Encounter. Porcupine zoomies! Did you know baby porcupines are called porcupettes?
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New Wolf in Town
Stop by Wolf Woods on your next visit and welcome the newest member of the pack – Elena. She is a two-and-a-half-year-old female Mexican wolf. Also known as “el lobo”, the Mexican wolf is the smallest subspecies of the North American gray wolf. Once exterminated from the wild, Mexican wolves are being reintroduced into their former range in Arizona and New Mexico.
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Opal Cuteness
Did you know you needed photos of Opal eating dinner today? Probably not, but aren’t you glad you saw it! 😉
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Goodbye to Amiry
Amiry, the serval that was rescued by officials earlier this year, is moving on to a new home! After our vet staff treated him for injuries and other health issues, he moved to the Cat Ambassador Program area where we have been working on rehabilitating him. He is now confident, comfortable, and thriving as a serval should be. We originally thought that, since he was young, he could be an ambassador serval in our program, but he prefers to have his own space. We decided that it would be best for him to live at a zoo where he can have his own habitat and also perhaps participate in a breeding program. He is now a part of the Serval Species Survival Plan (SSP) and will hopefully one day be a father to some kittens. We have loved training with Amiry and growing our relationship with him at the zoo. He is eager to participate in training sessions, plays with all sorts of fun enrichment, and loves exploring the yards in our behind-the-scenes area. We are thankful that we were able to provide him with the care he needed and that we were able to give him a stable home for these past 9 months. While we will miss him at the Cincinnati Zoo we are thrilled that he is heading to another AZA-accredited zoo where he will have more space to roam, explore, meet new keepers, and perhaps one day a mate.
Animal Excellence Updates
Quarterly, each of the 14 animal care teams identifies 2-3 welfare priorities that they plan to work on over the 3-month period. These can be big or small, but they must be measurable, and they must be reasonably achievable without significant help from outside department. At the end of the 3 months, we review this list of priorities, celebrate the ones we achieved and discuss those that weren’t achieved yet.
Below are some of our teams’ successes in Animal Excellence from July-September 2023.
Team Bird Animal Excellence Update
Team Bird has been trialing different ways to offer whole and large chunk produce to a variety of birds. This has offered many species the opportunity to feed in a more naturalistic way, and also promotes cooperative feeding behaviors. The produce is been offered on skewers, trays and suet feeders, in replacement of small chopped fruit offered on plates.
Children’s Zoo Animal Excellence Update
The inside of our goat barn recently received an upgrade. We wanted to provide more opportunities for resting on platforms at various heights. The goats spend a lot of time on the platforms and structures in the outside goat yard.
North America Animal Excellence Update
The North America team had the goal of increasing mobility as well as mental and physical stimulation for Flanders, the male Barred Owl. To accomplish this, the team created a monthly calendar of pre-thought-out enrichment ideas for Flanders. This has helped provide more variety in the enrichment that is being offered each day. Keepers discussed what worked and didn’t work and used that information to modify Flanders monthly enrichment schedule. The idea has worked so well that the team is now looking to develop multiple monthly calendars so enrichment being offered in consecutive months is not the same, thus providing for even greater variety and stimulation for Flanders.
Night Hunters Animal Excellence Update
The Night Hunters team had the goal of decreasing stereotypic behaviors exhibited by the male Snow Leopard, Nubo. The Snow Leopards have line of sight to the Cougars exhibit when looking through their exhibit glass. Keepers noticed that Nubo spent a lot of time sitting by the window staring up at the Cougars. Nubo would paw at the exhibit glass and pace/route trace near the exhibit glass. Keepers were curious if a visual barrier installed between the two exhibits would help discourage these behaviors. A temporary burlap barrier was placed in the tree line between the two exhibits in July. Since it was installed, keepers have noticed decreased paw streaks on the exhibit glass and diminished staring and pacing behaviors. To further assess the general behavior and space use of the male snow leopard, a behavior and space use pre/post environmental change plan was initiated with the support of the Animal Excellence team. More updates to come!
Cheetah Run at Bowyer Farm
The trainers have been working with several cheetahs to prepare them for the new Bowyer Farm program that begins this week. There were multiple components for this training including getting the cheetahs comfortable entering and riding in the brand new van and our new cheetah holding building at the farm. This has been a huge win for the team, and it allows multiple cheetahs to explore a new space and get exercise from walking and running at the farm. We are excited to show visitors this great training and hope to train more cheetahs there in the future.
Reptile Team Animal Excellence Update
The team has been working to improve the quality of the exhibit for the Indochinese spitting cobra. They stripped out and redecorated the habitat to feature a new basking space as well as a hide to provide the cobra with a place to feel more secure.
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Bird Show Team Animal Excellence Update
The bird show team is constantly training birds for show and program behaviors. Recently keepers are working on prioritizing medical behaviors as well. This will allow more voluntary participation in their medical care in addition to providing more mental stimulation during the off-show season. So far two birds are allowing voluntary drops into their nares. This will be helpful if medications are needed and especially for sedatives instead of manual restraint while they are awake.
World of Insect Animal Excellence Update
The World of the Insect team has been conducting research on how diet and substrate affect the weight of American Burying Beetles.
The graph shows the average weights for the groups over the past month and a half. There were 30 beetles (15.15) in each group at the beginning.
A (red): paper towel and mealworm only
B (orange): paper towel and diverse diet
C (yellow): soil and mealworm only
D (green): soil and diverse diet
So far, the soil has caused beetle weight to increase more than paper towel, but then it started declining in the last two weeks. There have also been 4 deaths in group D and 3 deaths in group C so the team pulled the plug on the soil. Only beetles housed in soil had small pest mites and none kept on paper towel had bad mites. Roughly 50% of the soil beetles in C and D had the bad mites. There are currently 12 breeding buckets set up (3 pairings from each group) to compare breeding success. The first 4 buckets were checked on October 10th and A did not complete prepping their rat and had zero larvae. B had 10 larvae. C had visible 1st instars. D was fully prepped with no larvae so the team is hopeful to find larvae soon.
Jungle Trails Animal Excellence Update
In order to diversify where the colobus monkeys can spend their time, the Jungle Trails team has worked to get Don King & Cindy time on the indoor habitat at JT West. Historically when in this space, the monkeys would pick and consume paint from the habitat walls… and while the area is painted to look like foliage, this paint is not something we want them to eat! Jungle Trails implemented a monitoring system, adjusted their shifting scheduled, and provided appropriate enrichment to redirect this behavior. Now, Don King & Cindy have regular access to this space with no or minimal paint consumption!
Primate Center Animal Excellence Update
The Primate Center team has added substrate to the smaller outdoor habitat, increased the amount of vines throughout the larger outdoor habitat, and facilitated the installation of more i-bolts on habitat. The increase in vines and i-bolts have allowed keepers to offer more enrichment opportunities in an elevated setting. This facilitates more use of the habitat and allows the bachelor males to spread out more. The flexibility in space supports important social dynamics for a bachelor troop! The substrate has presented with some issues, but encouraged some troubleshooting to think of substrate options that would better suit the space and primate behavior. Stay tuned for future seasonal updates!
Conservation Corner
SORALO featured on a Podcast
SORALO is one of our Global Partners and they were recently featured on a Podcast. If you would like to hear more about their co-existence efforts, the SORALO piece starts around 24:45!
SAFE Ocelot Announcement
This is the tenth AZA SAFE program that Cincinnati Zoo staff members are either leading or supporting!
Zoos Help with Recovery of America’s Last Wild Ocelots
Zoo collaboration essential for success of Texas-based breeding, rewilding and reintroduction program
CINCINNATI, OH (November 15, 2023) – An ambitious recovery program for wild ocelots in Texas is being implemented with assistance of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden and several other zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Texas ocelots are highly endangered with just 60 to 80 wild cats surviving in fragmented habitats near the southern Mexican border. To assist with species recovery, the Cincinnati Zoo and three zoo partners (Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Gardens, San Antonio Zoo, Audubon Zoo) have established a Saving Animals From Extinction (SAFE) program for ocelots under AZA guidance.
“SAFE Ocelot will provide a potential lifeline to Texas ocelots by broadening their genetic diversity, increasing their numbers and supporting their recovery in the wild,” said Dan Ashe, AZA’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “For other endangered native species like black-footed ferrets, California condors and Mexican wolves, animals managed under human care have been vital for population recovery and the same may hold true for America’s last wild ocelots”.
For the recovery program, SAFE Ocelot is working in partnership with multiple stakeholders, including the East Foundation, Texas A&M University, Duquesne University, United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
As one component, a dedicated breeding and rewilding facility for ocelots will begin construction soon in South Texas, with funding provided by private donors. Once the facility is completed, SAFE Ocelot will coordinate the transfer of ocelots from zoos and provide husbandry and reproductive management guidance to optimize their breeding with native Texas ocelots.
The AZA’s Ocelot Species Survival Plan (SSP), coordinated by the Cincinnati Zoo’s Laura Carpenter, currently manages 64 (non-Texas) ocelots in 40 zoos that will comprise part of the source breeding population. Their offspring, after habituation to predatory living in the rewilding facility, eventually will be released onto a vast East Foundation ranch property that lies within the historic, but currently unpopulated, natural range of Texas ocelots.
“The knowledge and expertise of zoo curators, keepers, veterinarians and scientists are essential for the successful propagation of ocelots under human care for this recovery program,” said the Cincinnati Zoo’s Dr. Bill Swanson, the SAFE Ocelot Program Leader. “Zoos have been breeding and managing ocelots for over 20 years within the Ocelot SSP and that experience has created the framework to apply similar approaches to support Texas ocelot recovery”.
Two other key steps taken over the past few months will help to ensure the success of this recovery program. First, the East Foundation has submitted a Safe Harbor Agreement (SHA) proposal to the USFWS for their review. If approved, the SHA will allow ocelots to be released onto East Foundation lands without federal restrictions on cattle ranching or other agricultural practices, prioritizing ocelot conservation while continuing with traditional ranch activities. Second, Texas A&M University-Kingsville recently was awarded a multi-year, $12.2 million contract by USFWS for ocelot recovery efforts with some of the funding directed to the Cincinnati Zoo, East Foundation and Texas A&M University Natural Resources Institute. The zoo-dedicated funds will support improvements to ocelot breeding facilities within zoos, genetic assessment of the source population and application of assisted reproductive sciences to ocelot propagation.
More information about the Texas ocelot recovery program is available at https://recovertexasocelots.org.
Click Here to Read More from Channel 5 Coverage
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Oak Conservation
In Case You Missed It
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Complimentary Zoo Tickets based on Volunteer Hours
All of the Tickets have been sorted, delivered or mailed depending on how you requested them. If you did not request your Volunteer tickets in the last month and a half, it isn’t too late to receive them. Please send me an e-mail and I will work on getting them to you.