It’s a relatively warm January afternoon at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, but snow leopards Renji and Nubo are visibly built for the impending winter weather. The zoo’s curator of mammals, Mike Dulaney, points out their thick white coats and sprawling tails, which the animals wrap around their faces like scarves so they can breath through their warm fur.
“We are a very weak species, let’s face it,” Dulaney says, laughing. “Here we are, it’s 47 degrees, and we’re out with our hats and gloves and coats and everything. But animals, they’re designed to take a lot of this fluctuation.”
A full-time staff member for 42 years, plus four years part-time and another five as a junior zoologist, Dulaney is a familiar face to both the animals and the humans that tend to them. His hands stuffed in the pockets of his navy blue Cincinnati Zoo coat, Dulaney points at the rocky ledge the leopards are sitting on and explains that a hidden vent underneath blows out air-conditioned air. Native to Central Asia, the challenge with these cats arises not in the winter but during summer, when they need to be kept cool.
With thick coats of fur, snow leopards like Renji are built for the cold. - Photo: Jesse Fox
It’s no coincidence that the cats are so well equipped for the below-freezing temperatures typical of Cincinnati winters. In the 1970s, staff began adding more cold-hardy animals to the zoo’s outdoor collection specifically because of the city’s climate. Previously — from the time it opened to the public in 1875 all the way through the mid-1960s — the zoo closed down during colder months.
“Animals and their ability to adapt in the winter is remarkable,” says Cincinnati Zoo Director Thane Maynard.
Even species like lions and tigers are able to acclimate to surprisingly low temperatures — lions, for example, are native to Africa, where many nights dip well below freezing.
But the animals don’t make these adjustments alone. Year-round, the zoo and its staff run like a well-oiled machine — some efforts visible to visitors and many more behind the scenes — ensuring that each of its inhabitants is happy and healthy, no matter the weather.
“You have to remember that these animals, in the wild, they don’t get fed every day,” Dulaney says. “They don’t always have a warm place to go. They don’t always have a veterinarian to treat them if they do get sick. So our animals are a lot healthier.”
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The zoo is home to more than 500 species of animals, and within those groups are even more distinct individuals that have unique sets of needs.
“We can’t just look at the temperature; we have to pay attention to the wind chill and other factors like sunshine and ice,” says Jenna Wingate, a zookeeper in the Africa department. “Every species and some individual animals have their very own temperature guidelines that we follow based on their natural history, age and overall health.”
“Our keepers, depending not only on the species but the individual animal,” Dulaney adds, “look at everything like weather — not only the temperature, but is it windy, is it rainy, is it cloudy, is it sunny — and then they make a determination day by day as to what happens. So today, for example, it started out relatively cold, so we didn’t put our tigers out until about 11:30. They’ll stay out for a few hours and then we’ll bring them back in for the night.”
Curator of Mammals Mike Dulaney has worked at the zoo for more than half a century. - Photo: Jesse Fox
The cats Dulaney is referencing — a pair of white Bengal tigers — are both 20 years old; in the wild, the species generally reaches a maximum of 15 years of age. Because of this, their keepers prefer it to be at least 50 degrees before they are locked in their outdoor exhibit for the day (although they are slightly babied by their keepers, Dulaney admits). On cooler days, they are given access to a tunnel system that leads from their exhibit to the lower lever of the Night Hunters building, where their sleeping area is located.While the snow leopard exhibit features an air-conditioned ledge, the tigers received a heated rock they can sprawl out on during a recent renovation of the zoo’s Tiger Canyon section. Motes were also removed from the area, nearly doubling the amount of space to which the cats have access.
Hidden features like heated or cooling rocks are common in many exhibits throughout the zoo. “Whenever we do these new exhibits, we try to think of things such as shade, shelter, and try to make it look as natural as possible,” Dulaney says. Another example is found on Monkey Island; the inside of the rocky structure that comprises the jutting landmass is hollow, concealing a heated building.
The monkeys that inhabit the island are Japanese Snow monkeys — the descendants of the original animals that arrived in the 1970s — native to the mountains of Japan. Although their region is characterized by frigid temperatures, the monkeys commonly take a dip in the many hot springs scattered throughout the area. Hot springs are not mimicked in the exhibit, however: “Well, even in the wild,” Dulaney says, “the snow monkeys — not all of them get to go into the hot springs. It’s only the upperclassmen. All the others get to sit around like cabana boys and watch them.”
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A similar method is implemented in one of the zoo’s most popular exhibits: Gorilla World. Hidden in plain sight is a two-story building located behind the rocks running along the back of the exhibit as well as beneath the grassy area gorillas outside walk and play on. There are two distinct groups of gorillas: one all-adult group and a family group with younger primates. Although juvenile gorillas are occasionally on outdoor display, more stringent guidelines are put into place compared to their older counterparts. “With the youngsters, again, there’s more of a temperature cutoff depending on how young the youngest youngster is,” Dulaney says, “and that could be as high as 60 degrees.” The most recent baby, Elle, was born Aug. 25; two other juveniles, Mona and Gladys, are 1 and 2 years old, respectively.The bottom floor of the exhibit’s concealed building comprises an indoor playroom, where the animals can be mentally and physically engaged.
A $12 million indoor gorilla habitat is currently in the works that will not only let visitors view the animals year-round, but also allow for improved care and husbandry. Maynard says the project is on schedule to be complete by June 2017.
While a day might be warm enough for adult gorillas, younger apes have stricter limitations. - Photo: Jesse Fox
Enrichment is a crucial element for all animals, regardless of the species, and it’s the aspect Wingate enjoys most about her position. “During the winter months, we are able to do extra enrichment to keep our animals active and stimulated,” she says. “Enrichment is anything that gets an animal to become engaged and bring out natural behaviors like digging or hunting for bugs.”
Meerkats and birds are given live insects to catch. African painted dogs have an affinity for rolling in elephant dung (after, Wingate says, it is frozen for 72 hours to prevent the spread of parasites and bacteria). Vultures are given chemical-free Christmas trees left over from the zoo’s annual Festival of Lights.
“They get to tear them to shreds like they would a carcass in the wild,” Wingate says. Winter also brings the opportunity for zookeepers to spend more one-on-one time with animals, many of which spend significantly more time indoors. “We get to work on extra training and relationship building,” Wingate says. “Winter is the time of year when our best training happens, such as getting animals to participate in their own health care by sitting still for a yearly vaccination or standing on a scale.
“Last winter, I was able to spend time each day sitting quietly with our new hoofstock, who were pretty shy at first,” she continues. “By the end of the winter they were comfortable enough to approach me to touch them and take treats from my hand. When an animal is willing to take food from a keeper, they are much easier to medicate, and it is much easier to get their very important monthly preventative meds to them, such as heartworm.”
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The transition to winter weather doesn’t happen overnight, and neither does the process of making sure the animals are prepared. Maynard says peacocks, or Indian peafowls, leave a particular impression in his mind when it comes to weather adjustments. Peacocks are given free range of the zoo 24/7, and their positive reception of the cold is partially thanks to a thick layer of down feathers.But beginning in the fall, zookeepers also begin making modifications to the birds’ diet, including more high-calorie foods like whole corn and high-protein dog chow, to help them accumulate insulating fat. Conversely, diets given in the summer are meant to keep the birds lean.
Like snow leopards Renji and Nubo, however, some animals look forward to winter all year, like the zoo’s red pandas, who recently gave birth to a pair of cubs — the first red panda babies whose birthdates were accurately predicted using ultrasonography and hormone monitoring. The first of those cubs is named Dr. Erin Curry, after the reproductive physiologist who monitored them.
“This is their kind of weather,” Dulaney says. “They’re usually out roaming around in the snow.”
Fifteen-year-old red panda LiWu enjoys retirement at the Cincinnati Zoo, complete with her own indoor room and adjacent outdoor play yard. - Photo: Jesse Fox
“Red pandas can tend to be more active in the winter because they thrive in the cold and prefer it over the heat of Cincinnati summers,” Wingate says.
And they’re not alone; Cincinnati is one of only two zoos in the United States to successfully breed Steller’s sea eagles, a large predatory bird native to Russia. “If they don’t go through a cold winter, they don’t breed,” Dulaney says. “Some animals need this blast of cold to get them going.”
Others thrive even in the unlikeliest of circumstances. In February 2014, the zoo’s female Bactrian camel, native to the steppes of Central Asia, gave birth to a calf on a frigid, well-below-freezing night to the great dismay of her keepers.
“Our female in there gave birth to a calf on the coldest night of the year,” Dulaney says. “The baby did fine on a night where it dropped down to 30 (degrees) below. We kind of look at this and think, my god, how does something like this ever survive?”
But survive he did, and the calf, named Jack, took his first steps just an hour after birth. To protect him from the cold, which stubbornly remained during the following days, he was fitted with a coat that he wore through the first week of his life. It’s these kind of stories that reaffirm for Dulaney just how enduring animals are — with, of course, a little help from the zoo.
Takin Sally and her calf, Dale, stay warm in the winter with thick, shaggy fur. - Photo: Jesse Fox
“We’ve been doing this for a long time,” Dulaney says. “We’ve got everything pretty much down pat to what we do, what we bring in, what we access. It’s all thought out. It’s not like we have to reinvent the wheel.”
As Maynard says, although the parking lots might be a little empty this time of year, the zoo is far from inactive.
“We’re here every day,” he says — and you'll have plenty of room to park. ©
SPECIAL COLD-WEATHER ZOO EVENTS:
It isn’t just the animals the zoo keeps warm in the winter. With 10 buildings on the premises — all of them with heat — humans can observe a wide range of species, from bugs, fish and manatees to big cats and nocturnal hunters, without having to stay out in the cold.But the zoo also has many events exclusive to the season, including classes and special animal encounters, that are worth bundling up for.
Penguin Days: Half-price admission to the zoo every day. Daily through March 11. General admission $9 adults; $6 children. (plus smaller crowds). Winter-themed animal encounters are held Saturdays and Sundays, including sea lion and snow monkey feedings (11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., respectively). Elephants are also given fruit frozen in ice blocks (11:15 a.m.), and polar bears receive fish-filled popsicles (12:45 p.m.).
Penguin Parades: Through March 11. Free with zoo admission. Stand on the sidelines as the zoo’s King penguins march from their Children’s Zoo exhibit to the Bird House. Parades commence twice daily at 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., weather permitting. Stop by the penguins’ outdoor Children’s Zoo exhibit for an up-close and personal look at the birds.
Gardening Classes: Already planning your garden for the spring? The zoo offers weekly gardening classes to help you do just that. Titled “Landscaping for the Homeowner,” lectures cover topics such as plant selection, soil preparation, maintenance and more. Although classes do build upon each other, they can also stand alone. $14; $10 members per class. 7-9 p.m. Wednesdays through March 16.
