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.

Much the same as you command your family dog (or maybe even your younger sibling) with verbal or visual signals and then reward him or her with a treat and praise, so do Heidi Moomaw and Katie Springer, animal trainers at the San Diego Zoo, teach animals to perform behaviors. Except, of course, the two don’t train their younger siblings but work with wild animals! Cheetahs, sea lions, anteaters, condors, wolves, hyenas, opossums, macaws, even domestic canines, Ms. Moomaw and Ms. Springer have a wide variety of students.

Animal trainers teach the stars of the shows at the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park. Besides using food, the trainers use patience, cooperation, and affection to help their students earn A+ marks. While an animal is acclimating to its new surroundings, it is observed by the trainer to see if any of its natural behaviors can be refined. Trainers start brainstorming which behaviors to teach the animal once it’s ready. Then they begin interacting with the animal in its own environment until it is comfortable enough to be trained away from its home territory. Trainers at the Zoo use food and a clicker as the top ingredients in their successful recipe for productive training sessions: positive reinforcement. Each time the animal correctly follows a command or goes out of its comfort zone to follow directions, the trainer presses the clicker and gives the animal a treat. Then it’s time to move on to the next lesson plan while still practicing the skills they’ve already learned.

The animals that really know their stuff get to interact with the public. These well-behaved animal ambassadors encourage their audiences to do their part to maintain the  natural world so their species can thrive. Just as a person watching the Westminster Dog Show is influenced by a particular breed that seems to shine with beauty and proper behavior, so do these animals act as a link to the public and influence a Zoo visitor to fall for something as seemingly unlovable as an opossum.

Andrea, Real World Team

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.

Chances are, you’ve been told: “communication is key,” but the key to what? When applied to sensory ecology, the “novel field of study examining animal communication by trying to understand how individuals perceive their surroundings and one another, needed to understand biology in the wild,” the phrase begins to unravel. It reveals that communication between animals is the key to uncovering their behaviors, relationships, motives—in essence, their lifestyles. Dr. Matt Anderson and Dr. Lance Miller, both behavioral biologists who work at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, demonstrated how impactful communication is, specifically to the elephant herd at the Wild Animal Park.

From the iconic reverberating trumpet call to the deep rumbling vocal noises, the elephants can convey stress, playfulness, hunger, or even signal that a calf is about to be born. Extremely low frequencies, inaudible to the human ear, pass between these giants, enabling them to sense what’s new and happening. Sometimes, by opening their mouths and vocalizing, they become energized and animated, comparable to how people feel while conversing with a group of their friends. Sure, humans don’t verbally communicate through rumbles and trumpeting, but the principle is still there: we both convey our needs, emotions, excitements and share events with each other. An elephant may signal aggression with low infrasound waves, a person may feel uncomfortable and forcefully assert, “Back off!”

Dr. Anderson explained another example of a social interaction that relates to our society. He used the example of a bully: an elephant may begin suggesting violence to establish dominance, when in truth, it just appears intimidating to gain authority. This can be demonstrated by “bush-bashing” which is when an elephant flings its head back and forth in bushes to signify its strength, or a forceful toss of the trunk towards another elephant. Actions such as these are examples of posture, more familiar sounding as body language. Although humans do not jostle bushes or toss their heads, the motives behind the actions are, once again, familiar. Intimidators in school may give a fist gesture, or even just a facial expression of disgust to gain something, whether tangible (who hasn’t heard of the kid who takes lunch money?) or just a feeling of control.

Every movement or sound— head tilt, tail or trunk position, rumble, glance back, or contact—are puzzle pieces to how elephants thrive in their habitats. By observing these communicating gestures, behavioral biologists such as Dr. Anderson and Dr. Miller can unravel many questions pertaining to this species: Why do elephants migrate towards certain places? What social bonds within a herd are strongest? How do vocalizations keep a herd together? Studying interactions amongst any group of animals can generate a slew of information. In behavioral biology, the aphorism “communication is key” is a vital guide to learning more about how animals not only survive, but thrive, humans included.

Celena Derderian, Real World Team

It wasn’t difficult being entertained by a sea lion show and close animal encounters last week. On Thursday, we met with some of the Zoo’s animal trainers at Wegeforth Bowl. Everyday, this stadium is where Zoo visitors are entertained by macaws flying overhead, the Zoo’s only gray wolf, and sea lions performing trained behaviors. These animals and others who live off exhibit are trained by animal trainers for the purpose of having up-close encounters with the public. You may ask: What good is having animals show us what they can do? Besides being fun and exciting, the main reason is that close animal encounters bring people happiness and the message of conservation. The Zoo considers this one of the best ways to teach people about conservation because people take more away from hands-on experiences. Having experiences where people are awed by the cuteness of a baby cheetah make people more inclined to care about and take action to protect wildlife.

These trained animals are called animal ambassadors because they represent animals for the cause of conservation. Though an animal trainer’s job includes teaching the public, it’s these animals that get all the credit for inspiring people. It takes a lot of work for these animals to become animal ambassadors. Tamu, the striped hyena, has been trying to get used to public contact for the past six years. A lot of these ambassadors have dogs as companions, who make dealing with the public a lot easier. For Akela the gray wolf, it’s easier for him to be calm when his golden-retriever buddy, Nala, is beside him.

Animal ambassadors carry some important stories for conservation. Akela the gray wolf represents the story of his species’ decimation in the lower forty-eight states. Between 1850 and 1900 about two million of these wolves were hunted to extinction by ranchers and even government officials. These wolves were purposely hunted to extinction to make the American west safe for people even though they are more wary of humans than harmful. This huge effort led to overpopulation of buffalo, deer, and elk. These seemingly harmless species have ravaged the environment by destroying vegetation, which has resulted in increased erosion of the landscape. Coyotes, due to the lack of competition, proliferated and became huge pests. This environmental catastrophe demonstrates the presence of wolves as a keystone species, a species that is a “key” to keeping its own environment intact. The United States Fish and Wildlife Services began efforts to reintroduce wolves into Yellowstone Park in 1995 and better environmental stability has been witnessed.

Animal ambassadors like Akela the wolf carry these stories that remind us of the importance of conservation to prevent such disasters from occurring.

Curtis, Conservation Team

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.

The striped hyena in front of us raised the mane on his back and crouched low, nervously keeping an eye on our group as he approached the treat his trainer had placed on the ground. I watched closely, entranced with how his trainer, Katie Springer, meticulously handled his nervous reactions by positively reinforcing him for his braver ones. Ms. Springer carefully encouraged the animal to come over, but always let him have a safe, open route back, so that he did not feel cornered.

“Being an animal trainer requires two things,” Heidi Moomaw, another animal trainer at the Zoo, explained. “Patience and timing.” Trainers have to be extraordinarily patient, as working with some animals can take years. In fact, the trainers at the Zoo have been working with the striped hyena for six years. Ms. Springer then expanded on the timing aspect of this as we tried to persuade the next animal, a wolf, to howl for us. When the trainers first started training him to do this, they would reward her right as she began to get into the position to howl. However, this merely taught her to go into a howling position. For this reason, rewarding animals at just the right moment is essential to an animal trainer’s job.

Working with animals in this way enables Ms. Moomaw and Ms. Springer to have a special relationship with them. It is thrilling to think that through observing and responding to the animal’s behavior, they can cultivate a high level of trust with a wild animal.

Both Ms. Moomaw and Ms. Springer attended Moorpark College to achieve their goal of becoming an animal trainer. Moorpark is the only school in the United States with an animal training program. In fact, there is a zoo right there on the grounds, so students get hands-on experience.

While a lot of work goes into being an animal trainer, Ms. Springer and Ms. Moomaw also have a lot of fun. Their job allows them to interact with a variety of amazing animals every day. The most exciting thing Ms. Moomaw has done through her job is to be a part of the Cheetah Run Safari at the Wild Animal Park, a special experience for guests. “It was exhilarating,” she said. “You stand there and you have to catch a cheetah that’s running towards you at sixty miles per hour!” Instead of waking up to a cup of coffee and a computer desk, Ms. Moomaw and Ms. Springer are able to wake up to romping cheetah cubs, howling canines, and chattering parrots. What a way to spend the day!

Becky, Careers Team

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

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.

Watching the elephants at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park was a fresh and stimulating experience, as we were obliged to look at the animal’s actions from a behavioral biologist’s point of view. Dr. Matt Anderson and Dr. Lance Miller accompanied us on our outing to observe the African elephant herd and assisted us in trying out our skills as behavioral biologists. Behavioral biology at the San Diego Zoo involves studying animals in captivity and using the information gleaned to better care for captive animals as well as better protect animals in the wild. Studying the animals can also be a way to learn if an individual animal’s behavior is changing, and to improve our ability to breed the animals.   

Behavioral biologists sometimes use a method called focal sampling. With this method, the observer focuses on one specific animal of interest. The behavior of this animal may stay consistent for a long duration of time or change from day to day, or even from minute to minute. In an elephant herd, changing the focal animal everyday for, say a week, gives biologists at the Park a chance to compare different individuals in the herd and note any variations in behavior between older and younger animals as well as animals with diverse levels of dominance.

While watching an animal, it is a behavioral biologist’s job to systematically note its activities, for example once every minute. This method allows the biologist to record what an animal is doing as well as where it is at a certain point in time. But documenting what the animal is doing is not the only thing a behavioral biologist does. Taking note of what an animal is not doing, especially behaviors that normally happen in the wild, is also part of the job. Dr. Miller commented that watching the animals is his favorite part of the job. It is not all pleasurable though. On some days, hot ones for example, when the animals are spending their time resting in the shade and hardly doing anything at all, watching them becomes boring very quickly.  Behavioral biologists not only watch what an animal is doing but also record the vocalizations they make, figure out what percent of the time an animal does certain activities (such as eating, walking, or socializing), compare the behavior of animals in the Zoo to the behavior of wild animals, and help to create an environment for the animals that will stimulate natural activities. They work with people who design the animal exhibits to create an enclosure that will reinforce the animals’ natural behaviors and tendencies.

Behavioral biologists are beginning to tap into new technologies in order to help them monitor the animals they are studying. One such method is GPS, or global positioning systems, which allows biologists to track an animal’s position and observe what other animals they are spending time with or avoiding, without a constant direct watch over them. This limits the amount of time that biologists need to be visually watching their study subjects. But sometimes complications arise. Soon after putting GPS collars on the elephants at the Park, resident biologists realized that the devices needed to be waterproof in order to withstand the frequent dips that the elephants enjoy taking in their swimming pool. The GPS collars used at the Park not only records the wearer’s location but are also fitted with special equipment to record any vocalizations made by the animal. Behavioral biologists are extremely curious about certain sounds that animals make because at least some of the tones or pitches are too low of a frequency for people to hear. One such sound is an elephant’s rumble. Without the proper technology, these subsonic messages would be totally lost on us.

Danielle, Careers Team

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.

Are you up to a trip to your grocery store? Many people would agree that going to the grocery store is a burden, even a bore. However this is hardly true when the food selection goes from wriggly to bizarre, including mealworms, mice, rabbits, crickets and baby kangaroo formula in powder form. Guided by Dr. Mike Schlegel, the director of nutritional services at the San Diego Zoo, and Dr. Jennifer Parsons, associate animal nutritionist, we visited the forage warehouse, where all of the “raw materials” for the animal diets are stored. The forage warehouse includes these Fear Factor-qualifying foods—including stiff mealworms and cold rodents.

Stepping inside of the spacious refrigerators rapidly sent consecutive waves of goose bumps down my back; the chilling effect was quickly overridden by my amazement in the large crates and boxes of fruits and vegetables, and the numerous trays of mealworms. The large refrigerator and pantry rooms resemble a market, filled with delicious goods available for the animals to chow down on. Each animal species at the Zoo requires its own unique diet—not only in the specification of certain foods, but also in how the food is prepared and served. Although some of the foods eaten by the over 800 species at the Zoo and Wild Animal Park would not suit our palate, many others would be deemed acceptable.

From Tabasco sauce to papayas to Crystal Light, animals share an array of foods with us, as displayed in the forage warehouse. Unfortunately, animals not only share foods with us, but also diseases and health issues connected to food consumption. Joint disease, obesity, diabetes, respiratory disease, and low weight are a few of the problems Dr. Schlegel and Dr. Parsons are faced with. They analyze the source of the issue and tackle it by offering an altered diet, preparing the food or serving the food differently to ensure that the animals “eat their vegetables” or whatever it is that’s good for them.

For example, the blue-eared lories at the Zoo were having difficulty meeting their energy requirements from their diet. It turned out that the liquid glucose they were fed was hard for them to eat; after the dry nectar was switched with the liquid, the lories’ health greatly improved. Of course, some food-linked health problems are harder identify and find an easy fix for. Sometimes, these issues are not directly related to the food the animals are served. For example, Dr. Schlegel explained that some of the Zoo’s reptiles were insufficient in vitamin D, needed to absorb calcium. The source of the problem was surprisingly, the lack of sunlight in the reptiles’ habitats. Reptiles often lounge on large rocks, absorbing the sunlight. It was decided that special lighting in some enclosures would be installed to provide UVB and in others, special UV transparent glass was installed so the UV from the sun could get in to the reptiles, fulfilling their vitamin D requirements.

Much can be learned from this scientific approach for solving weight issues. Humans have a tendency to try to solve weight issues in a round-about and ineffective way: cutting carbs, skipping meals, following fad diets to shed pounds, or binge eating and eating fatty foods to gain weight. Dr. Schlegel made the concept of eating simple – energy in and energy out. No fad diets, just good science.

In Dr. Schlegel’s workday, he may find a simple fix for nutrition dilemmas, such as in the lories’ case. Or, in the case of the reptiles, the cure may be found with extra analytical thinking and problem solving, which dietitians can provide. By pinpointing the causes of our diet problems we too could be on our way to a healthier lifestyle.

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.

If you’ve been to the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, you’ve had the chance to see nearly 900 acres of wondrous plant and animal exhibits. But did you know you’re only exploring half of the Park?! The other 900 acres is a vast, undeveloped preserve that is part of the Multiple Species Conservation Program for San Diego County, which seeks to maintain and enhance our region’s biodiversity.

Jean-Pierre Montagne, a senior research technician for the Applied Animal Ecology division of the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, studies the inhabitants of what he calls “the other side of the fence” of the Park, in order to monitor species abundance and diversity. Mr. Montagne is part of a team that observes daily the creatures that have been safely caught in one of the 20 pitfall arrays that are widespread across the Park’s “other half.” Before the captured animal is released, it is identified by species, weighed, measured, gendered, examined for any unusual symptoms, and finally marked, if it has not already been numbered. Upon return to the lab, the information is compiled with data from thousands of other mammals and reptiles that Mr. Montagne and his team have recorded over the years. In the lab, the applied ecologists study the population size of each species, calculating the representation of that species in its ecosystem and checking to see if the species is in decline and/or threatened with extinction.

Due to its many varied habitats, San Diego County is literally a biodiversity hotspot, both in terms of non-threatened and endangered plant and animal species. To maintain the area’s incredible variation, each and every species must prosper. After all, each species, no matter whether made of heart and lungs or stem and leaves, depends on one another. Animals depend on other animals below them in the food chain for a meal. Plants depend on other plants for shade or nourishment. Animals depend on plants for shelter and food. Plants depend on animals to help spread and germinate their seeds. To endanger or lose a species is to injure the health of all the plants and animals, humans included, that rely on that species for one reason or another. As more and more home and business development occurs on lands once only developed by the indigenous plants and animals, species’ habitats are degraded or lost and their very survival becomes a greater challenge.

We, as humans, must increase our awareness of the nature around us and be willing to sacrifice our love of mass construction for the rights of the plants and animals to their native homes. If an endangered species resides on land that seems to be the ideal location for a new office, we must think twice about building there and instead perhaps give first priority to the threatened species. Biodiversity is essential to life, as it is necessary for the balance and maintenance of the world’s plant and animal species; without just one species, life on so many levels, including the lives of humans, suffers and must struggle to adjust.

Andrea, Real World Team