3 Burst results for "Smithsonian Zoo"
Pants On Fire
"smithsonian zoo" Discussed on Pants On Fire
"A character in the mercy. Watson books named francine and i love mercy watson. That's a good reason. I suppose all right oliver. Your first question will go to francine what is a typical day at work for you. Okay usually when i get to the aquarium. It involves checking in on the penguins who we've already paired and their chicks. You know taking their temperatures as well as any changes or the consistencies in their environment. As part of our goal is to create the right environment or move for these birds to create relationships that will lead to ensuring their population. I'd like to a little bit more about this. So you are introducing penguins to each other so that they can make families. How do you go about doing that right. So basically what we're doing is trying to match penguins and they don't always want to match but Eventually that usually do interesting fact. Penguins don't actually mate for life but it doesn't mean they don't still have preferences For for each other. See and would you say you. Can you tell if a relationship is going to work out or can you tell right away. If they're not getting along you can tell so like One example would be when one of our penguins. Frankie was bonding with the bird name. Sandra they took their nesting too far. And i i don't know if you know this bet. When couples nest they hoard rocks to protect their nests. All couples not just not just the penguin up and they started hoarding rocks from around the exhibit. Ooh yeah so that wound up actually crushing some of their eggs and so noon. I know one of the things we had to do was create a nesting box and a few token rocks. And once we did that they turned out to be really great parents. So you know they they do have their own personalities and it's kind of fascinating jaros. What are being wins personalities. Like that are happy to answer that. Because i think things have lots of personalities. Some penguins are very shy penguin colony yellow eyed penguin in new zealand. That runs away from you. You get anywhere near outages. They'll just go and run away and then there's another kind of penguin. Call the royal penguin. That is the most curious penguin of all in there on another island almost in antarctica. And they'll come right up to you if you walk down the beach. I've had fifty of them. Walking on the beach. Felt like i was there royal penguins and i felt like i was a king of the royal penguins being when they're very wonderful. The emperor penguins. They'll never very curious they come right up to you. I've actually had emperor. Penguins climb on top of me while i was lying on the ice at school. Did they just think you were a speed bump or something like that. Well i think they're curious and they want to figure out who you are and so they come up in ten pekka you poke at your boots and i happen to be lying down on the ice photographing a different penguin and it jumped up on my boots. Wow it must be very curious to meet. Yeah will they don't see people very often so in fact we were wearing colors. That looked a lot like. There's will kind of yellow jackets with black hands. And i think they may have thought we were kind of strange mutant penguins or something find out. Where were you know someone needed that. I guess are seeing wins. There are mutant penguins. There's one that was just discovered this month on south georgia islands in king penguin. Normally they're gray and black with white tummies orange highlights but it's all white with a kind of yellow body. It's a strange strange penguin. Wait does this. Mean that. Ari beauty bigwood with digest. But what is there one. This is for seen sometimes. The most can be messy. What is grossing that ever happened to. You said this was really early on training. I was an intern over at the smithsonian zoo and i was in charge of cleaning the penguin habitat and the penguins. Were really cute and i had just read this paper. How penguins really like human contact. So i went to hug. One of the pink wins but Again this was very early in my career. And i wasn't aware that it was multi pain and i you know i just going to say. I learned some really valuable lessons about what. The penguin body secretes during their multi process. And that was that was pretty chris. there's ooh what happened while the actual multi process this is this is weird is called catastrophic team which i think will help you imagine how gross it might be The ra lot of of the feathers and there was a smell that took a really long time to get out of my hair and my clothes. It wasn't it wasn't go. Have you ever been tricked by pain and high school right. You wanna hear this. High school tanglin came out to me and said hey lisa. We want you to be on the cheerleading team. Great i love cheerleading. Went there after school and guess what. It wasn't the cheerleading team. It was the cheer booing team the team. I don't like that and don't trust. Penguins story is horrible. I yes yes believe everything you hear from pain. Have i know it might not be the case but have either view experts ever been tricked by penguin. I have to think about that. And yes i think in a way i could say i was tricked by penguin. Okay one time africa. We were working with baby. Penguins lever wayne them and measuring them. The baby african penguin and you have to be careful with them. Because they'll try to bite you and things like that when they don't want you to hold them and they'll try to slap you with their flippers. So i was watching those. But what i didn't realize is that their number one weapon is it. They'll aim their bottom at you and coupons color. Diphu her question. It was fish colored because it's long stinky street. they're able to projectile poop. They can shoot their poop. Four feet in distance so they really are good shots with poop. Shall we move onto the next question. I don't think we can but we can try to come back from that one. This is for both of you. What is your favorite kind of being winning. Why he wants to start. or why. don't i start okay. My very very favorite is a chick. An emperor penguin chick. Because i think they're the cutest animal babies in the world. They haven't all fussy gray body and they have a black cap that looks like a helmet white cheeks with big black eyes and it looks like they're wearing jammies. That's cute my favorite is the mantle. Corean pink win and they are.
WTOP
"smithsonian zoo" Discussed on WTOP
"Good morning, and Bruce Allen. I'm Joan Jones and the top local stories that we're following this hour. We begin this morning with a look at what local leaders are saying about the CDC is announcement that we don't have to wear masks anymore in most situations. State and local governments can keep the old rules if they want to win. Our Michelle bash has found that many are doing just that. There's Maryland Health Secretary Dennis Schrader. We're still focused on getting people vaccinated. We're at 65% are targeted 70% by Memorial Day, so soon as we hit that will be lifting the indoor mass Mandate. D. C. Mayor Muriel Bowser rights on Twitter that the city is reviewing the CDC guidance and we'll update D. C health guidance. Accordingly. She also calls vaccinations critical Virginia Into Ralph Northam is also still looking over the federal guidance, A spokesperson says. Vaccines are our pathway out of this pandemic. Michelle Bash. W T O P. NEWS No Prince George's County City County Council is going to hold a special session at nine o'clock this morning to consider revising its covert guidance that county has said that it expects to loosen restrictions on Monday. Four Smithsonian museums reopening Today They are the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and it's Red with gallery and the National Gallery of Art. The Smithsonian Zoo Bar Ha Z Center in Chantilly opened earlier this month. The National Museum of American History the National Museum of American Indian and the National Zoo, are all set to open next Friday. You'll need free time entry passes to get in. They could be reserved online. Some of the museum's will be operating with reduced hours too. More on the National Zoo Marie opening a week from today. It has been close since November because of the pandemic, and you're going to need free tickets to get in..
Short Wave
The Comeback Bird: Meet the Ko'Ko'
"Hey everybody I have shortwave reporter. Emily Kwong in the studio with me. Hey Mattie hey you you so today we are turning a spotlight on Guam which is a US island territory in the Pacific Ocean. That's right Guam. Is An eight hour plane ride from Hawaii Wii but a quick phone call for us to reach Suzanne Medina. She's a wildlife biologist with the Guam Department of Agriculture. We spoke with her at five fifteen in the morning. Her Time Eight. I naturally get up early. I enjoy the quiet. In the morning on Guam assists a little too quiet because there are no birds that are are waking up with us. Why is it so oh quiet? I feel like it's a tropical island so it should be bustling with some birdsongs. You would think but sometime. In the Mid Twentieth Century Guam's biodiversity diversity began to take a nosedive because of one slithering stowaway. Yeah in the late. Nineteen forties the island was being rebuilt. This was after World War. Two and some military cargo ships arrived with Brown tree. Snakes on board be snakes are venomous. Prolific tree climbers and most significantly. They have no natural predators on Guam. So they're eating all kinds of stuff but nobody's really eating them. Essentially yeah the Brown tree. Snakes invaded the island gobbling up eggs and birds at a rate that was really shocking. It profoundly alter the ecosystem in Guam and the forests grew for more and more silent with every passing year because of this one snake. Yeah and biologists. They felt totally helpless because they didn't have money to bring these preyed upon John Bird populations into captivity and no one in the scientific community including fish and Wildlife Service believed that a snake or what invasive Predator could take an entire population. It had never been documented before. So that's why it wasn't until the late nineteen eighties that we were able the start to receive funding on recovering birds and by that point multiple forest dwelling bird species had disappeared. Some of them only found on Guam. They became totally extinct in the wild meaning. They aren't in nature anymore but there are a few of them in captivity. Yes and there were two species headed in that direction. The Micronesian Kingfisher Fisher which is called the Sea Hake in tomorrow the indigenous language of Guam and the Guam rail which is called the cocoa military personnel assisted in creating these human human chains to scoop up the remaining birds including twenty-one cocoa and from this founder population of captive birds almost forty years since the cocoa go vanished from the wild in Guam. There are now more cocoa in the wild then in captivity. The cocoa is back back again again. No cocoa okay. All right tell a friend today on the show. We cocoa the second bird in history that we know love to come back from extinction in the wild. How biologists did it with a little matchmaking and a lot of patients are emily? You've brought us the recovery story of the Guam rail the second bird in history to be brought back from extinction in the wild. What do they look like? Okay so Guam. Rails which are called Coco in. Guam are about a foot tall brown with a grey stripe above their eyes. And they don't fly so when Coco's were thriving in Guam rancher scattering chickenfeed would often see them Creep in out of the forest. There's wonderful stories of families leaving their doors open to their houses. which is what we do and you would find? A Family Coco in in your house. Just kind of like hanging out in there and maybe foraging in the kitchen or whatever you just have to push them out the door they slugs snails seeds flowers out there getting food they can get it. Aren't we all right and they have what's called a territorial call and it's a very long one minute Data data data data that that that the data in it just goes on and on. Suzanne Medina loves these birds. She came to Guam in nine hundred ninety seven and by that time the forest had grown pretty quiet. The trees had been a native birds weren't around to disperse their seeds in. You mean like disperse them with their poop. That's right poop doesn't and get enough credit. It's important no. It's true and in the absence of these native birds. The spiders they preyed upon totally surged. Suzanne actually carries a stick. Dick as she walks around the forest knockoff spiderweb so the forests are just all out of whack so clearly. The situation is pretty bad. How did Suzanne and her colleagues bring back Sococo well? One of their first allies in his effort. Zoos on the American mainland so in the late nineteen eighties. Zoologist at the Guam Department of Agriculture named Bob Beck championed a major recovery effort. This founding group of twenty-one Coco's that were captured were split up. Some were sent to zoos zoos including the Smithsonian Zoo here in DC that was Guam's insurance population like a bird savings account shirk. The other birds were kept in Guam to to be the production population so to be bred in captivity and eventually released but there was a big problem. What was that well? The offspring the first generation born in captivity did not want to make babies. There's a lot of aggression issues with them. Some perspective mates would actually fight each other instead. I mean captivity is pretty stressful. It's definitely not a mood setter uh-huh and these biologists did not know what to do. It's not like there's an instruction manual for raising cocoa's the birds went extinct in the wild so quickly that there was nothing known on natural history so a lot of what was done in the early years was just trial and error. Uh