Toronto Sun Behind the scenes: Part 2 - Toronto Zoo

4 NEWS
BEhiNd thE ScENES: Part 2
The Toronto Sun n Monday, april 30, 2012
Techno
PrimaTeS
A wide variety of rare and exotic plants are an important part of the Toronto Zoo.
Zoo’S collecTion of PlanTS
aS valuable aS The animalS
Toronto Zoo teaching Komodos to
hunt and orangutans to use iPads
Photos by
STAN BEHAL
TORONTO SUN
What goes on behind the
scenes at the Toronto Zoo’s
Botanical Gardens has been
described as just as valuable
as the animal collection.
Not only do the zoo’s garden
workers cultivate the
rarest plants on earth, the
fruits of their labour are
used to feed animals.
“We do quite a variety
of work in the greenhouse
taking care of plants. In the
greenhouse, we grow the
plants for all the pavilions so
when you walk into the African
pavilion you are going
to have plants from Africa,”
said Liz Heighington, the
curatorial gardener.
“We select which plants
go where. Some plants may
be fine for one animal and
toxic to another.”
Canada’s largest
The zoo’s collection of
plants is the largest in Canada
and includes many
endangered species —
some are no longer found in
the wild.
The zoo has a Wollemi
pine — a plant thought to
be extinct before it was discovered
in New South Wales
in 1994.
The collection also
includes an alligator pepper
plant from Africa which has
anti-inflammatory properties.
“We had been looking for
one for years,” Heighington
said. “We have plants you
won’t see anywhere else in
Canada.”
There are antifungal
plants for fish tanks and
fruit is grown to feed the
animals.
In a private section of the
African pavilion there is an
umbrella dragon tree. There
are only 14 of the plants
listed in the registry of the
international botanical gardens
list.
“It was on the original
stock list when the zoo
opened in 1974. We may be
able to have others because
there are offshoots,” Herrington
said.
Next year, pandas are
coming to the attraction and
zoo personnel are looking at
ways to grow bamboo.
The greenhouse is also
responsible for the plants
out on the grounds.
“We do the planting and
maintenance and try to
control invasive species,”
Heighington said.
— Kevin connor
The dracaena umbraculifera — an extinct plant in the wild
— makes its home at the Toronto Zoo.
This komodo dragon is being taught to hunt for food using its senses.
KEViN cONNOr
Toronto Sun
Orangutans using iPads to
communicate.
That is one of the cutting-edge
programs in
the Toronto Zoo’s Animal
Enrichment Program.
“Orangutans are highly
intelligent and we are constantly
trying to keep them
mentally stimulated. They
can play games, watch
YouTube. We are teaching
them to touch with their fingers
and not their nails,” said
Nicole Presley, a supervisor
with the Wildlife Care Program.
“Eventually they will be
able to Skype with other
orangutans. This is unique
to our enrichment program.
They are just getting the
hang of touching the screen
and we are getting them
used to the fact that this is a
memory game.”
The public love this new
“Eventually they will be able to Skype
with other orangutans.”
nicole presley
program and get excited
about it.
“The great thing about
this is it connects people to
the orangutans when they
see them using the technology
that they use,” Presley
said.
Taught to hunt
Over at the Komodo
Dragon pavilion, the single
reptile is being taught to
hunt for its food instead of
having meals delivered in a
bowl.
“We want to encourage
natural behaviour from the
wild. We want him to hunt
for his food and use his
senses. It is problem solving
using a scent trail,” Pres-

The Toronto Sun n Monday, april 30, 2012 NEWS 5
Jealous of the
orangutan, a
white-handed
gibbon waits to
get his own iPad.
Wildlife nutritionist Karen Alexander, assistant Lisa Leneevin, and nutritionist Jaap Wensvoort exhibit one day of food
for Samson, the grizzly bear who calls the Toronto Zoo home.
Frozen Mice, rats, rabbits, Monkey
chow, and 60,000 crickets a week
Sumatran orangutan Ramai and daughter Jingga watch
Toronto Zoo visitors watching them.
ley said.
The zoo’s komodo has had
problems with arthritis and
the program is meant to keep
him active.
Sumatran tigers are good
tree climbers and the zoo
wants the public to know that.
“We want him hunting for
food so we put horse meat up
in the trees so he will climb.
When he is climbing he is
using different muscles than
when he is walking,” Presley
said.
“It is great entertainment
for people and hopefully
it will encourage them
to do research and learn how
endangered they are.”
kevin.connor@sunmedia.ca
The Toronto Zoo has the
biggest restaurant in the
world.
Zoo workers serve up
more than 500 different
dishes each day to meet the
nutritional needs of 6,000
animals.
The meals include frozen
rodents — mice, rats, and
rabbits — monkey chow,
canned goods and produce
that can be bought in a grocery
store. The zoo’s grocery
bill is about $1 million
a year.
“Some of our fruits and
vegetables don’t have the
same nutrients as the animals
would get in the wild
so we have to boost that. We
need to put supplements
into some things and things
have to be removed from
others. This isn’t like my personal
shopping list but everything
here is fit for human
consumption,” said nutritionist
Karen Alexander.
“We do a lot of quality
control and things are prepared
to our specifications.
The animals get different
food every day. Nuts, seeds,
grains, fruits and vegetables.
We use colourful
things so the animals don’t
get bored. A lot of animals
are visual eaters.”
Often, the meals are hidden
in the animals’ pens
so they have to forage for it
like their wild cousins.
“They need to have
something to do. A gorilla
walking through the forest
would pick things up looking
for food,” Alexander
said.
Some animals need to
have live food like crickets.
In fact, the zoo goes
through 60,000 crickets in
a week.
One of the most important
staples is “browse” — a
mixture of leaves, twigs,
bark, buds and flowers.
“We have a
machine that can
press the leaves so we
can keep them yearround.
They need to be
pressed so there is no oxygen.
With oxygen they
would rot and decay. We
are the first zoo to do this
and last year we planted
10,000 trees for this. It gets
us through the season,” said
Jaap Wensvoort, the zoo’s
head nutritionist.
Feeding the animals also
demands creativity.
Polar bears are fed
salmon instead of seals and
carnivores feed on horse
meat, which — unlike cow
flesh available on the
market — does not
come with added
hormones.
“We are constantly
making
observations as
to what the animals
need in their
diet. They need
a variety,”
Alexander
said.
The most expensive animal
to feed is a male gorilla
because of the large quantities
and variety he needs
in his daily diet of 15 kg of
fresh food.
Next year, the pandas are
coming to the zoo. They’ll
need a pricey diet of fresh
bamboo which will be
flown into Toronto.
“If we feed them less
than 85% of bamboo, they
will have health problems,”
Wensvoort said.
— Kevin
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