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.

At the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research behavioral biology plays an important role in the conservation of endangered animals, like the cheetah for example. Habitat destruction, encroaching tourists, genetic uniformity, and poachers have significantly reduced cheetah populations, with only about 12,000 currently left on the planet. This is a dramatic decline, from the 100,000 alive about 100 years ago. The Institute has undertaken critical research for breeding captive cheetahs. One part of the behavioral biology division works in the laboratory, analyzing female cheetah hormone levels. You may ask, “How do scientists manage to calculate hormone levels of large, carnivorous animals?” The answer is poop! By examining hormones and metabolites from fecal matter, scientists can quantify and monitor the level of a specific hormone in the body of any given animal. One of the first steps in the procedure is sifting through feces. That’s where interns come in! In the lab we sifted through the poop samples from the endangered Somali wild ass (something these scientists do on a daily basis).

So how does this process help breed cheetahs? By monitoring female reproductive hormones, scientists can determine when the cheetah is ready for breeding. Unlike humans or other related mammals, the cheetah is rarely ready to breed. This is because cheetahs are induced ovulators as opposed to spontaneous ovulators like humans. So in order to figure out when a cheetah is ready to copulate, researchers must figure out how high (or low) their reproductive hormones are. If a researcher were to misdiagnose a female cheetah as ready, the result could be disastrous. This is because cheetahs are strictly solitary animals. Therefore, if a female cheetah is paired with a male when she is not ready, the two can be extremely aggressive towards one another and possibly injure each other. The San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research has generated extensive data on this incredible species resulting in numerous baby cheetahs!

Sarrah, Conservation Team

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