Saint Louis Zoo Wildcare Institute and the Institute for Conservation Medicine Report for the Year 2013
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Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Institute and the Institute for Conservation Medicine Report for the Year 2013 A Year of Assessing Animal Health, Expanding Our Reach, Educating Youth, Researching Parasites Whether researching lemurs in the forests of In addition, we’ve included in This report also offers an update of this document another Zoo-based the list of the partners and donors Madagascar or helping youth build pollinator conservation organization— who help make our conservation gardens in urban areas, the Saint Louis Zoo’s the Institute for initiatives successful. Conservation For the list of WildCare Institute staff continued its holistic but Medicine (ICM). partners and donors focused approach to capacity building, turning Founded in who have been around troubled ecosystems and saving animals 2011 to conduct involved with the research and field WildCare Institute across the globe and in our own backyard. conservation work since its founding, on zoonotic diseases, please visit the Established in 2004, the Saint Institute relies heavily on the the ICM helps us Zoo’s website at Louis Zoo’s WildCare Institute spent expertise of Zoo Animal Health and manage diseases stlzoo.org/wildcare. its 11th year concentrating on a Animal Division staff. By studying that threaten the Thank you for looking dozen initiatives that Zoo curators the health, reproduction, nutrition conservation of over this report and have identified as and behavior of wildlife species, for your interest in critically important Zoo animals, these human public health our research and to the survival of scientists can better and ecosystem conservation work endangered species help the animals function. Its and in the future of and the education in the care of our activities are closely saving wildlife and and welfare of the conservation centers. Eric Miller, DVM, Dipl, ACAM aligned with those wild places. people living near We also understand of the 12 WildCare these animals. that the very future Institute Centers. By extending our of many of the reach beyond the animals both in Zoo’s fence to the our care and in the Sincerely, Galápagos Islands, world can only be the communities of guaranteed through Kenya or the streams collaboration with a of Missouri, the range of institutions. WildCare Institute More than 180 ensures that our zoos, universities, work at home is Jeffrey P. Bonner, Ph.D. governmental and intimately connected non-governmental Eric Miller, DVM, Dipl, ACAM, to conservation in organizations are Jeffrey P. Bonner, Ph.D. Director, WildCare Institute the wild. The WildCare our partners. Dana Brown President & CEO Saint Louis Zoo Senior Vice President, Director of Zoological Operations Saint Louis Zoo Polar Bears Missouri Native Species Hellbenders Pollinators American Burying Beetles Mountain vipers Horned Guans Birds Amphibians Orangutans Grevy’s Zebras Galápagos Birds Asian Elephants Humboldt Penguins WildCare Institute Centers Lemurs Locations of organizations the WildCare Institute supports Camels Partula Snail Cheetahs Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Okapis Saharan Wildlife About the Saint Louis Zoo’s WildCare Institute Launched in 2004, the WildCare Institute is committed to wildlife management and recovery, conservation science and support of the human populations that coexist with wildlife in 12 conservation hotspots around the globe, including four in Missouri. About the Saint Louis Zoo Since its 1910 founding, the Saint Louis Zoo has been renowned for its beautiful naturalistic exhibits, its diverse Contents collection of animals and its innovative approaches to animal Center for American Burying Beetle Conservation .......................................6 management, conservation, research and education. Center for Avian Health in the Galápagos Islands ........................................8 Named the nation’s #1 zoo by Zagat Survey’s U.S. Family Travel Guide in Center for Conservation of Carnivores in Africa ............................................10 association with Parenting magazine, the Saint Louis Zoo annually attracts Center for Conservation in Forest Park ........................................................12 3 million visitors—making it one of the most visited zoos in the nation. At the Zoo, those visitors can see Ron Goellner Center for Hellbender Conservation ......................................14 more than 19,000 wild animals— many of them rare and endangered. Center for Conservation in the Horn of Africa ..............................................16 Zoo guests can enjoy a range of naturalistic exhibits featuring Center for Conservation of the Horned Guan (Pavon) in Mexico .................18 everything from rugged coastlines to forests. The Institute for Conservation Medicine ....................................................20 Center for Conservation in Madagascar ......................................................22 Center for Native Pollinator Conservation ...................................................24 Center for Conservation in Punta San Juan, Peru .........................................26 Saharan Wildlife Recovery Center .............................................................28 Center for Conservation in Western Asia ...................................................30 New Donors ................................................................................................32 Center for American Burying Beetle Conservation the release site are suitable for long-term survival—so, finding this beetle was a major accomplishment.” He added that in 2013 Core Mission researchers also found 15 offspring of the beetle parents that the Center and its partners The Center’s mission is to had reintroduced earlier in the re-establish the burying beetle in year. “We were quite relieved Missouri through reintroductions by this because on June 5, a using some of the nearly 8,500 severe storm stalled over the captive beetles the Zoo has bred. prairie. This storm resulted in The WildCare Institute Center precipitation of 1.35 inches of for American Burying Beetle rain, dumping approximately 145 Conservation was established to million gallons of water on our continue and augment work that release site in a little over four began at the Saint Louis Zoo in hours. The good news is that we Reintroducing the American burying beetle into its native habitat is a complex 2000 and 2001, when the Zoo’s did not find many dead beetles process involving digging holes, or plugs, at specially selected sites, placing the staff had a chance encounter carcass of a quail and a pair of notched beetles in each cavity and replacing the at the site. It appears most of the with a dead bird and a related plugs —all to simulate a natural underground setting for the beetles. beetles abandoned their wet or beetle species. Bob Merz and flooded brood chambers but then colleagues at the Zoo started returned to reproduce when the researching burying beetles and On June 4, 2013, 604 of the The 2013 season marked a first weather was more favorable.” quickly realized the beetles rapid Saint Louis Zoo-bred endangered for any mainland area of North decline was cause for alarm. American burying beetles were America: “In 2013, we found an reintroduced to Wah’Kon-Tah over-wintering beetle – that is a Beetle On Endangered List Prairie in Southwest Missouri. beetle that survived the winter Counting beetles does matter for This was the second reintroduction as an adult,” said Center Director this insect that has been on the in two years. A third is planned and Zoological Manager for United States federal endangered for the spring and summer of Invertebrates Bob Merz. “This species list since 1989; research 2014—with pairs split into two was very encouraging because shows that the beetle has been separate placements. it shows us that conditions at disappearing across the United Bob Merz 6 Recent Accomplishments » A major achievement was the and managed by the Missouri carefully paired based on the Missouri Department of reintroduction of the American Department of Conservation genetics and then transported Conservation and this Center burying beetle for a second and The Nature Conservancy. 265 miles. Nearly 70 plus local nature groups. consecutive year across the » Dozens of people worked volunteers participate; they 4,040-acre Wah’ Kon-Tah together to make the come from the United States Prairie in St. Clair and Cedar reintroduction a reality. Once Fish and Wildlife Service, counties on land jointly owned prepared, the beetles are The Nature Conservancy, States since the early 1900s. often tunnel to nearly a foot Scientists have suggested all deep, stripping fur, scales or kinds of explanations for this feathers from the body with vanishing act, ranging from pincers and expectorating an increased light pollution that is antibacterial secretion that slows disorienting for these nocturnal decomposition by embalming the insects as they are preparing body. The female lays her eggs to breed, to pesticides causing near the preserved carcass and beetle deaths, to a changing within four days, eggs hatch into constellation of fellow scavengers larvae. Both parents feed their competing for the same offspring by eating some of the carcasses. Some experts have dead flesh and regurgitating it even suggested that the early into the larvae’s mouths. 1900s demise of the passenger “In recycling decomposing pigeon, which was the ideal components back into the carrion size for the beetles, drove environment, this beetle is a very the decline. Five Zoo-trained staff