Virginia Zoo animals taking cues from the birds and the bees

NORFOLK

Zola could be pregnant with more lion cubs.

Keana and Imara may each be carrying baby giraffes.

And if there are no Bongo babies soon, it’s not due to any lack of effort.

Love is definitely in the air at the Virginia Zoo.

“This spring, it seems everyone’s breeding or having babies,” zoo director Greg Bockheim said.

Since the zoo expanded in 2002 with the opening of the Africa exhibit, there’s been more emphasis on breeding. Zoo officials have brought in new animals with gender, and ah-hem sex, in mind.

Their efforts are starting to pay off now that mating pairs are reaching reproductive maturity.

Not all zoo couplings are planned, though. Arnold, a Guinea hog, broke through a wooden fence to get to Penny, another Guinea hog, a few months back. The barnyard has added seven new snorting residents.

Nationally, 95 percent of zoo animals were born in zoos, according to the Maryland-based Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The organization runs a rigorous accreditation program which the Virginia Zoo is part of.

The AZA serves as an animal matchmaker, controlling which species breed and when.

“We want to develop a healthy, genetically diverse and, as much as possible, a self-sustaining zoo population,” AZA spokesman Steve Feldman said.

The group maintains what are known as studbooks, which document the lineage of all AZA accredited zoo animals to prevent inbreeding. The AZA authorizes love matches based on genetics as well as on population trends and available space.

It also places animal offspring with other zoos that are in need of a certain species or a genetic mate.

The AZA recently sent a male bongo, Thunder, to Norfolk to mate with the zoo’s three females, Essi, Betty and Juni. And as soon as a genetic match for Yin, the zoo’s female red panda, is either located or born, the AZA will send him along as well.

“We don’t breed just for cute little babies on the grounds. We breed to fill a need,” Louise Hill, the zoo’s general curator, said.

For instance, there’s an ample supply of mandrills in zoos so the Virginia Zoo’s playful duo have been surgically fixed.

“Conservation is always the number one reason we do anything here,” Hill said. “We want to sustain a species without pulling from the wild.”

“But who can’t resist a baby anything? That’s a bonus,” she said.

There are squeals of delight from visitors to the zoo’s prairie dog area when the babies exchange kisses with their parents. And excited chatter breaks out at the squirrel monkey exhibit when two baby monkeys are spotted clutching their mothers’ backs for wild rides while swinging from branch to branch.

More fun is in store for when the female Goeldi’s monkey delivers soon. Zoos will be lining up for that baby.

The Goeldi’s species has had marginal success with breeding in captivity because most paired monkeys have not been compatible, Hill said.

The more threatened the species, such as lions, elephants, red pandas and rhinoceroses, the more rigorous the standards for breeding.

Offspring from the zoo’s young lion pair, Zola and Mramba, are highly prized because of lions’ declining numbers and the couple’s valuable genetic match. Granby and Neka, cubs from their first litter, were born last August and will likely be shipped to other zoos by next year.

Depending on the species of animal, zoos are lucky if they get to keep babies for two years. Their departures are generally harder on zoo staff and visitors than the animals, for which separation is a part of life, Hill said.

The AZA recently recommended breeding the lions again – which means now that mom is no longer nursing, there’s no need for birth control or for keeping the pair apart.

“As soon as we put them back together after the cubs were born, he was hopping on her,” keeper Denise Luckey said.

Birth control for zoo animals can include hormonal implants, separation and sterilization.

The lions have been especially frisky in front of large crowds, like the time when about 40 cub scouts visited and Luckey was trying to demonstrate enrichment activities used to keep the animals fit and stimulated.

While adults snickered, Luckey remarked, “This is not the enrichment activity we had planned.”

When children question the goings-on, communications director Anne Vogt said, “I just say we’re hoping for more lion cubs.” Zoo staff often overhear parents tell their children that the animals are fighting or playing. Sometimes the explanation is not so simple.

Consider the mating ritual of giraffes. To test a female’s fertility, the male sips her urine and swishes it around like mouthwash. Billy, the zoo’s male giraffe, engaged in this activity known as flehmening on a recent afternoon.

“He’s drinking pee,” 5-year-old Caleb Peele shouted.

Caleb’s mom, Emily Peele, had little reaction.

“I don’t get excited because if I say or do something then he’d be, what’s up with that?” Peele said. “It’s all part of learning. “It’s natural; it’s part of what animals do.”

The zoo’s giraffes, Billy, Imara and Keana, recently hit sexual maturity and were approved for mating. Keepers have witnessed the pursuit, but also the drama. Keana is sweet on Billy, but Billy prefers Imara, who tends to play hard to get.

“There’s little courtship,” keeper Dennis McNamara said. “It takes a few seconds. In the blink of an eye it’s done.”

Across the compound in the lion’s den, Zola’s a bit more enthusiastic. “When she’s in season, she gets really lovey and rolls around and moans,” Luckey said.

Bockheim said that when babies are born at the zoo, “We know we’re doing our job well and right – keeping them happy and healthy enough that they do reproduce.”

When the zoo breaks ground later this month on an $18.5 million Asian-animal expansion, Trail of the Tiger, one goal will be to bring in a second tiger species, perhaps Sumatran tigers, and orangutans that can be bred. The zoo’s Siberian tigers are both female.

For now, staff and visitors eagerly await signs of more swelling bellies.

Because giraffes are pregnant for 15 months, it won’t be clear if either is knocked up for some time. Expectant giraffes do show, unlike some lions.

Zola, for example, showed no signs of pregnancy before her first cubs were born last summer.

She could always deliver another surprise.

Debbie Messina, (757) 446-2588, debbie.messina@pilotonline.com