"It’s important that zoos work with conservation organizations and local populations to preserve what’s in the wild."
- Brian Keating
(This story originally appeared in the February 2004 issue of Wildlife Conservation Magazine)
Bringing Africa's
rainforests and savanahs to Alberta
By
John Geary
Beads
of sweat sprout on your face in response to the humidity. The sound of water
tumbling down a rock face into a pool full of fish draws your attention. As you
stop to look more closely, the raucous calls of wild birds echo around you. Just
past the waterfall sits Warden Post No. 8. Continuing on, you cross a footbridge
enveloped by steamy jungle mist.
You
could be hiking through an African rain forest, but you’re actually entering
one of the two new pavilions in the Calgary Zoo’s Destination Africa. Opened a
year ago, the exhibit allows the visitor to experience two African ecosystems:
the wet, lush rain forests of the Congo Basin and the dry savannas typical of
East Africa. Costing $31.5 million (Canadian), Destination Africa is part of a
bigger, long-range plan to create geographic zones for all the zoo’s wildlife.
The
zoo decided to focus its resources on its African facilities largely because of
a very successful gorilla-breeding program. For eight years, the zoo’s western
lowland gorillas annually produced a youngster, necessitating the construction
of a new indoor enclosure four times bigger than the old one.
“We had a baby boom going on, and we felt it was our
duty to get them into a more appropriate enclosure,” says Brian Keating, head
of the zoo’s Conservation Outreach program. “We haven’t had any [gorillas]
born in the past two years, but we expect to have pregnant females again, in the
new enclosure.”
Dwarf crocodiles, dik diks, and ring-tailed lemurs also call the 31,000-square-foot building home, as do several species of birds, including turacos, hammerkops, and hornbills.
Outside the rain forest, visitors cross a plaza to enter the African Savannah, with warthogs, white-backed vultures, reticulated giraffes, and North America’s largest indoor hippo immersion habitat. Through the picture-window walls of an 80,000-gallon pool, you can watch hippos swim under water alongside tilapia and cichlids. These fish help keep the water clean by consuming much of the hippo waste.
“When people viewed the hippos in the old enclosure, they spent maybe thirty seconds watching, then moved on, unless the hippos were doing something,” says Keating. “Most of what hippos do, they do underwater. We made it like an aquarium so people could get a better picture of what a hippo looks like, how it behaves.”
The hippos represent a conservation partnership success story. The Calgary Zoo helped fund the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary, the first community-owned and managed large mammal sanctuary in Ghana, home to one of two remaining hippo populations in that West African country.
“It’s important that zoos work with conservation
organizations and local populations to preserve what’s in the wild,” says
Keating. “Most of the planet’s environmental hotspots are in places where
there is a lot of ‘people pressure’ on the periphery. If we don’t figure
out a way to make those hotspots pay off economically for the locals, we can
probably kiss them good-bye. People won’t keep a forest because it looks
pretty, they’ll keep it because it’s going to benefit them in some way.”
The African Savannah pavilion has a removable wall, essentially an airplane hangar door, and during warm weather, it is opened to provide visitors with a view of hippos in the foreground framed by ostriches, zebras, and giraffes outdoors. The new buildings are equipped with high-tech and low-tech elements—audio stations, plasma screens, and touchable signs—to inform visitors about African flora and fauna.
The zoo organizes sleepovers for the public, with indoor campfire entertainment, an evening snack, and breakfast. Participants can choose to bunk down overlooking the hippos and giraffes or wake up with gorillas.
Giving visitors this type of stay-at-home exotic experience pays off for long-term conservation. “The most critical thing a zoo can do is get people excited about the natural world,” says Keating. “Most people will never see creatures like gorillas in the wild, but it’s really important to educate people, help them understand the animals’ plight, so we can make better environmental decisions.”
(Photos © John Geary, 2006)
IF YOU GO:
Calgary Zoo, Botantical Garden & Prehistoric Park
1300 Zoo Road NE
Calgary, AB, Canada
T2E 7V6
1-800-588-9993
Hours: Daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission fees: adults (1-64), $15; seniors over 65, $13; youth, (13-17, $9; children (3-12), $6.50; under 3, free.
