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Our after-hours night shift in the panda nursery has officially come to an end. This is a great milestone for the cubs and for us, as the cubs are doing well enough and Lun Lun is experienced enough that we felt it was the right time to move forward with this step. Lun Lun has … Continue reading "Panda Update – Mon. January 30"

Just the other day, I was stopped by a guest at the Zoo who asked me where our black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) Kobe was located. She said that he was her favorite snake, and seeing him was the whole purpose of her visit that day! Sadly, I had to report to her that the mamba … Continue reading "Keeper Stories – Thursday, January 26"

Zoo Atlanta Board or Directors welcomes five new Atlanta leaders The new members’ terms will see the completion of a transformative expansion The Zoo Atlanta Board of Directors welcomes five new business and civic leaders beginning in January 2017. New members are Paul Brown, CEO of Arby’s Restaurant Group; Pedro Cherry, Senior Vice President, Metro … Continue reading "Zoo Atlanta Board of Directors"

A keeper’s job is never done. There is always a chore to complete or a project to work on. Our daily routine is full of jobs like cleaning habitats, preparing diets, observing our animals, providing enrichment…are you tired yet? In between all of this, we try to find time to develop ourselves professionally. There are … Continue reading "Keeper Stories – Tuesday, January 24"

It’s about time again for a giraffe training update! I believe when we last checked in, all but our oldest, Abu, were shifting through our giraffe “tamer” apparatus. We are very proud to announce that all four of our boys are now confidently walking though the chute system. We have been successful in getting them … Continue reading "Keeper Stories – Thursday, January 19"

Did you survive the snow-pocalypse 2.0? It wasn’t as bad as the first go round, but we still had enough ice that the Zoo was closed. But what actually happens when the Zoo closes down for bad weather like a snowstorm? It is not all that different from a normal day for us keepers. The … Continue reading "Keeper Stories – Tuesday, January 17"

Love is in the air! Yep, even in the winter. Male opossums go through physiological changes during the winter months that we call rut. As hormones surge through their bodies, their minds are focused on one thing, and only one thing. They lose interest in food and spend hours simply wandering around, noses in the … Continue reading "Keeper Stories – Thursday, January 12"

How did the zebra get its stripes?  How did the tiger get its stripes? These are age-old questions in natural history. Convincing arguments have variously put forward suggesting camouflage, to visually confuse and thus deter annoying biting insects, and a complex scenario to create cooling air movements directly around the animal. This latter scenario works … Continue reading "Zebras and tigers oh my!"

CSI at the Zoo! What happened to these animal bones, thousands of years ago? A research team at Emory University is taking advantage of the fact that we feed our animals natural diets. In other words, for example, owls naturally consume rodents as prey, so we feed rodents to our milky eagle owls. Komodo dragons … Continue reading "Rodent Bones"

Hot off the presses! How does one correct a scientific error that was made more than 150 years ago? That’s what our team recently did, in collaboration with researchers from The Natural History Museum, in London, U.K. In 1858, renowned herpetologist Albert Günther, who was born in Germany but spent his career at The Natural … Continue reading "Mesoamerican Toads"