Week 3 at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

Name: Emily Burland

Class Year: 2018

Hometown: Olmsted Falls, OH

Internship: Conservation Education

Location: Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

I’m just starting my third week as an intern here at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and it’s been a great two weeks! I work in the Reinberger Education Center, which is where most of the education staff is headquartered. There are four general areas of Conservation Education here at the zoo and I’m basically the catch-all intern for the whole department: I’m here if anyone needs my help. My supervisor works with the fee-based and school programs, so I help out the majority of the time with what she’s doing. However, there are a few projects that are dedicated to me. One of them is data entry for the department’s evaluation records. The department is giving pre and post experience surveys to various program participants for their records, and I work with all of those. For me, that means inputting data in a huge spread sheet and then uploading the information into a computer program that presents the data. I am also researching some other methods to measure guest conservation action (which means reading tons of journal articles). Another crucial part of the internship is eventually giving out guest surveys before and after certain programs, like giraffe feeding and the animal shows. I went to those locations and scouted out potential areas to collect data and saw some cute animals on the way. So far, I’ve entered lots of data, did some research, observed around the zoo, and helped out with a few educational programs. The first week, there was a school group here to learn about genetic diversity in captive animal populations, so I brought a few biofacts, specifically a rhino horn and elephant tusk, to the room for the kids to pass around. This past week, I observed a program for Cleveland Municipal School District teachers who are learning about various careers in zoos to teach their kids. I actually learned a lot about the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo right along with them. We talked about their sustainability practices, including their storm water use and ZooPoo compost (if you need high quality compost, we sell it!). We also talked about a few different career opportunities in the zoo, including horticulture, animal care, and conservation work. I also fed Crikey, a Bennett’s Wallaby, which was probably the highlight of my week. This week, the kids’ summer camps started, so I’ll be helping out with whatever they need me to do and then I’ll be meeting with Kyle, the other Otterbein student who’s interning in the Conservation and Science department. I’m looking forward to helping with all of the programs and working with Kyle this summer! 

Crikey, the Bennett's Wallaby in the Ambassador Animal program

I was observing guest movement on the Ben Gogolick Giraffe Deck, so of course I had to get a picture. The zoo sells lettuce leaves that guests can feed the giraffes.

The education building faces the elephant yard – it’s easy to be distracted by the herd outside! There are four females and one male elephant.

      Traveling to China

         

       Miranda Smith and Madison MacElrevey
          Juniors
          Westerville, OH and Lewes, DE
          Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding
          Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

Before I get to the good stuff.....      
For those of you who care, I'm actually writing another blog for my family and friends to read!           My posts here may be somewhat similar to the ones on my other blog, however, the ones on my other blog may be a little more in depth about each of our individual adventures. I'm kind of going to condense things on here for the sake of Madison having having her own things to talk about! If you're interested in more, my blog is on word press and is called The Girls Who Stare at Pandas!

          Greeting from China! The first month in China has been quite awesome! But I suppose I should start at the beginning of the story. 
Tuesday, May 9th at 8:30am I boarded a plane for LaGuardia to meet up with my companion Madison so we wouldn’t have to walk into China alone. 

I met up with Madison at the terminal and we flew to Detroit. The only notable thing about Detroit was the tram inside the airport! I definitely made Madison ride it with me!

                                             Our first selfie together!

So, we got on this GIANT plane headed for China! I have never seen, much less been on, a plane as big as that before. It blew my mind! This one had a second level and everything!

Shout out to the dude who gave me the peace sign!  

Two Floors!

                                                   

From Detroit to Shanghai it ended up being about 13 hours. I was well aware of how hard it was going to be but because it was my first time being on a plane that long, the newness made everything kind of exciting and less crummy! You have a screen in front of you and you can pick from about 50 different movies! You can also keep track of your flight!

Yes, I am watching Moana

                                           

How awesome is that! Having a count down really keeps you sane. There was also food! Not great food, but a distraction nonetheless!

Our flight went from Detroit over the Arctic to Shanghai. We actually ended up flying way more west and then south than the original map! Here’s a picture of the Russian tundra! And our actual route!

We went way west of our original route!

                           

We landed in China at about 6:30 pm (China time) so 6:30am (Ohio time). We got in the customs line and once we were cleared, we got our bags, went though bag security, and then rechecked our bags, then went through people security. All of that was easy; most of the airport signs have English underneath the Chinese.

Madison's first step into China! 

Everything has got English on it! Praise!  

We found our terminal just fine and sat down for a 45 min wait till our plane to Chengdu boarded at 9:05. An hour later we were still waiting. And the hour after that. And the hour after that. It was about 11pm now and all we knew was that we couldn’t leave because of “air control”.

That was frustrating because other planes were taking off and coming in this whole time! The airport around us emptied out as all the other planes boarded and left and the shops closed. Everyone was getting impatient and slowly passengers began crowding around the airport employees desk. Finally at 11:15pm they started lining us up to board!

We are happy to finally be boarding!

We got on the plane…and 45 min later we were still sitting at the airport. I think they put us on the plane just to shut everyone up. It was a lot better waiting on the plane though because they gave us food and drinks (a sandwich), the seats were cushioned, and you could just sit back and relax. We finally started moving at 12:17 but I must have fallen asleep right after because next thing I know, I wake up and it’s 2:30am. We landed in Chengdu at 3:30am! We got off the plane and followed everybody else to the baggage claim, because the Chengdu Airport has a lot less English on the signs. 

Now comes my favorite part of that day! While we were waiting for our bags Madison went to the bathroom and when she came back she had a smile on her face and said “Guess what” and I replied “Squatty potties?” and she answered “oh yeah”, and then I grabbed my phone and literally ran to the bathroom. I have been hearing about these toilets for months now and I was dying to try it out.

Judge me if you will, but I think they are kind of fun! Not hard at all!

Anyways, we got our bags and then we called the girl from the college who was supposed to pick us up at the airport. Our plane was 3 hours late and it was 3:30 in the morning, so we were pretty positive no one would be there to get us. She didn’t answer the phone and as we walked toward the doors Madison and I chatted about what we would do if we didn’t get a call back. Thankfully, right as we got to the doors we saw a girl standing outside with my name on a sign. It was good knowing after all of that travel, we wouldn’t have to sleep on a bench in the Chengdu airport until morning!

They hired a driver to take us to the University!

We spent the next hour in a car going to Southwest Jiaotong University, our home for the next three months! That’s actually a lie….but we didn’t know that at the time, so you will have to wait for that story! Cliff hanger!!!

Hello from the National Zoo in South Africa (posted for Quentin who has limited internet!)

Name: Quentin VanHoose

Class Year: Senior - Class of 2018

Hometown: Waynesville, Ohio

Internship: National Research Foundation Intern

Location: National Zoological Gardens of South Africa, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa

Hello/Hallo/Sanibonani/Molo/Thobela/Dumela/Dumela/Abusheni/Sanibona/Avuwani/Salibonani from South Africa! My name is Quentin VanHoose, and I am a third-year-senior Zoo and Conservation Science major here in this beautiful country for an internship with the National Research Foundation at the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa in the country’s capital city of Pretoria. That greeting might seem a little excessive, but South Africa isn’t known as the “Rainbow Nation” for nothing! There are 11 official languages spoken here and so many more cultures.. It has been an incredible experience being able to get glimpses into several of them so far in start of my three-month South African adventure, and it hasn’t been hard to do as every single person I have met so far in South Africa has been so incredibly friendly and so very willing to help me out in any way possible.

That said, it is hard to believe that one month of said adventure has already almost passed! For my first two weeks in the country, I was taking part in an Otterbein “Maymester” course, Large Animal Ecology and Conservation, during which we travelled across this beautiful country visiting many different from places from the fynbos scrub of the Eastern Cape, to the high desert Karoo surrounding the town of Oudtshoorn and the coastal town of Mossel Bay in the Western Cape, all the way up to the world-famous Kruger National Park in Limpopo, learning about the many different wildlife management styles and human-wildlife interactions across this diverse country - of course stopping to admire the magnificent wildlife itself along the way. While I watched the sunset on that portion of my adventure, I since watched it rise over a new adventure when. just a little over a week ago, I arrived here at the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa in the capital city of Pretoria in the central province of Gauteng for my internship with the National Research Foundation that is based here.

African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) cow and calf in Kruger National Park, Limpopo.

Going into this summer, I knew that I wanted to gain experience and knowledge in fields that I had very little to no previous experience in a new and exciting place, and that is why this internship with the National Research Foundation was a perfect fit! While I have never quite thought that my career path would lead me down a road of extensive laboratory research, I knew that I wanted to at least have the experience of working in such an environment and seeing how such an important part of conservation as a whole functions. For the desires of such experiences, there is no better place than the National Research Foundation! It is a truly impressive and accomplished establishment with some of the world’s top conservation researchers, with an overwhelming number of projects in wildlife forensics, endocrinology, parasitology, and conservation genetics.

For my first two weeks here at the National Research Foundation, I am essentially shadowing as many of the staff members here as I can to get an idea of their projects, what specific types of research entail, and to decide what sort of project I want to take on for the full two month period that I am here afterwards. In just the first week, I have met and learned from so many amazing researchers, phD students, master’s students, and interns (with whom I am quickly making friends!), and I am sure that the coming week will be just the same. I have actually already began to gain some practical experience! In my first week, I have already run a full PCR (polymerase chain reaction - used to isolate and amplify a specific DNA sequence or gene) process from start to finish on a strand of parvovirus under the guidance of a wonderful phD student (Almero) and intern (Doudoune). Having learned quite a bit about the PCR process and gone through some of its steps in my Genetics course at Otterbein with Dr. Lehman, it was very fulfilling to call on that knowledge and put it to practical use.

Creating the “Master Mix” for the PCR process - it contains all of the primers, polymerases, water, and minerals needed to amplify all of your samples.

While my first week and half here at the National Research Foundation has certainly been packed with astounding laboratory research observations and discussions, I have absolutely had the chance to partake in some amazing other experiences as well. The first of which was last Wednesday when I joined one of the zoo’s veterinarians, Jenny, veterinary technician, Sabbath, and two wildlife forensics interns on a sample collection trip to a private bird collection at a business park in Krugersdorp, a town about two hours away from Pretoria. The trafficking of wild-caught blue and South African grey crowned cranes chicks as captive-born progeny is a major problem in South Africa, and the National Research Foundation and the National Zoological Gardens are working to sample captive and wild specimens of both species to build a database to compare individuals being transported to to try and crack down on the problem. To witness the official chain-of-custody sampling process and everything it entails was incredibly interesting! Every single step of the process from unpacking the kit to sealing the sample bag is photographed.

A blue crane (Anthropoides paradisea) at Birds of Eden in Plettenberg Bay, Western Cape.

The very next day, while I was helping to restore the labs after a recent renovation by creating a new booking board for lab equipment and laminating new signs for all of the labs, the veterinary technician, Sabbath, called upon me to go a witness “something cool with an owl” at the veterinary hospital, which is directly across from the research laboratories. When I arrived, I was greeted with a spotted eagle-owl laid out on the table to repair a fracture in its wing! While am, honestly, quite squeamish around such things, I was still very excited to be able to have the opportunity and privilege to observe an entire surgery from start to finish on such a beautiful animal! It was an incredible experience, and fingers crossed that the owl will make a speedy recovery.

A spotted eagle-owl (Bubo africanus) in Kruger National Park, Limpopo.

I just returned this morning from a weekend trip to the zoo’s off-site center in Mokopane, a small town in the Limpopo province, about two-and-a-half hours away. The center is known as the Mokopane Biodiversity Conservation Centre, and it serves as a holding and breeding center for the zoo’s collection and includes a 1600-hectare game reserve filled with hoofstock, including a large fenced-in enclosure for a breeding herd of the rare and incredible beautiful roan antelope. I travelled to the center with Professor Antoinette Kotze, the director of the National Research Foundation, Dr. Juan Scheun, a resident phD endocrinologist, Dr. Helen Taylor, a visiting researcher from New Zealand, specializing in inbreeding in small populations of native New Zealand birds, and Warren Spencer, the Curator of Mammals at the Auckland Zoo in New Zealand, and were lead by the incredibly knowledgeable manager of the Mokopane Biodiversity Conservation Centre, Mark Howitt. The five of us spent the weekend touring the facilities, going on game drives, having traditional Afrikaner braais (being a vegetarian, I had to sit these South African barbeques out), and sharing stories around the fire late at night and around cups of coffee and tea with rusks (traditional Afrikaner hard biscuits for dunking) in the early morning. It made for an absolutely wonderful weekend - enjoying time in the South African bush and learning so much from some absolute experts in their field with so much knowledge to share.

Two giraffe bulls (Giraffa sp.)  necking at the Mokopane Biodiversity Conservation Centre in Mokopane, Limpopo.

While touring the facilities at the Mokopane Biodiversity Conservation Centre, I absolutely fell in love with the herd of roan antelope! They are absolutely magnificent creatures, and luckily enough, there are a number of projects that both the Mokopane Biodiversity Conservation Centre and the National Research Foundation are wanting to look into with the species, including inter and intraspecific interactions a feeding sites, parentage, parasite-resistance analysis, and hybridization analyses (as West African roan have been brought into South Africa by game ranchers and it is a distinct subspecies from the subspecies found in South Africa). I am absolutely enthralled by the idea of working with the species and gaining both field and laboratory research experience, so if all works out, the roan will be my project!

A southern roan antelope (Hippotragus equinus equinus) at the Mokopane Biodiversity Conservation Centre in Mokopane, Limpopo.

            And that brings me up to today! I am so very excited to see what the rest of my two month adventure in South Africa has in store for me, and I cannot wait to share it with you all either!

Welcome Home

Name: Eileen Connon
Class Year: Class of 2019
Hometown: Monterey, CA
Internship: Cape Parrot Project
Location: Hogsback, Eastern Cape, South Africa

There's a tradition in South Africa where the people you meet say "Welcome Home" when you arrive, even for the very first time, because South Africa is quite literally home to all of humanity. It's super cheesy, but I do love it! The oldest evidence of modern humans is found here, and other new hominins are still being found. In modern terms, the people I've met in South Africa have been incredibly welcoming, open, and kind, and have made me feel at home from the minute I got here. So, as I post on this blog throughout the summer, I hope you enjoy learning about my new home, and maybe you'll even get to come home sometime soon. 

Part of me still can't believe that I'm here! After about two weeks traveling with my May term class (Large Animal Ecology and Conservation), I've finally made it to Hogsback. I've been here for nearly a week now, which means that I've (mostly) recovered from exhaustion and settled in to the rhythm. For the first couple of days, Delaney (the other intern- she was here last summer, so she's old hat at this stuff) and I were on our own as the researchers from the project were attending a conference in Borneo. Despite the lack of supervision, we still observed the parrots flying in each evening and even woke up early to record some vocalizations, although we only managed to do that once. In between observations, we took a couple of lazy days to catch our breath, but we can only sit still for so long before we get bored, so we took about five hours one day to hike to Big Tree and Madonna and Child. Big Tree is... exactly what it sounds like. A Great! Big! Tree! It's a Outeniqua Yellowwood tree.The Yellowwood is incredibly important to the Cape Parrot, which eats its fruits and nests in its cavities.

so big it can't even fit in a photo!

Our hike to the Big Tree supposedly led us through hyrax territory, but we didn't see any, which is a definite bummer, although we did get an incredible view over the valley and across to the Hogs, which are the mountains that give the area its name. After sitting with the Big Tree for a while (outside of the fence that protects it from people), we decided to continue our hike for a little while longer. We took a detour along a stream, where I laughed at Delaney for a misstep that led to her right foot getting soaked, until the exact same thing happened to me just ten minutes later. After a while, we came to a fork in the trail. I won a game of rock, paper, scissors, so we headed towards Madonna and Child. Along the way, we met a group of people staying at a local backpackers. There was a man from Germany, a man from Canada, a woman from the States, and a woman from Australia. It was fun to chat with them about their travels. We've also ended up running into them three more times in town since then- Hogsback is not that big! 

The hike to Madonna and Child is about 4 kilometers, and with uneaten lunches in our packs getting heavier by the minute, we began to despair that we would never reach it! We had almost given up when a nice old man with two dogs, a Jack Russell and a Border Collie, approached us. He asked if the Jack Russell was ours, which was weird, because I assumed it was his! Luckily, Delaney knew that the precocious creature lived near the trailhead and liked to "take people on walks." The man then informed us that we had nearly reached our destination! We slogged our way up the last hill, across the last boardwalk, and over the last rocks, and when we finally arrived, all of our hard work and exhaustion became worth it. Madonna and Child is one of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen in my life, and we plopped down on a rock to eat our lunches and soak in the splendor (and the mist). It would have been nice to emerge from the  

seriously, can you believe this?

trail there and enjoy a leisurely stroll back home (home meaning, in this case, the Boscobel house of the Cape Parrot Project, now one of my favorite places on Earth), but unfortunately, we had to turn around and hike the 4 k back to the original trailhead. 

Now, you're probably thinking to yourself, "Eileen, this doesn't sound like work at all! This sounds like a prime vacation!" And...you might be right! At least about my first few days in Hogsback. Luckily, the night we got back from our hike was the night that Cassie and Kate, the researchers for the project, finally came home from Borneo! Since they've gotten back, the real work has started. The first full day after their return they, very reasonably, wanted a lie-in, so we didn't have to wake up early (score!). We had breakfast and chatted about our plans for the next chunk of the internship. That evening, Cassie, Delaney, and I drove out to a hill overlooking nearby Alice so that we could watch the parrots fly out to their nighttime roosts and get an estimation of numbers. It's pretty hard to count flocks of nearly 100 parrots in flight! It was a little hectic, but it was incredible to see them fly so close overhead. The next morning, we woke up dark and early (can't be bright if it's before the sun rises), packed our yoghurt and muesli breakfasts, and drove back to Alice to wait at a pecan orchard for the parrots to return. We tried to record some of their vocalizations, but there were too many calling at once, and too much wind, for any good data. We did manage to get plenty of counts and movement data for Cassie's research with the Project. We then drove back and ate second breakfast, which is one of my favorite things about living here. That afternoon, we practiced rigging up a mist net, because we might be capturing a parrot to track its movements at some point later in the summer. 

The next day, we woke up early again, this time for Kate, Delaney, and I to head out to Zingcuka (the "c" is a click!) Forest for observations. It's a relatively short ride, but my college student self was definitely able to take a nap on the way! When we got there, Delaney took the vocal recording equipment and stayed in the forest to work on her specific research, while Kate and I took separate posts on an open ridge to record the number of parrots and their movements. It was an incredible view, when I could focus on something other that how cold my hands were! In case you've forgotten, it's winter time down here in the Southern Hemisphere, and it isn't fun to forget gloves when you have to be outside before the sun comes up. Despite the chill, we had a successful morning. Kate and I combined saw about 200 parrots! I also saw a fair few crows and doves, and I could hear some calls that I didn't recognize. Delaney saw some cows... and a few parrots, don't worry. After the last parrots flew by, we headed back to Hogsback to prep more for future steps, including a plan to start reading lots of primary literature and providing the information to each other, so we can a) learn everything we possibly can about the Cape Parrot, b) find even more primary literature, and c) figure out what we still need to study. 

And, because internships can't always be fun, we've also been working hard since that afternoon to clean up around the property and inside the house, because some important funders of the project are coming by to see what we do. Let me tell you, raking leaves on a lawn that's in the middle of the forest is not an easy job! Working with a friend always makes it easier, though, so we did our best to make it fun. And to make things even better, we made some fun new African wildlife friends! 

This skink was hanging out in our garbage pile in the back of the bakkie (truck to us Americans)
but luckily I grabbed him before he went into the rubbish bin

A handsome praying mantis fella who Delaney found in the house!

Well, that's all for this post, folks! I'll keep you updated on our internship whenever I can for the rest of the summer...winter...swinter... whatever we're supposed to call it. It's sure to be a wild ride!

Life of Great Apes in Omaha, Nebraska

Name: Rebecca Morro
Class/Year: Class of 2018/Senior
Hometown: Columbus, Ohio
Location: Henry Doorly Zoo; Omaha, Nebraska
Internship: Great Apes

I began my great ape internship on May 4th, 2017.  Working 40 hrs/week, I have Tuesday and Fridays off.   I don't mind having split weekend days because it separates my work days.  I am rooming with a friend that lives about 30 mins away from the zoo.  I typically wake up at 6:00 am and leave the house around 6:40.  My start time is 7:30 so it gives me enough time to brave rush hour traffic. I clock in at the education office then head to the Orangutan building.

Upon walking up the orangutan building I check all enclosures to make sure everyone is up and moving around.  By then I am greeted by a keeper and we go inside the keeper area.  The keepers administer medicine to the Orangutans and in that time I am responsible for changing the foot baths and changing out the laundry.  Once medicine is given out we do our first shift of animals.  In the old orangutan building we house five Orangutans, two Gibbons, one Prevost's squirrel, and one Melodius laughing bird. A shift is when a family comes in the back holding so we can clean and set up the main enclosures.  By cleaning the enclosures we take out all old enrichment; some include clothes, plastic bottles, and paper towels. Along with cleaning poop, old food, and wet straw.  Once completing cleaning tasks we set up the enclosure for the day.  We add new enrichment (apes like to have at least five new enrichment a day), food for the day and their daily primate biscuits.  After checking to make sure all tools and bags are taken out we lock up and switch the apes out.  Doing the same procedure three times again in the old orangutan building.

Split between two levels the "net" orangutan building houses two Orangutans, two Siamangs and one Langur.  Once heading to the nets we clean the outside enclosures first collecting the old things and then setting them up for the day. Once set up, we let out the Siamangs in their own habitat and the Orangutans and the Langur in one.  After all cleaning is done and animals are out on display we chop up diets.

Diets include sweet potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, celery, apples, pears, bananas, and primate browse.  When diets are done we then clean all the backside enclosures and finish any cleaning left. When all cleaning is done and food is prepared it is typically around noon.  We take lunch all together in the basement of old gorilla.

Our lunch breaks lasts in hour.  Depending on what tasks still need done in the orangutan buildings we will head up there or if all tasks are done we will help in old gorilla building or make new enclosure set ups.  If all tasks are done, some days I will observe primates on behavior.  Doing the tasks that all keepers do, gives me a great perspective of the life of a zookeeper.

My day ends around 4:30 pm. I go back to the education building to clock out and start my journey home.

Amoi, Borneo Orangutan

Nets, Outside Enclosure 

Timmy, Western Lowland Gorilla