Zoo InternQuest is a career exploration program for high school students. For more information see the Zoo InternQuest Journals. For more photos see the Zoo InternQuest Photo Journal.

When someone hears the expression, ” take one for the team,” they usually associate it with sports. When I played soccer last year, our goalie was hit full in the face by a ball that would have otherwise been a goal. Although she didn’t break anything, she had two large, black-and-blue bruises around her eyes for about a week. She probably didn’t want to go around looking like a panda, but her ” taking one for the team” helped us win the game. This concept of self-sacrifice transcends the sports world and makes its way into the zoological world.
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Zoo InternQuest is a career exploration program for high school students. For more information see the Zoo InternQuest Journals. For more photos see the Zoo InternQuest Photo Journal.

Torrey Pillsbury and Michelle Gaffney are senior keepers at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. They are very knowledgeable and passionate about what they do. ” There is a lot of information you need to know as a keeper; it’s not just feeding animals!,” they both emphasized.
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Lauren, a photo team member, is feeding a giraffe from the back of a pickup truck with senior keeper Torrey Pillsbury.
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Installment #3
(Read Installment #2 here.)
On December 12, 2006, we brought Kinah down to the San Diego Zoo’s Ituri Forest for a visit. The Allen’s swamp monkey group was brought into the back bedrooms for the session. Each member of the troop filed down to check out the newcomer with calm interest. Marbelina’s reaction was very different, though, from the rest of the monkeys; she clearly remembered that this was her baby. With frustration, she tried repeatedly to reach through the partition and grab Kinah.
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The California condor breeding season is winding down, and thus far nine eggs have been laid by condor hens at the Wild Animal Park. Two of those eggs were infertile, and one was transferred to the nest of a wild pair. That leaves the condor staff with six eggs to be reared, either by hand-rearing methods or by the condors themselves. Currently three hens–Molloko, Almiyi, and Sulu–are incubating ” dummy” eggs that will be swapped with real eggs once they are ready to hatch. These birds, along with their mates, will parent-rear a youngster over the next several months.
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A major reforestation/browse project was completed this week at the San Diego Zoo, replacing a decades-old eucalyptus-forested hillside (located south of the migratory duck pond). In its place, many new browse plants and trees will grow up and produce food and enrichment for our animals. A major reason for the successful breeding practices we’ve had here is our ability to grow and provide plants that these animals would eat and play with in their native habitats.
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This month saw the first-ever Wildlife Identification and Conservation Education Workshop for hunters from villages surrounding the Ebo forest in Cameroon. We invited 14 of the 28 hunters from Locndeng village, at the northern edge of the Ebo, to travel to the coastal town of Limbe for a 2-day workshop covering topics such as wildlife species identification, levels of legal protection for different species, and the reasons for and importance of conserving the wildlife of the Ebo forest. Limbe is home to the Limbe Wildlife Centre, a sanctuary for orphans of the bushmeat trade run by the Pandrillus Foundation.
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The Zoo’s Girls In Science groups spent their last day of the season together at sea! We generally take a field trip each spring and have visited the Wild Animal Park, SeaWorld, and the La Brea Tar Pits, but this is the first time we’ve gone whale watching!
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Installment #2
(Read Installment #1 here)
Kinah was placed inside an isolette incubator to keep her warm and comfortably supported during treatment. A small plastic tube was inserted into the isolette to provide oxygen to help Kinah breathe easier. Veterinarians prescribed antibiotics for her pneumonia and topical medications to aid in the healing of her many wounds. For several days, removing Kinah from her oxygen-rich environment and the effort needed to suckle her formula took a lot out of her. After a feeding and administration of treatments she was exhausted and breathing with great difficulty. Even so, we were pleased that Kinah was giving each feeding her best effort and showing more enthusiasm for meals than could be expected.
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Zoo InternQuest is a career exploration program for high school students. For more information see the Zoo InternQuest Journals. For more photos see the Zoo InternQuest Photo Journal.

Sifting through rhinoceros poo (yes, this is the technical term) wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I heard we were scheduled to meet with Corinne Pisacane and Becky Sproul, two research laboratory technicians in the Behavioral Biology Division at CRES. Ms. Pisacane and Ms. Sproul excitedly explained to us the process necessary to prepare samples containing secreted hormones through realistic demonstrations. That’s right! We prepared hormone samples from northern white rhinoceros poo in the Endocrinology Sample Preparation Room. Feces of endangered animals, like the northern white rhino, come to the lab wet. After freeze-drying the samples in a lyophilizer, the samples contain only vegetative matter and dry feces. To get rid of the vegetative matter in the rhinoceros poo, we placed a strainer over a funnel, grinding the sample until all that was left in the funnel was the feces. We then carefully measured a very small portion of the sample into glass test tubes.
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