Zoo and Conservation Science Internships: 2019-06-16

Name: Allison Gould

Class Year: 2021

Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA

Internship: Conservation and Science Volunteer Intern

Location: Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

Hello from Cleveland! I am about a month into my internship with the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo’s Conservation and Science Department. So far, I have enjoyed every minute of my internship. I have gotten to meet many people from around the zoo and help with a variety of projects. On my second day, I jumped right in to help with World Turtle Day. I stood with a keeper in a turtle costume so kids could take pictures with her. Other activities that day included box turtle crafts, biofact stations, and a donation station.

World Turtle Day photo ops - me with Ms. Turtle

Just yesterday, June 21, I helped with World Giraffe Day. I was at the storytelling station where we had giraffe biofacts, a Twiga Tracker (a solar powered satellite tracker that attaches to a giraffe’s ossicones+), and I passed out buttons that said “Stand Tall for Giraffe” to the guests. Guests could collect a small sticker on their button at each station they visited. These stickers represented guests “tracking” their way through the zoo like the Giraffe Conservation Foundation tracks giraffe in the wild with the Twiga Trackers.

World Giraffe Day "Stand Tall for Giraffe" buttons

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has six key conservation programs that they focus on to help secure a future for wildlife. The six Future for Wildlife (FFW) programs are Andean bear, Asian turtle, giraffe, gorilla, illegal wildlife trade, and lion and cheetah. Within the zoo, there are also internal engagement FFW teams of zoo staff and volunteers that plan events and fundraisers and report on conservation updates. These teams make sure that everyone at the zoo that is interested in supporting conservation efforts has the opportunity to be involved. I have even been able to go to planning meetings with Team Giraffe and Team Andean Bear and marketing meetings for World Giraffe Day.

In the Conservation and Science Department, I work partly as a conservation intern and partly as a research volunteer. On the conservation side, I work with Emily and Kym on any projects they may need help with. My first big project was compiling a list of “conservation successes” and achievements of the zoo’s many global conservation partners. By searching through the partners’ websites and annual reports, I not only learned about the work that they are doing, but I also gained an appreciation for the importance of their work and the obstacles they are tackling. I have also helped Kym by editing and reviewing a number of documents for the Andean Bear Conservation Alliance annual report and for the Andean bear AZA SAFE application. The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is a leader in Andean bear conservation, and the SAFE program would allow for greater participation in Andean bear conservation across AZA institutions.

On the research side of things, I have assisted in a number of ongoing research projects that are conducted by the graduate research associates here. About once a day I go around the zoo to collect data for the ongoing Animal Visibility Study (for bears and the African Savanna species) and the Giraffe Space Use Study. The Visibility Study is an annual project to assess the visibility of animals that visitors usually report that they cannot see on exhibit. The Giraffe Space Use Study is also an annual project to address where the giraffes spend their time in the exhibit when the guest feeding deck is open versus closed. I was also able to help with a multi-institutional giraffe body-scoring project. I brought in my camera and took photos from multiple angles of two of the zoo’s five giraffes. The photos will be sent to an outside researcher that is pooling data on giraffe body conditions in zoos. I have been very lucky that the C&S department has allowed me to bring my skill sets to the table with these kinds of creative opportunities.

Left: Bo rear view Right: Jhasmin right side view

As a volunteer intern, I also go to weekly meetings with the seasonal keepers. Each meeting consists of a presentation from a leader within the zoo. We have had meetings about animal record keeping, enrichment and training, conservation, and the on-site animal shows. These meetings are especially beneficial because they give us the opportunity to hear from all different aspects of the zoo’s operations and to learn about the many kinds of jobs available within a zoo. Additionally, the seasonal keepers and I are all working on independent research projects. We have had multiple research planning meetings and it has been fun to hear about the others’ projects and how their data collection is going. My project is still in the works - it will be a guest survey to gather a baseline understanding of public feelings and perceptions about zoos.

Seasonal keeper meeting on the Zoo’s conservation programs with Kym

Every day here is different. Some days bring many meetings, others are more open for me to work on projects and tasks. Here are a few of the exciting things I have been a part of so far:

· Sat in on two webinars with Kym about reporting environmental law violations and combating wildlife crime.

· Weekly chats with Kym about anything and everything that I have observed, want to learn, or just talk about.

· Attended a monthly department meeting and a bi-monthly general employee meeting with all zoo staff.

· Attended a brown bag lecture by and had lunch with Maurice Ngiramahoro, Conservation Education Coordinator of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda.

The summer is going by fast, but I can’t wait to get started on data collection for my project and see what the rest of my internship brings!

Name: Lindsey Keehn & Eileen Connon
Class Year: 2020 & 2019
Hometown: Crystal Lake, Illinois & Mandeville, Louisiana
Internship: Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding
Location: Chengdu, China

First day at the Panda Base!

Ni hao from Chengdu, China! My name is Lindsey Keehn and I just finished my second year in the Zoo and Conservation Science Major at Otterbein University. Eileen and I have officially been in China for an entire month and have been working at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. Our first month has flown by and we have had multiple amazing experiences here working with giant pandas and red pandas. I can’t wait to see what else we will get to experience while we’re here, but for now, let me recap on the work we’ve done for the past month!

There are two Giant Panda Bases located in China; there is the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu and then there is the Chengdu Field Research Center for Giant Pandas in Dujiangyan. The Research Base in Chengdu is where we spend most of our days with occasional trips to the Research Center in Dujiangyan to assist with educational events and learn more about their mission. The Chengdu Panda Base is unlike any animal park or zoo I have visited. The base is ginormous with beautiful native plants lining the walkways, bamboo forests, and rolling hills throughout the base. In fact, to see the pandas and their enclosures, you have to climb up the tallest hill in Chengdu! We definitely work up a sweat and get a work out in multiple times a day here, but it’s all worth it to be able to observe the pandas. There are multiple enclosures such as House #1 and #2, Moonlight and Sunshine Nursery, Subadult A and B, The Giant Panda House, and Red Panda #1 and #2 along with a few other enclosures I can’t remember. The Panda Base and their enclosures are home to 115 giant pandas and around 150-200 red pandas (with the additional peacock here or there).

House #1 eating breakfast

Eileen and I have been hard at work collecting behavioral data on the two groups of 3-year old giant pandas. We observe two different enclosures during our days here at the base. House #1 is home to five 3-year-old giant pandas: Cheng Shi, Wen Wen, Yuan Yue, Ya Yun, and Ya Zhu. House #2 is home to the other 3-year-olds: Mao Dou, Mao Tao, Fu Lai, Fu Shun, and Qi Yi. These ten pandas will be the subjects of our research projects! These two houses are where we spend most of our time watching the pandas eat, play, climb, and sleep. The data we are collecting on these ten 3-year-olds will be compared to the past Otterbein students who came to the Panda Base in previous years who collected data when these cubs were one-year-olds. We’re interested in comparing their behavior throughout the years with the possibility of looking at kinship. A regular day for us looks like this:
1. Walk to the metro at 7:15 AM

2. Ride the metro to Panda Avenue

3. Take the bus to the Panda Base

4. Arrive around 8:30 AM, go up to our office and organize our materials

5. Walk up to the panda enclosures and record observations for two and half hours (9:00AM-11:30AM)

6. Lunch at 12:00 PM

7. Take a little walk around the base

8. Go back up to our office to work on things or take a nap (I’m really digging this culture part of China where people take naps at work)

9. Walk back up to the panda enclosures and begin observations at 2:30 PM for an hour of data collection

10. Leave around 4:00 PM

11. Take the bus to the metro

12. Take the metro to our neighborhood

13. Walk home

14. Eat

15. Sleep

16. Repeat!

My journal for data collection with an ethogram

In addition to data collection, we occasionally get to accompany James (our boss) to observe training sessions with adult and cub pandas. James trains multiple pandas at the base so that they can perform different behaviors for the keepers or veterinarians when they made need a check-up. Some of the behaviors taught include:

1. Opening their mouth voluntarily to monitor their teeth

2. Having the pandas stick their arms out while being pinched so they can be prepared for blood draws and injections

3. Females laying on their back and having their belly rubbed so they can get used to what an ultrasound will feel like

4. Males laying on their back so keepers can see when they might become mature as well as check for things like testicular cancer

5. Standing on their hind legs to observe their full body

6. Targeting a keeper’s fist to keep their attention during possible stressful situations (ex: during a vet visit, a panda might be moving its head or potentially hear weird noises that may frighten it. Targeting allows the panda to try and stay fixated on the keepers fist and receive a reward. This way, everyone involved, including the panda, are safe)

7. Targeting different objects such as blocks of wood, bamboo, and stations.

James with Ji Mei

These are just a few of the behaviors I’ve witnessed in both the adults and cubs. James uses positive reinforcement using apple (a panda favorite) and a whistle to bridge the behavior so the panda knows a reward is coming. He takes his time to work with them as he is patient and encouraging. In particularly, he has a very strong bond with a 3-year old male name Ji Mei and a 1-year old female Chuan Zhai. Being able to witness his training sessions with these two has been very insightful as you can tell they have a strong bond between each other. It has been interesting to compare the training of Ji Mei and Chuan Zhai as they are both in different places of learning with James. Ji Mei has been training with James for about 2 years now, so he has a solid grasp on the behaviors that James wants him to perform. On the other hand, Chuan Zhai is still learning different behavior requests, so seeing her understand what James is asking is very exciting! Recently, Chuan Zhai needed to have her blood taken by the veterinarian and keeper staff. Usually, to take the blood of a panda cub you need about 5-7 staff members to hold them down, so they aren’t moving about anywhere! But James has trained Chaun Zhai to stick of her arm while he pinches her, to mimic a needle, so she can be relaxed while in these types of situations. Because of this training, it only took 3 people to get blood from her: James, the vet, and another keeper! It was truly amazing to see the progress she has made and how essential and beneficial training can be.

Cheng Dai with a keeper. Her cub is
tucked underneath her arm.

Every day at the Panda Base I learn something new and there’s always excitement in the air at the panda enclosures, but what is really exciting is…it’s BABY SEASON! At the moment we officially have three new born pandas: a singleton and a pair of twins! When panda cubs are born, they are 1/1000^th the size of their mother…that’s TINY. Usually, the starting birth weight of a panda cub is somewhere between 100 grams to 120 grams. Cheng Dai gave birth to twins and one of her babies weighed only 42.8 grams at birth!!! The smallest born panda that has survived weighs in at 51 grams and is named Wu Yee. If this newborn survives with the help of her mother and experienced keeper staff, she has to potential to break Wu Yee’s record! Panda cubs are small, pink, and dare I say it, rat-like, when they are born. Seeing how small they are compared to a full-grown adult is truly mind-blowing and allows you to understand how fragile their life is. In the wild, the mother won’t go out to travel or eat for a few weeks as she spends most of her time nursing her cub. A panda cub will usually nurse from their mother up to a year to receive important nutrients while slowly being introduced to bamboo. Panda cubs will spend about a year or two of their life with their mother before they are kicked out to fend for themselves! At the base, the babies rotate between their mother and an incubator, as well as milk from their mother and formula from keepers. This allows the cub to receive a kind of special treatment by receiving care from their mother through nursing and warmth, as well as care from the keepers in proper warmth and humidity conditions and extra nutrients. Since Cheng Dai gave birth to twins, they switch the cubs out every now and then so they can both form a bond with her and receive colostrum. Pandas normally give birth to only one cub in both the wild and captivity. When they give birth to twins in the wild, they usually only care for one cub and the other one dies. At the Panda Base they can try to eliminate that scenario by taking care of both the cubs and to grow their population. I can’t wait to see these little cubs grow up during my time here and how they are taken care of when they are so young. Now we just wait patiently for more babies throughout the summer!

The twins born to Cheng Dai! You can really see how small the 42.8 g cub is in this picture.

Our work at the Chengdu Field Research Center for Giant Pandas in Dujiangyan is different than our work at the original base. Dujiangyan is about an hour and a half away from Chengdu in the mountains, so we take the panda work bus to the base. This base is an open research center and works closely with attempting to reintroduce pandas to the wild. The Research Center has much more open space to allow potential panda candidates to free roam in large enclosures (up to a few acres) so they can get used to what it would be like if they were on their own. If you’re interested in how the Research Center works on reintroduction, watch the documentary “Pandas”. It focuses on a particular panda, Qian Qian, and her journey (also fun fact, this documentary was offered as inflight entertainment on my flight from ORD to LAX!). What we have been mainly working with is the red pandas at this facility! The first time we visited this base, we came along to help James with training red pandas. At the time, this base was setting up a free-roam red panda enclosure that is home to 25 red pandas. James came to help train the red pandas and work with the keepers at this base to see how they can work with the red pandas at this enclosure. So, what was our job as inexperienced animal trainers? To distract the other red pandas, of course! Since there are so many red pandas in this one, large, free location, while James and the keepers were working individually with some red pandas, our mission was to distract the other red pandas who may come down for treats so they don’t interrupt a training session. We were allowed to get up close and personal with these red, furry creatures who are the cutest beings you’ve ever seen. James and the keepers worked with the red pandas similarly to the giant pandas. They trained them to target their fists, stand, as well as lay on their backs while having their belly rubbed for possible future procedures, such as ultrasounds. Some targeting they worked on was having the red panda follow their fist so they would climb up a tree, sit on a bench, stand on their lap, and quite a few other behaviors. Even if it was the first time some of these red pandas were learning a behavior or command, they were picking it up quite quickly! We spent the rest of our day here touring the base as well as reviewing the plan for the opening day of this free-roam enclosure on Children’s Day.

About a week later we made a trip back to Dujiangyan to help out with events planned for Children’s Day! There were two separate groups throughout the day, but both had the same activities. The children (ranging from 3-12) would start with an introductory presentation on giant pandas and red pandas, where they live, what they eat, and who they coexist with. Next, James gave a presentation on training red pandas and the importance of it. Afterwards, it was time for the children to see the red pandas in the new exhibit where they were able to witness a training session from James! Lastly, we headed back to the main building where we played a game similar to “pin the tail on the donkey” but was called “help the red panda find its home”. We helped the children put on eye masks, a red panda crown, gave them a little red panda picture, and had them spin around before trying to find the bamboo to put the red panda in nature. This educational event was so much fun getting to personally work with the kids and help them understand the importance of giant pandas and red pandas. The different presentations and opportunities really gave them a chance to engage with what they were being taught. To see some of their eyes light up when seeing a red panda and the amazement they had seeing a training session was truly magical. All of the children were so energetic, and we made so many new little friends that day. I hope that this Children’s Day event had as big of an impact on them, as it did on me. I’ve always been fond of education in the zoo field and the more I work these types of events, the more I feel a sense of knowing what I would like to do with my career!

James, Miranda, Me, and Eileen prepping for Children's Day with red panda crowns!

Working at the Panda Base this past month has provided me with so many new learning opportunities and has introduced me to a potentially new career. Our days at the base are long, but they are filled with pandas, friends, new ideas, research, tons of panda facts, and fun! While I cherish my days at the base, during our free time we have also spent quite a lot of time exploring, trying new foods, and meeting new people. On our third day at the base, one of the staff members at the panda base who we met through James, Yuen Bo, invited Eileen and I out to dinner with him and his friend. We were on our way home waiting for the bus, but we thought why not! We drove into the city and went to tea and dinner at one of the most beautiful and fancy restaurants I have ever been. We were definitely not prepared for a restaurant this nice as we arrived in our work clothes! We had tea for a few hours before having dinner which gave us a time to bond. Once it was dinner time, we couldn’t believe how much food we were being served! It’s customary in China to order many different types of dishes and share with the entire table. The spread that we had before us was enormous! I don’t think I’ve ever had that much food in front of me before, even at Thanksgiving! We tried many different foods, from beef, pork, chicken, fish, vegetables of every kind, dessert, and we even tried jelly fish! It was such a nice dinner as we were able to feel like we made friends only a few days into our trip. Everyone we met here has been so kind to us already and this really set off the beginning of our trip and exceeded our expectations of the Chinese people!

We have also made friends with a family who owns a bun shop on the corner of the street we pass every morning on our walk to the metro. We usually stop to get buns in the morning for breakfast and sometimes in the afternoon as they have such a wide selection of homemade treats! A few weeks into our trip and waving at this family every time we saw them, the owner of the shop, Lisa, wrote us a note wishing to communicate with us and become friends! Her note was so sweet, and we were so excited that she liked us as much as we liked her! This led to us becoming friends on WeChat and being invited over for dinner. Lisa cooked us a whole spread of food, with the main course being crayfish. Her sister and son were so sweet and such a joy to get to know. It has been a defining moment in my time here as we have become friends, both learning from each other and about our different cultures. I truly think that we have made some life long friends.

Eating the homemade dinner Lisa made for us!

Lisa, Xuan Xuan, Eileen, Xiao Yan, Me
and Miranda!

Our first weekend we went to visit Jinli Street which is a marketplace with various types of vendors and food booths tucked away into beautiful Chinese architecture. We had many different types of food from sesame seed dough balls, grilled and spiced squid, as well as a type of ice cream called Eggloo in a soft waffle cone. We visited many different types of shops that had traditional Chinese crafts, ceramics, wood carvings, and more. The area was beautiful as we crossed bridges, walked under lanterns, and went down alley ways. There is one section of the market place where there was a large collection of colored bags with red string. We saw that you could buy a bag based on wellness, health, marriage, and more where you would write down a wish and hang it on a tree. I got a wish bag for wisdom and got to hang it on a tree which was a very special moment. It was a great first weekend!

We’ve renamed our weekends to “Western Food Weekends” where we eat traditional, Chinese food throughout the week, but splurge on more “American style” foods on the weekends. There is a handful of different Western restaurants scattered throughout Chengdu and we have eaten at Mike’s Pizza, Element Fresh, Grandma’s Kitchen, and Peter’s Tex Mex (along with the occasional fast food…). These Western restaurants are usually in the expat part of the city, so there’s always a ton of malls and shopping areas surrounding the area. One part of the city we’ve gone to is Caotang where we went to Peekaboo Cat Café and Sichuan Museum! The cat café was amazing as we enjoyed a coffee and dessert while being surrounded by cats.

The Sichuan Museum was filled with beautiful art and historical artifacts from Chinese and Tibetan cultures. The exhibits ranged from calligraphy to pottery to stoneware to crafts! We’ve had a few more experiences such as visiting the giant Giant Panda climbing on top of a building, getting to help make a Louis Vuitton purse, visit Wenshu Monastery, go to the movies, shop at a Tibetan market, visited many markets and malls, and a bookstore. So many things have happened it’s hard to go into detail about how amazing everything is!

These are just a few of the experiences I’ve been lucky enough to have through this internship so far and I can’t wait to see what else is in store! We have been approved for husbandry at the Panda Base, so we will have more opportunities to learn from the staff and keepers at the base in the upcoming weeks. It’s crazy to think that we have about a month and a half left in China. The time has flown by and we are trying our hardest to make the most of it. These past few weeks have already changed my life and I can’t wait to see what else is in store and how it will change the trajectory of my life. Here’s to the next few weeks! Zaijian!

-Lindsey Keehn