Have you ever walked past the open aviary across from the Birds of Prey catwalk and wondered what it took to feed so many different types of birds? I think that most of the keepers who have had the pleasure of working with this collection will tell you that feeding the residents of the Duck Pond exhibit at the San Diego Zoo can be the highlight of their day–or one of the most difficult things they will do all week!
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April has been a very busy and exciting month for the San Diego Zoo’s California condor project. Condor field managers and researchers have been using VHF and GPS telemetry to closely monitor the movement behaviors of the birds that have been reintroduced to Baja California, Mexico. Early spring is the condor breeding season, and we hope to observe breeding and nesting behaviors that will lead to successfully fledged chicks this year.
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The core staffing for the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center (DTCC), located in Las Vegas, is now complete, and we are ready for peak tortoise season to begin within the next few weeks! (Read Paula’s previous blog, Help for Desert Tortoises.) I’d like to introduce you to my intrepid crew.

Angie Sawyer, the DTCC’s research coordinator, has her hands full making sure that the facility is up and running to its full potential, and she makes sure we have everything we need to care for the tortoises. With 12 years of zoo-related experience under her belt, she is definitely up for the challenge.
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The capybaras living on Elephant Mesa at the San Diego Zoo are doing great. Every morning they wake up, stretch (it’s very cute), and start walking toward me looking for a folivore biscuit or a slice of carrot. If I don’t arrive fast enough, in their opinion, they start cooing and vocalizing for their breakfast. In my last blog, Welcome, Capybaras, I was spending time getting them to eat out of my hands and allowing me to touch them. We have progressed wonderfully since then.
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You may think most newborn monkeys would blend in with their mothers. However, with silver-leaf langurs it is quite the opposite: their babies are a beautiful bright orange! There are several theories as to why this is; unfortunately, it is unknown which theory is accurate.

Theory 1: It makes it easy for the mothers to find them, as young langurs like to explore. They can sometimes travel a little too far away from their mothers. Being bright orange, their mothers can easily spot and retrieve them.
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On Saturday, April 25, the elephant staff at the San Diego Zoo received four large gifts for Elephant Odyssey from the elephant staff at the Wild Animal Park. The four Asian elephants, Ranchipur, Cookie, Mary, and Cha Cha, arrived at their new home around 3:30 in the afternoon. By 6 p.m. they were all unloaded and checking out their new home.
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We’ve all been waiting for it: the elephants have been in training; keepers and trainers have been working long-long hours; construction workers have been, well, constructing. And as of Saturday, it was done!
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It’s a brand-new week here at the Giant Panda Research Station at the San Diego Zoo, and “The Ladies” are on view this week. It seems odd to be referring to Su Lin that way, but her estrus is over. To my knowledge, there’s been no discussion of moving or mating Su Lin next year thus far. A year is a long way off in the life of a panda, and it will be about that long before she’s once again having a breeding cycle, so, as with most things here, it’s going to be “wait and see.”
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Installment #6
Read Installment #5, Little Guenon, Big Step

By early March 2009, Gigi was making the transition to Wolf’s guenon life well. She was obviously fully accepted by devoted sister Mimi, tolerated by her stoic father, and her older brother Dru was as gentle and tolerant as we could reasonably hope for. Things were not perfectly harmonious, though. There were times when Gigi’s mom, Fifi, would show some behavior that was concerning to us.
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Our meerkat group on Elephant Mesa at the San Diego Zoo has seen a lot over its three years. It has grown to 16 members, with many births and non-stop digging. Last week was one of the biggest days of all: moving day. I knew it was coming for months and had been thinking about it constantly. How do I move 16 meerkats in crates to another exhibit without them hurting each other or themselves?
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