Snout Showcase!

As part of my job as a wildlife specialist I often photograph our animals, whether it be to document some sort of health condition for our vets or to accumulate pictures to use for this blog. I have frequently noticed upon entering exhibits with my camera that the animals become very curious about the strange contraption I am holding near my face. And their most common response? To smell it. And thus I have found myself with a respectable collection of native Ohio nose shots. While I was sorting through some of the photos I decided to write a blog entry showcasing the snouts of a few of the animals that live at the museum.

I will begin with the red fox. As a member of the Canidae family, the fox’s sense of smell is outstanding. When he inhales, scented particles are drawn into the mucous-filled nasal cavity where they are analyzed by sensory cells. The air is then forced out the nares on the sides of the nose so it does not interfere with the new incoming smells. Accordingly, when Huxley is done sniffing my camera he can catch a whiff of his lunch of rats and fish without wasting a breath.

Turkey vultures also have a great sense of smell, which is rather unusual for birds. Their beaks have large nasal cavities lacking a septum to divide the nostrils. They predominantly feed upon carrion, and their acute sense of smell allows them to detect mercaptan, one of the gases emitted during the decay of dead animals. They prefer the meat to be freshly deceased and only just beginning to release the chemical. Mmm, mercaptan, nothing whets the appetite quite like it.

The box turtle has small nostrils, but its sense of smell is still quite keen. Box turtles use it primarily to find food such as snails, worms, roots, eggs, berries, and fish. Like the turkey vulture, the box turtle has been known to track down and eat road kill! Luckily for both species, they have bald heads and beaks which are easy to keep clean and the pesky buildup of carcass guts stays at a minimum.

The white-tailed deer is another animal with powerful olfactory capabilities. In addition to using its nose to find food, the deer depends on it to detect predators from great distances. The deer will lick its nose to keep it moist, aiding the hundreds of thousands of sensors inside with scent processing. Deer also use scent as an important method of communication and to establish social hierarchy within a herd. You have to have a pretty good sniffer to determine the sex, age, and breeding condition of another deer based on the urine scent mixed with tarsal gland odor it left behind on the ground.

The final snout I will showcase is that of the opossum. While the opossum nose also has an ample capacity for sniffing, it is extremely long for another reason. Opossums have more teeth than any other land mammal. And with a mouth full of fifty choppers, a magnificent muzzle is a necessity!

Michelle Leighty, CMNH Wildlife Specialist

Falcons in the City

Last week along with our many human visitors, we were lucky enough to have three wild peregrine falcons visit Perkins Wildlife Center! These “neighborhood” falcons were drawn to their captive counterparts Lou and Jean, a retired breeding pair from South Dakota living in our Peregrine Falcon Exhibit. Peregrines are best known for their astonishing flight speed. These swift raptors tuck in their wings in order to reduce drag and further improve velocity (see photos). It is commonly said that peregrines may exceed 200 mph during their downward stoop (a.k.a. dive-bomb)! As a species, the peregrine falcon is considered Threatened in the state of Ohio. Our city buildings have allowed for a steady rise in population thanks to numerous window-ledge nesting sites. The next time you’re at Perkins Wildlife Center getting an up close and personal look at Lou and Jean, don’t forget to also keep your eyes in the sky! For more information about local peregrine falcons, visit www.falconcam-cmnh.org.

Marty Calabrese, CMNH Wildlife Specialist

Photos by Chad and Chris Saladin

Remembering Harry

Harry was a Red-tailed Hawk. He came to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in 1977 with a permanently injured wing. Though he had only limited ability to fly, he was adept at hopping from perch to perch in the cages of the Perkins Wildlife Center. He was a fixture on display and millions of visitors over the years enjoyed him sitting regally on a high perch in the Woods Garden. They learned about the ever adaptable Red-tailed Hawk and how it has become one of the most common and widely distributed raptor species in North America.

Harry's career came to an end last week. He settled down for morning feeding and was found dead an hour later. A necropsy revealed he had sustained a heart attack with liver and kidney complications. He did not appear to suffer.

Harry's remarkable life spanned over three decades. He had been at the Museum for 31 years and he was an adult when accessioned in 1977. So he was at least 33 years old! Remember most Red-tailed hawks are lucky to live ten years in the wild. And remember only 25% reach their first birthday.

And finally remember Harry, one remarkable Red-tailed Hawk!

Harvey Webster
Director of Wildlife Resources

CREATURE FEATURE: Mac

The Ralph Perkins II Wildlife Center & Woods Garden celebrates Ohio’s native animals and plants. This 2.2-acre outdoor gallery adjoins the museum via a glass-enclosed exhibit space off of Kirtland Hall. Be sure to take a close look at the Vernal Pool (seasonal pond) teeming with amphibian and invertebrate life. The collection of live-animal ambassadors however does not end there! Within the Museum’s labyrinth of basement hallways there exists the Wildlife Resource Center, aka “Animal Room.” Among the many mammals, herptiles, and even birds in the Animal Room is Mac the spotted salamander, whose name is derived from the second part of its scientific name, Ambystoma maculatum.

Why do we have a spotted salamander? A legislative bill in November of 2007 designated the spotted salamander as the official state amphibian of Ohio. This celebrity is lost on spotted salamanders. They are seldom seen because of their secretive and nocturnal lifestyle, spending most of their time underground and out of sight. However they put their fossorial mode of life on hold come spring-time when they migrate in large numbers to ephemeral breeding ponds (vernal pools). Those intrepid explorers who venture out into the rain on the first mild night after the ice has thawed can often-times be rewarded with the sight of hundreds of migrating spotted salamanders.

The Amphibia class is represented in Ohio by roughly 15 species of frogs and toads and 25 species of salamanders! They represent an ancient and diverse line of organisms. However for all their evolutionary success and longevity, there are serious concerns about their future. A worldwide decline in the numbers of amphibians has resulted in more than one third of amphibian species classified as threatened or endangered. Threats such as habitat destruction, invasive species, disease, and global climate change are to blame. This biodiversity crisis and increased rate of extinction is unfortunately the result of human activities. For more information on amphibian decline and what you can do to help mediate this biodiversity crisis, please visit the Museum’s "Toad-ily Frogs" exhibit through November 30, 2008.

When does Mac meet the public? Mac meets the public during our fun and educational science and nature programs; please visit http://www.cmnh.org/site/ClassesAndPrograms.aspx for a Class & Program overview. Our educators are experts at bringing science to all ages, from preschoolers to adults, and they work closely with Museum researchers to bring you the most current information available.

Marty Calabrese, CMNH Wildlife Specialist

Animal Olympians

After four years of anticipation, the XXIX Summer Olympics have come and gone. Many people tune in to follow the elite athletes do what they do best. These events make me realize the incredible things the human body is capable of with discipline and lots of training. However, it also makes me think about how despite all the talent in the world, we will never attain the talents seen in the natural world.

Part of our responsibilities as wildlife specialists, and a particular pleasure of mine, is doing live animal programs utilizing our collection of exhibit animals and small mammals and reptiles not seen on exhibit. Along with educating the public about the wildlife in their backyards, I like to showcase something extraordinary about each animal I talk about. One of the things I do is come up with a catchy theme that links all of the animals in my program to keep me on task and to elicit a take home message.

How absolutely perfect! I can talk about the physical abilities of Ohio’s wildlife and call them the Animal Olympians. With only natural ability, animals can achieve amazing feats, feats that man can only achieve with artificial means. Visitors can get up close and personal with the Michael Phelps of the animal world, also known as the North American River Otter, bobcats-the high jump champions, peregrine falcons-the speed champions, reaching over 200 miles per hour, striped skunks-marksmanship, and even Virginia opossums for their gymnastic ability (kinda)!

As the Olympics come to an end, as do our daily programs. However we will still be doing shows Saturdays and Sundays at 1:00 and 3:00. As always these programs are free with paid admission and are sure to be a worthy experience for the young and the young at heart, so be sure to check us out.

Robyn Kaltenbach, Senior Wildlife Specialist

The Dog Days of Summer

With the Dog Days of Summer upon us I would like to introduce you to a very special member of the dog family here at the Perkins Wildlife Center - Huxley, a five year old red fox. Huxley came to live at Perkins in the summer of 2007. He is a special animal at Perkins for me in that I have had the pleasure of training him. I think we have a very good working relationship that is hopefully very rewarding for both of us (I know it is for me). The training technique that we use here at the museum is one of positive reinforcement. That means we never punish our animals but rather try to reward them at the very moment when they are doing what we want. The animal then associates the behavior we are trying to elicit with a reward. Since Huxley is a very food oriented animal, he LOVES food rewards for reinforcement. For Huxley a nice piece of fish, ground meatball or juicy mouse always seems to do the trick. YUM!!

So far the behaviors that Huxley has learned are come upon request, station and kennel. Huxley knows to come when I call his name and touch his nose to my finger. He also understands what "station" means. A station is a fixed point in an exhibit where an animal knows to go when asked. Huxley’s station is a log in his exhibit and the completed behavior is for him to stand up on the log with all four feet and wait. The last behavior that I am working on with him is to get him to voluntarily go into a kennel. We are very close to achieving this, but we are still working on it. Training helps build a relationship between animal and keeper and also serves to enrich our animals.

When Huxley first came to Perkins he was extremely leery of people (just what you would expect from a wild fox). It took a long time and lots of reassuring for Huxley to venture out from the back of his exhibit. Countless times visitors would walk right by his exhibit thinking it was empty. But with the help of our dedicated staff, Huxley is now a hit with visitors young and old. So please stop by and say hello to one of my favorite Dogs of Summer!

And speaking of the Dog Days of summer, join the Museum staff on Saturday August 23rd and Sunday August 24th for the 10th Annual Dog Days Celebration at the Museum where we celebrate all things canine. There will be service dogs, rescue dogs, draft dogs, all sorts of dogs throughout the museum's galleries. It is one weekend when the museum goes to the dogs - literally!

Danette Rushboldt
Wildlife Specialist

I have been adopted

It is 5:45 a.m. as my alarm goes off. All I want to do is get some more sleep so I snooze until 6:00. It is another early morning for me as I begin my half awake drive to the Museum. I have made this drive probably 100 times since my senior project in 2005 but never this early. This is because I am no longer a volunteer…I’ve been adopted.
I had the honor of being the Adopt-A-Student in the Wildlife Resource Center over the summer; eight weeks of paid work, which was something new to me. I was part of the staff now, with a blue shirt, jingling keys and a 7:00 a.m. start time. Over the course of my project I helped Robyn with research on our three eastern screech owls, two of which have liver failure and a third who is showing early signs of the problem. It was a very rewarding experience because I learned a lot about bird anatomy, the functions of the medications we use and of course all of the medical names for different kinds of diseases and problems. There were a lot of highs and lows, one being the need to grind up mice and quail and then shipping them to Wooster for analysis and also finding out that the liver problem was liver fibrosis, an irreversible disease. I did a lot of literary research and got a nice self guided tour of Lakeview Cemetery while hunting unsuccessfully for owl pellets.
In addition to working on the project I also helped with daily animal care and enrichment. My first times stepping into the bobcat and fox exhibits were very exciting because I did not do any of that as a volunteer. I had a lot more responsibility being a part of the Wildlife team and I enjoyed every second of cleaning, feeding and doing an occasional animal show. It was cool to see the crows fly to me and the eagles bark at me and the turkey attempt to attack me through the fence because they knew who I was. It was such a rewarding experience and I will continue to volunteer until I got back to Ohio State to continue my zoology degree. While very few questions were answered during the course of my project I have confidence that an answer will be discovered as to why our owls have liver failure. It was fun to be a part of research that could change the face of owl husbandry across the state.

Matt Kneitel, CMNH Wildlife Resource Center Adopt-A-Student

Enriching Eagles

As you may or may not know...the Museum was host to its 3rd Annual Animal Enrichment Day in the Perkins Wildlife Gardens. Enriching the animals is a large portion of what we do here as Wildlife Specialists, however every once in a while our animals return the favor and enrich us in return.

George, our 7 year old education Bald Eagle did something that I will not soon forget. As part of my enrichment for him for the day I placed his diet of fish into his empty water dish, set the hose in it and turned the water on. My goal was to fill the bowl, remove the hose then allow George to "fish" for his food. George had other plans. Possibly motivated by his favorite food, George flew to the tub as it was filling. The frozen fish were swirling around the water dish making it very difficult for George to catch them so.....George grabbed onto the hose nozzle with his exceptionally dexterous talons and gripped it hard enough that it turned the water off. I couldn't believe my eyes. WOW!!!

Our animals never cease to amaze me!

Be sure to check out George, he will be appearing on WOIO Channel 19 on Sunday August 10 around 8:30 am as part of the weekly wildlife feature on the 19 Action News.

Danette Rushboldt Wildlife Specialist

Lucy!

Weasel. It is not always a word with the most admirable of connotations. Associations that commonly spring to mind include: misleading, sneaky, devious, and cowardly.

However, these adjectives hardly describe the weasel inhabiting The Perkins Wildlife Center at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Instead, this weasel's attributes include slenderness, short limbs, and tail that is nearly as long as the rest of her body. Our weasel, or member of the Mustelidae family, is a playful female North American river otter named Lucy.

Lucy was born and raised in an otter habitat and rehabilitation center in Pennsylvania, where she was used as an educational program animal for three years. She was retired from programming and came to live at the museum in 2003. Born in the spring of 1998, Lucy is currently ten years of age. Considering that river otters often live for more than twenty years in captivity, Lucy is still a youthful bundle of energy and is easily one of the most popular of our animals amongst museum visitors.

Lucy can be seen daily in her exhibit, where she spends much of her time frolicking in her pond, exploring enrichment items given to her by the staff, and participating in training sessions. Lucy is very motivated with her training which is important for her physical and mental health. For example, if Lucy needs to go to the vet she is trained to go into a kennel, and the staff preserves this behavior by working with her several times per week. The frequent training also keeps her mentally stimulated and maintains her good relationship with her caregivers.

Enrichment is key to Lucy's vivacious demeanor. Every day the staff gives her various environmental enrichments, which encourage physical activity and stimulate natural behaviors.

Lucy is extremely high-spirited and energetic, and upon observing her play for a few minutes it is easy to understand why a group of otters is called a "romp."

On Saturday, August 2, the Wildlife Resources staff will be holding its Enrichment Day from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. Museum visitors can see Lucy, along with the other animals living in The Perkins Wildlife Center. There will be training and enrichment demonstrations along with a number of hands-on activities. Come see our merry little otter, who of course is not entirely without her mischievous, weasel-like moments!

Michelle Leighty, wildlife specialist

Animal Camp 2008

What an exciting week we had at the Wildlife Resource Center! Friday marked the end of the second annual Animal Camp, run in conjunction with the Gathering Place. Budding animal specialists got to get their hands dirty, literally, caring for and learning about the animals in our collection.

They prepared diets, cleaned enclosures and even provided enrichment for their assigned animals! At the end of the week, parents and loved ones came to listen as the campers gave presentations with their animals, showing off their new knowledge.


Just like last year, the staff and animals really enjoyed working with the Gathering Place kids and we look forward to next year!


Jenny Wilson
Wildlife Specialist

"A doe, a deer, a female deer"

One of the most popular destinations of the Perkins Wildlife Center is the white-tailed deer/wild turkey exhibit. In this naturalistic setting, complete with a waterfall, visitors can get up close and personal with Ohio’s most recognizable wildlife.

A year ago, we were excited to introduce two youngsters to Baby, an adult female, or doe. Although this energetic duo was full of adolescent antics, Baby got along well with them and was quick to show them the ropes. The trio is doing remarkably well, each with their own individual personalities and physical attributes.

Now six years old, Baby displays a rare, but not unheard of condition seen in many species of deer. You see, if you look at Baby, you might assume she is a buck, or male…Baby is sporting antlers, typically only seen in males.

Just like her male counterparts, Baby will grow antlers in the spring and shed them in the winter months following the breeding season, or rut. We anticipate her antlers to get larger each year, so be sure to stop by and see how they have changed from year to year. Despite the fact that one of her antlers is misshapen, they pose no harm to Baby or the other does, as she is a perfectly healthy girl.

Although a species most Ohioans have encountered in their backyard or along the roadside, it has not always been the case; the plight of white-tailed deer in Ohio is one of a number of endangered species success stories. Current estimates place the white-tailed deer population in Ohio around three quarters of a million; however, by the early 1900’s white-tailed deer were extirpated from our state. That means, one hundred years ago, there were no deer in Ohio, hard to imagine. Like all of the animals that call the museum home, Baby, Artemis, and Ginny could not survive in the wild. For some, disease or injury has rendered them non-releasable. The “girls” (as I like to call them) were all orphaned at very young ages and hand-raised, therefore, too dependent on humans to survive in the wild.

So the next time you are at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, be sure to stop by and see Baby, Artemis, and Ginny, three fabulous does.

Robyn Kaltenbach, Senior Wildlife Specialist

Celebrating the 4th of July the wildlife way!

One aspect of a wildlife specialist's job that most people do not realize upon first learning of our career is that animals don't take holidays and therefore wildlife specialists don't always take them either! We take turns celebrating our holidays with all of the critters at the museum because animals need care 365 days a year... You can't take a holiday from eating so someone has to be there to feed them. However, you won't hear complaints from me or any of my fellow coworkers about working holidays because they are very different from our usual day to day work and can be pretty interesting for all involved.

For starters we work a shortened day so we do actually get to spend most of the holiday with the humans in our lives, but for about 4 hours out of that day we are at the museum making sure all of the animals are healthy and well fed. We will, however, change up the feeding habits of some of our animals. For example, since the museum is closed many of our carnivores and omnivores will get an extra special treat in the form of a rabbit. We do this when the museum is closed because it can sometimes be a rather gruesome feeding to watch, but that is the food chain and the way life goes. We never feed live rabbits or any other live food, however, because live food can fight back and potentially hurt some of our animals so everything we feed is dead.

This 4th of July our bobcats and our red fox all received rabbits and showed their excitement over this great enrichment in a couple different ways. Huxley, our red fox, took his rabbit and ran around with it for a few minutes until the wildlife specialists left so he could cache it and come back for it later. This is a behavior red foxes exhibit in the wild when they find a large amount of food and they want to save some for later. They find a good hiding spot, dig a hole, and bury their large prey until they can come back later and finish eating it. Bob, our male bobcat, immediately started chowing down on his rabbit, but Bitty, our female bobcat showed her true natural instincts. She would hunker down and stalk her rabbit and then she'd pounce on it and throw it up in the air like she was catching live prey! This "game" of hers continued on for a few minutes before she finally gave in to hunger and started chowing down like Bob. Her attack on the rabbit though is an example of great enrichment. It keeps her mentally stimulated and keeps those natural instincts sharp and intact. This attack also illustrates what we tell people every day... bobcats do not make good pets!

Feeding out the rabbits is probably the highlight of my 4th of July, but we also make sure all of our other animals are healthy, well fed, have fresh water, and are enriched. One type of animal we definitely cannot forget on this all important holiday is our nation's bird... the bald eagle. Our two eagles on exhibit, Saturn and Venus, were hand fed their diets of fish and rats while our education bald eagle, George, had his food put in a plastic ball with holes stuffed with newspaper and in the center of hula hoops so he really had to work to get his food out. These birds have a higher intelligence level than some of the other birds of prey found at the museum, so we make sure to enrich them a little more often than the others and especially on our nation's birthday for which they serve as a great, patriotic symbol.

So while we wildlife specialists may not spend our 4th of July in the usual way that most people do, we still have a great day even though we are working. Fireworks pale in comparison to hand feeding a real live bald eagle on this special day. We get to leave knowing that the animals we care for were well fed and enriched and we leave pretty enriched ourselves after watching them benefit from all of our hard work.

Nikki McClellan, Wildlife Specialist

Summer Has Arrived

The summer wildflowers have sprung and so has the curiosity of our furry and feathered friends around the Perkins Wildlife Center. The deer are lively, the crows are chanting, and Spaulding’s inquisitive nature is simply amplified by the warm summer days. Who is Spaulding? He is our six year old male gray fox. The gray fox is one of the two fox species found in Ohio and one of five in North America. One husbandry practice I implement daily as a wildlife specialist is to provide mental and physical stimulation for Spaulding and all of the other animals I care for. This is referred to as enrichment, that is, providing the resources to stimulate our animals mentally and physically, to promote their natural behaviors and abilities, and to enhance their physical health and well-being. For Spaulding’s enrichment today I dripped a bit of eucalyptus scent on a Frisbee in hopes to stimulate his keen olfactory system. Spaulding eagerly climbed down from his tree (a skill rarely mastered with Canids, members of the dog family), and immediately investigated the foreign scent. Another enrichment success!

Marty Calabrese, CMNH Wildlife Specialist

Bobcat Day!

Today is a very exciting day as we prepare to move our Bobcats into their new quarters in the Perkins Wildlife Center.

It all came down to verticality. Verticality you ask? Yes, verticality.

The existing open-topped bobcat enclosure just wouldn’t do. The lack of climbing places constrained the expression of normal bobcat behavior in the vertical dimension.

You see, bobcats, Felis rufus, are renowned for their ability to leap, jump and climb trees. Our goal in the Perkins Wildlife Center is to create environments that allow the animals to express their innate talents, adaptations and behaviors.

When the Perkins Wildlife Center was renovated in 2000-2003 there simply were not enough resources available to consider putting a top on the Bobcat enclosure. So the exhibit was designed with a standard 8’ tall chain link fence perimeter.

To prevent the bobcats in the exhibit from climbing out, strands of hot wire, wires that carry a harmless but attention getting shock, were strung along the top of the fence. However, the height of the perimeter fence limited the height of trees and shrubs in the exhibit and thus climbing opportunities for the bobcats were limited. The enclosure suffered from a lack of verticality.

In 2005, the bobcats were moved to the Open Country Raptor enclosure. It was covered, more secure and provided some height for climbing. However it was not ideal.

So we drafted a plan for retrofitting the original bobcat cage with a vaulted top that would provide space for the bobcats to climb, jump and explore.

And this past year, Trustee Ann Jones provided the support needed to construct the new cage enhancements. Construction commenced in late 2007.

Construction was not easy or straightforward. Gaining access to this site was problematic. Digging post holes for telephone poles had to be done by hand to avoid hitting underground utilities. The perimeter fence of the Perkins Wildlife Center had to be breached so that a mechanical ‘bobcat’ could be used to bring in trees and shrubs, poles and fencing, rock and soil. Again, most of the work had to be done by hand. Robert Stovicek & Associates handled the construction with seeming ease as they erected the new perimeter poles and the central masts.

The style of construction is in keeping with the other enclosures in the Perkins Wildlife Center. Other enhancements to the exhibit are new off-exhibit holding cages and improved landscaping. Installation of aquatic vegetation in the exhibit pool is slated for this summer.

Visitors to the Perkins Center now see an enclosure with 20’ high poles supporting the vaulted wire roof. With more than 1000 square feet of floor space and a 20 foot high top, well you do the math. They will have lots of real estate to romp, jump, run, leap, climb and, well, be bobcats.

So now that the construction is complete, today is the day when the bobcats will see their new home. Ann Jones will help with the introduction of the cats into the new cage after a ceremony in the Perkins Wildlife Center at 1:30 pm.

And when Sierra and Sage (aka. Bad Bob and Bitty Kitty) step into their new home, they will be living in one of the finest bobcat enclosures in the Midwest.

And boy what verticality!

Special Thanks to Anne Jones for her generosity in making the improvement possible!

Welcome

Welcome to the new CMNH Wildlife Blog! On these pages you will be able to read about what’s happening in the Perkins Wildlife Center and the Wildlife Resource Center. The entries will be authored by our own talented staff of Wildlife Specialists. Their reports will provide insights into the exciting and changing activities here. From our newest acquisitions to the methods we use to train our river otters, you will be able to learn about it here. So do something wild. Bookmark this page and check often for wildlife updates, facts, advice and fun!