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 Frozen Zoo is one resource that the San Diego Zoo uses for conservation efforts. It is located at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. The Frozen Zoo is a room filled with big silver freezers that hold millions of different cells from various species and subspecies of animals. By freezing cells, like reproductive cells, the Zoo has access to many different genes that, if necessary, can help an endangered species increase in number and prevent bottleneck effects in populations of animals. Bottlenecking is a genetic event in which a rapid reduction of genetic variety occurs. This effect may result in inbreeding in a population.

The Zoo is currently using these cells for valuable research through various techniques including flow cytometry. Flow cytometry is just one process the Institute uses in order to determine what cells are preserved after being in the Frozen Zoo. This process helps find viable and active sperm. This sperm can eventually, if needed, be used in artificial insemination.

Artificial insemination is not commonly used at the Zoo, but has been used under certain circumstances. One of these situations was with the giant panda. When the first two pandas from China came to the San Diego Zoo, Bai Yun (a young female born in a panda conservation center in China) and Shi Shi (an adult male found injured in the wild with wounds too great to be re-released) were not exactly a match made in heaven. The couple had one offspring (the first baby panda born in the western hemisphere) at the San Diego Zoo. Hua Mei was this baby, a female, born through the process of artificial insemination. Hua Mei is now the mother of six more giant pandas. Bai Yun continues to have more children, including her fifth cub born this last August. By using the modern scientific techniques of artificial insemination, the San Diego Zoo has contributed to the conservation of this ancient and beloved species and many others.

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.

A Frozen Zoo? That seemed strange to me. Are there frozen panda bears and alligators lined up in giant freezers? The Frozen Zoo actually is, however, is a bank of frozen sperm, eggs, and body cells from various species. They are in a state of suspended animation, cryogenically preserved. The cells can be carefully thawed out in order to help reproduction and survival of endangered animals. As you can imagine, this can be a tricky process. The cells need to be frozen at just the right temperature, and thawed down at just the right speed so that they still function normally when they are needed. That’s where Nicole Ravida and her coworkers come in. In the Reproductive Physiology division, they conduct studies to improve the efficiency of techniques like in vitro fertilization in endangered species.

One of the things the team does involves a machine called a flow cytometer. This spectacular machine can count the number of cells in a given sample, and tell if they are intact or not. It does this by passing each cell individually through a laser beam. This causes the light to scatter, and the light is then picked up in various places, and the data is collected. By viewing this data, Ms. Ravida and her team can determine how many of the cells are living, and how many are damaged. This is particularly useful when trying to decide if the sperm from the Frozen Zoo are still usable or not. On the tip of the sperm cell is a covering of enzymes. This covering is called the acrosome, and it allows the sperm to break through the egg in order to accomplish fertilization. If the acrosome is damaged, fertilization will not occur. The flow cytometer enables Ms. Ravida to see how many acrosomes in any given sample of sperm are damaged. If a large percentage of them are damaged, then she and her coworkers know that they need to come up with better freezing and thawing methods.

Ms. Ravida’s favorite part of her job is doing procedures with the animals. They perform these procedures, such as thermal imaging, to gain necessary information for their reproductive studies. This technique was first used with the panda to monitor the heat signature on her belly. The reproductive physiologists were attempting to discover if they could predict pregnancy with this non-invasive process. “Honestly, the coolest thing I have been able to do is to just feed and pet a panda when we were collecting a cell swab from Bai Yun.”

When Ms. Ravida first started to look at various fields of biology, she thought that the only thing she could do to work with animals was to be a veterinarian or a zoo keeper. So, she completed her bachelor’s in animal science and then worked for a vet, but came to the conclusion that it wasn’t for her. She also volunteered at the Zoo, and decided that wasn’t for her either. It wasn’t until she started volunteering at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research that she discovered the many job possibilities that work with animals. After working in the behavior lab for a while, she finally made her way to reproductive physiology, and found her niche. As a reproductive physiology research technician, Ms. Ravida is able to help out with conservation, while still getting that daily dose of animal love.

Becky, Careers Team

Why does the San Diego Zoo send animals elsewhere? Zoos often share their collections with other zoos. With so many zoos in the country, animals are always moving from one zoo to the next. Conservation plays a large role in the transport of animals. New animals are sometimes required for breeding programs to support genetic diversity in offspring. Having good genetic diversity makes a population of animals less vulnerable to genetic defects and less susceptible to diseases. Animals are also transported place for many other reasons: they are loaned, or maybe sent somewhere else while the zoo builds a new exhibit. This requires lots of cooperation between the zoos because animals’ health must be assessed prior to and during the move. For that reason, keepers or veterinarians are involved with the moving process.

When the San Diego Zoo has to transport animals, the first thing to be done is to get the animal off-exhibit. Even though moving animals doesn’t always require vets to tranquilize the animal, vets are always on hand to monitor the stress level and health of the animal. In the past, Zoo veterinarians like Meg Sutherland-Smith DVM might have had to tranquilize animals at a distance using a compressed-air gun. But keepers now have applied some of the behavior management skills we learned about last week to train the animal to go into a crate. This is safer and much less stressful for the animals. Training animals takes a long time; it took months to get the elephants in Elephant Odyssey ready for their move. (Although it would have been really cool to have the elephants walk from the Wild Animal Park to the Zoo!) The work the keepers do with the animals pays off in surprising ways sometimes. When several Siberian musk deer jumped out of their exhibit, and were wandering in the bushes at the Zoo the keepers managed to coax them back into their exhibit with food.

Once the animal is off-exhibit, animals are also moved to the Zoo’s private quarantine facility. Here, incoming and outgoing animals are kept and monitored for a short time. Outgoing animals require a check up from Zoo veterinarians. For Dr. Sutherland-Smith this is one of her favorite parts of her job because she gets to work outside of the Zoo’s hospital. At the quarantine area, she often works with hoofstock at a contraption called the tamer. This contraption cradles hoofstock so veterinarians can examine them. A blindfold is put on the animal to reduce their anxiety during the examination.

The San Diego Zoo was involved with the re-introduction of addax and scimitar-horned oryx and had a program to breed these animals at the Zoo and Park. When the Zoo was releasing these animals to a captive reserve in Tunisia, numerous individuals had to go through the tamer to receive veterinary clearance. Both the addax and scimitar-horned oryx are critically endangered animals that live in the parts of North Africa. These animals are also tested for diseases like foot and mouth or blue tongue disease. This is important because these diseases could threaten the livestock in Tunisia and hurt their economy. The disease could even hurt wild populations of addax or scimitar-horned oryx. This way, veterinarians are essential to conservation because they are able to monitor and take care of the health of threatened animals.

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.

While watching the astounding African elephants get examined, it amazed me that Dr. Tracy Clippinger and the other veterinarians at the Zoo and Wild Animal Park can carry on a check up for such big creatures.

The keepers play a large role in the check ups of elephants as well as many other animals. Their job requires them to train the animals to complete special commands. These commands allow the vet to perform the examination properly and safely. The keepers feed the elephants treats of vegetables and pellets to reward them for good behavior as well as keep them happy and preoccupied while the vet is working on them. Also, it is the keepers’ responsibility to recognize any abnormal reactions to the procedure. It is their job to keep both the veterinarian and the animal safe.

During  any visit from the veterinarian the elephant’s eyes, ears, mouth, and feet are always examined. The veterinarian checks the eyes to be sure that they are dilating properly by shining a light into them. In relation to the thick skin that covers most of the elephant’s body, the skin of an elephant’s ears is soft and much thinner. The blood vessels that run through these ears are close to the surface, which allows the animal to cool off by flapping its ears. These clearly exposed vessels are also an excellent place for the veterinarian to draw blood from. Looking into an elephant’s mouth you can see that is has four large molars used to grind their food, which consists of large quantities of vegetation. The end of the elephant’s feet are made of dead cells that lack both blood vessels and nerves, similar to our fingernails or a horses hoof. The foot pad must be repeatedly evened out using large files, clippers, and other tools in order to prevent lameness and other problems. Their feet must be checked at least once a month, though some individuals need their feet worked on every week. Veterinarian and pedicurist all in one job!

Veterinarians use a large variety of equipment when they work on their patients. One incredible implement that the Zoo veterinarians sometimes utilize when working with the elephants is the “hugger”. This gentle restraining device is a large square pen that can be used as a way to safely contain an animal while an examination is occurring, especially when the animal needs a mild sedative to keep it calm. The sides of the pen are able to move in and out as well as can be angled in different directions. Though the enclosure is identified as a ‘restraining’ device the animals are still involved in the examination. The animal participates at different times in the procedure. For instance, when the doors are closing, when the animal needs to move into correct placement, or when one of its feet must be positioned for inspection.

Danielle, Careers Team

Intern Danielle carefully extracts Tule elk sperm from a Frozen Zoo icebox at the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research. The Frozen Zoo helps preserve eggs and sperm from a variety of animal species in order to assist with reproduction and re-population efforts. If done improperly, the freezing process can cause harm to the specimen, so the keepers of the Frozen Zoo act carefully to help keep genetic variation present in vulnerable populations.

Intern Mateo carefully pipets elk sperm in order to transfer it onto a glass slide for microscopic analysis. Only a miniscule amount is necessary as there are millions of sperm present in the small specimen.

After thawing the specimen, Intern Sarrah looks into the microscope to assess sperm motility. Some sperm have decreased motility after the freezing and thawing process and this must accounted for when identifying a healthy specimen for insemination.

 Kellie, Photography 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.

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