Field Trip: Woodland Park Zoo

Josselin Chambily

Field Trip

Woodland Park Zoo

General Details:

        On the Sunday 25th of February, I went to the Woodland Park Zoo from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. I got there thanks to a friend that carpooled me but we were accompanied by Gwen in the Zoo. With her, we focused on the Nothern Trail and Australasia part of the zoo but I also visited all the other parts by myself later in the day. The weather was kind of bad: it was really cold and cloudy. I was personally worried because this cold weather could have affected the behavior of the animals, making them sleeping more than usual for example. Even if I also went snowshoeing earlier in the quarter, I chose to write about the Zoo field trip. I went to both of this event because I love watching animals (I could watch otters swimming the whole day), tracking them but most importantly understanding their behavior. 

Animals of the Nothern Trial:

River Otter

Figure 1: A river otter playing peek a boo with the visitors

       The two otter species look very alike, they have the same body form which is having a small head, tail and a smooth body adapted to swimming in water. Both river otters and asian small-clawed otters have dark brown fur color and sensitive whiskers for muddy waters. In terms of their living environment it is pretty similar as well, both species live near water streams, lakes, or ponds. 
However, there is still some slight differences between their two habitats. Asian small-clawed otters prefer habitat that have dense vegetation while river otters do not have that high of a vegetation demand. In terms of some detail characteristics, the two otters have different legs and hands. River otters have fully webbed legs which allows them to swim better, while asian small-clawed otters have nimble fingers for the to grasp food better. This affects some of their behaviour as well, with nimble fingers asian small-clawed otters catch food with their hands while river otters catch food with their mouth. Moreover, asian small-clawed otters are smaller in weight or size which they weigh about 11 pounds, compared to river otters, weighing about 35 pounds. Lastly, asian small-clawed otters eat crabs, snails, fish and frogs, while river otters include mainly fish in their diet. 

- How do otters make their fur waterproof?

Gray Wolf 

Figure 2: A resting Gray Wolf

        The most interesting thing in the Gray Wolf exhibit was the fact that some piece of bones and meat were hidden in different ''secret'' places in their encolsure by the staff members. Therefore, wolves were looking for them and it was funny to watch them trying to find them. I learnt that wolves don't know how to howl when tey are born. They need to spends many months, if it's not years, to learn how to use their vocal chords. It must be so cute to see small wolves trying to howl. On their skull, I would expect to find extremely huge canines as they are predators, and they will use them to kill their preys and tear appart raw meat. Then, we would also find a prohiminent sagital crest, because they need a lot of strentgh in their jaws to hunt and kill like they do. Finally, we would also find really complex turbinates in their noses knowing that they rely a lot on their sense of smelling to hunt and track their preys. We were lucky enough to see few of them! Some were resting (like in the picture), others were trying to find the hidden bones that I talked about at the beginning of the paragraph while the last ones were teasing each other. We can contrast these gray wolves with any kind of domestic dogs, but we can really contrast them with Chihuahuas. While they both have the characteristics of feline; long canines, complex turbinates and good hearing, they are the opposite of each others. Gray Wolves are really powerfull with their important muscle mass and so resistant  that they represent the definition of ''Wildness'' itself whereas Chihuahuas are one of the weakest canines and would die in less than few days in the nature. Gray wolves howl for different reasons but it's mostly to reinforce relationships inside their pack, to find each others and to warn strangers to keep their distance. A single wolf will eat four to seven pounds of meat everyday. Scientists found that wolves are succesfull at moose hunting once every 16 times they actually try. 

- How do Gray Wolves hunt? How many wolves are in a group when they try to hunt big preys like Mooses?

Porcupine

Figure 3: Porcupine waiting to be fed at the back of its enclosure (he's next to the tree on the left).

        The most interesting thing at the porcupine exhibit is the fact that its enclosure was no smelling bad at all while Gwen and the Zoo signs were saying that Porcupines usually release  a foul smell all around the enclosure. I learnt that procupine spend much of their time in trees to protect themselves from predators. Just by looking at them and their goofy walk, I would never have imagined that they were agile enough to go in trees. If we were looking at porcupine skulls, we would see the main characteristics of a Rodent's skull: extremely huge orange incisives teeths at the front used for gnawing, flat molars inb the back to grind food, complex turbinates for a good sense of smelling and prohiminent auditory bullae as they have a keen sense of hearing. We didn't see the porcupine that much, he was mainly staying next to the door where the zoo staff feed him. It must have been its feeding time when we were at its enclosure. The closest relatives to Porcupines are another type of rodent called Capybara. Indeed they both have these characteristics orange incisives and they are not predators. When we were there, the porcupine enclosure was not stinky at all. However, its enclosure is supposed to be stinky most of the time because it's their way to warn their predators that they have raised their quills and they will not be afraid to use them. We find Porcupines in the dense forest areas but we can also find them in harsher areas like the tundra. They spend most of their time resting in trees during the day while tehy go on the ground at night to eat leaves and roots. When the ground is frozen are plants become scarce, they can eat bark. Porcupines' quills are different than needles because each of their quills are tipped with microscopic barbs that cause the quill to be driven inoto the muscles of predators.

- Are Porcupines able to shoot their quills?

Brown Bear

Figure 4. A Brown Bear sleeping.

        To me, the most interesting thing about the bear exhibit was the fact that the bear sleeping in Figure 4 was really close to us. For sure there was a glass separting us from the bear, but it's kind of impressive to realize that we were really close to such a massive and powerful animal. I learnt that bears were eating a lot of insects and plants. Prior to this visit, I taught that meat was representing something close to 70% of their diet but it is lower than this in reality. For example, one population of bears in the Rockies only eat moths for several weeks at a certain period of the year. If we were looking at a brown bear skull, we would be able to observe a prohiminent sagital crest as they have a lot of power in their jaw. Also, we would see huge canines used to tear appart meat like salmons, and flats molars to grind vegetals. To finish, we would find complex turbinates because bears have a really accurate sense of smelling. We were able to see 2 different bears but they were both sleeping. They must have been in torpor, which is like a hibernation process when you can get woken up. Brown and black bears look pretty similar but their difference go further than their difference of color. Indeed, even if they are both bears, brown bears have a shoulder bump than black ones don't have and they also have 2 to 4 inches long claws while black bear's claws are usually 1.5 inch. Brown bears become rare in the Pacific North West, but we can find a small population in the Selkirk Moutains, in the North-East of the Washington State. To recognize the sex of an adult brown bear, we have to look at its shoulder: While a female would have narrow shoulders with the same width than her head, a male would have massive shoulders way wider than his head. Also, it easy to recognize a male because of ''valley'' down the middle of his forehead due to muscle bulges. Brown bears typically give birth to 2 cubs, and they weight less than one pound each. Brown bears are opportunist animals which means that they eat whatever plants and animals that are available in the seaon. In this way, the are omnivore with a huge part of their diet composed of roots, berries and plants.

- How many salmons brown bears are able to catch every hours when they are fishing? also, how fast can a brown bear can charge a stranger that he considers as a threat?

Great Gray Owl

Figure 5. A Great Gray Owl starring at visitors.

        The most interesting thing about Great Gray Owl is their ability to do almost a 360° turn with their neck. It was really entertaining to watch them looking behind them with their neck totally turned. I learnt that Gray Owls can hunt at night only by referring to their sense of hearing. It is impressive to imagine how accurate their hearing is. Looking at a Great Gray Owl skull, we would observe prohiminent auditory bullaes for their good sense of hearing but not complex nasal turbinates as they don't rely on their smelling that much. Also, we'll see unsymmetrical ear holes. Compared to a Snowy Owl, Great Gray Owls' eyes must be smaller because they hunt at night rather than during the day like Snowy ones. I was able to see one great Gray Owl an she didn't move from its spot during the whole time I stayed in front of its exhibition. the owl was just starring at us and its environment.  We can find Gray Owls in the North-Eastern forest of the Washington State. The Great Gray Owl's characteristic dish-shaped face allows them to hear more accurately, as the sounds are getting directed directly to their ear holes. Their body length is approximatively 2 feet, their wingspan 4 to 5 feet and they weight around 3 pounds. Great Gray Owls have specialized feathers that allow them to fly noiselessly, which is a considerable advantage for hunting.

- How much meat do Great Gray Owl eat everyday?

Compare and Contrast: Brown Bear vs. Sloth Bear

        To begin, both brown bear and sloth bears are truly bears. It can't seem dumb to say it, but sloth bear were believed to not be part of the bear family. They look kind of alike, with a massive appearance, bulky legs and long claws, which are ancestral traits shared by both species. However, we can notice than brown bears are heavier and bigger than sloth bears, with a size of 3 meters for 250 kilos for brown bears against 2 meters of body size and 150 kilos for sloth ones. Then, both species are not found on the same part of the planet: sloth bear are mainly found in the Indian subcontinent while brown bears is the most widely distributed bear specie in the world: they are found in Nother America, a part of Asia and also Europe. These two species become even more different on a morphological plan. Indeed, sloth bears have a long and shaggy black fur that form a mane around their face whereas brown bears display a light to darker brown fur all around the body. Also, while brown bears are omnivorous, sloth bear are considered as insectivorous. Their diet focus on insects like ants thanks to their long, rubbery lips and palate instead of plants and fish for brown bears. In top of that, sloth bears miss the brown bears' upper jaw incisors teeth, in order to be able to suck ants more efficiently (this is an example of a derived trait acquired throught a convergent evolution with other insect-eating mammals).

Reflection:

        This field trip was a excellent way to observe on the field the theory we learn in class. Personally, I really feel that the skull lab helped me to understand animals in a better way. Indeed, if you are able to analyse the skull of an animals, then you will easily understand its behavior and when you observe an animal's behavior at the zoo, you are then able to predict the look of their skull. Therefore, the skull lab really helped me to give explanation to what I was observing the zoo. In a certain way, it made me feel like I became a better biologist and scientist in general.
        The visit of the Woodland Park Zoo changed my way to consider the mass-extinction period that we are actually living in. While the material covered in class show us how these animals are the results of million and millions of years of evolution and development, the zoo trip made it possible to really observe them in real life. Therefore, this whole field trip made me realize the importance of protecting endangered species to avoid these years of evolutions to become vain. Also, it made me want to involve myself into animal protection.
        During this trip, the most interesting thing that I learnt was about River Otters: while we were observing them, a zoo staff member was telling us funny facts about otters. Among all of them, I think that I will remember the fact that otters can float on their back and put rocks on their belly in order to be able to smash crabs or clams on the rock. It's impressive how they are smart and how they are able to use tools like humans. Also, he told us that when they take naps floating on their back, they hold the hands of their partners and sleep together without drifiting away, which is one of the cutest thing in the Animal kingdom.