Zoo Crew....

Last month I attended an ethics conference, ANZCCART (Australia and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching), in Queenstown on the South Island. As a student representative to the Animal Ethics Committee at Victoria I've come to find our work, reviewing applications and considering animal welfare issues, incredibly interesting and rewarding. So after begging and pleading I was able to secure funding to attend ANZCCART and in the end had the most fun I've ever had at a conference! One of the speakers was the CEO from our own Wellington Zoo and during one of the breaks I went over and introduced myself. We exchanged cards and she invited me to come to the Zoo for a meeting to talk ethics and welfare. That meeting happened a couple weeks ago and from it I secured a short term internship and will be spending time there each week for the next couple months! I will be observing two pairs of "small cats": caracals and servals (respectively, left to right in the photo). Note: this photo is just to show what they look like - they aren't housed together at the Zoo.

Both feline species are originally from Southern Africa and have come to the Wellington Zoo from elsewhere in the world. For that reason they are currently being held in a "quarantine" area of the zoo to make sure they are completely healthy. This also serves as a temporary home while the construction on their enclosures is finished. My job is to assess their behavior three times each week to gather baseline data. Then at the end of September they will be moved to their permanent enclosure homes. After that I will continue to observe their behavior and compare across the two environments. The Wellington Zoo is very serious about animal welfare and this is one way they can assess and then improve the welfare of these animals. Since I'm interested in this broad type of work I'm taking every opportunity to learn about how animal welfare is actually done. I'm thrilled to be gaining experience in a variety of contexts: the Animal Ethics Committee at Vic, working in Assessment at the SPCA and now at the Zoo. :)

Yesterday I went in for a second meeting. I picked up my "Zoo Crew" pass that gives me access to the zoo anytime it is open for the next year!

I also spent time completing safety inductions, gathering reading/study material to learn about these felines (a ridiculously large pile of books), and talking the with keepers and vet staff to learn how to reliably tell the pairs of cats apart. As you might expect, markings and body shape/size are the easiest ways to determine which critter is which.  And lastly I spent some time observing and collecting data to figure out the logistics of the process. I very quickly realized that the longer you observe them the more you see. Granted that sounds obvious but what is mean is that initially you notice their overall appearance. However, as the minutes pass you start to notice slight changes in body posture, subtle interactions between the two cats, and minute details in their markings. Interestingly, I have the same experience when I view art in a gallery. What I "see" changes drastically the longer I stand there looking. So it should be very interesting what I "see" at the end of this experiment!

Now it's time to flesh out my schedule as I want to go several times a week. This will take dedicated planning to fit it around my other volunteering commitments, work in the lab, writing, and regularly scheduled meetings. All in all I'm looking forward to a completely new learning experience. :)