Scientists Roam The Habitat As Zoos Alter Their Mission

With species preservation now becoming at least as important as entertainment, researchers in many fields take up zoo residence "And on your right, enveloped by a cloud of vapor billowing from a just-opened tank that stores eggs, sperm, and embryos at sub-zero temperatures, the scientists in their white lab coats seem to blend into their habitat." This may be what a Cincinnati Zoo tour guide will say this fall as she takes a group of visitors through a unique feature at the zoo--an in vitro fertilization laboratory for exotic animals in the zoo's new, two-floor, $3.5 million research facility. When this lab exhibit opens, visitors, separated from the scientists by a glass wall, will be able to observe researchers who may actually be creating zoo animal zygotes in petri dishes. The microscopes used by the scientists will be hooked up to video monitors, and guests will be able to see how gametes are micromanipulated to foster fertilization. Also on view in the lab will be the frozen zoo. This Noah's Ark of the 21st century is a stainless-steel, liquid nitrogen tank that will keep reproductive and fertilized cells of flora and fauna currently in danger of extinction at below-freezing temperatures in a state of suspended animation. The hope is that frozen embryos could someday routinely be implanted into a suitable captive or wild animal mother and that seeds could be sowed into a friendlier environment of the future. Although most zoo research facilities are not open to the general public, their existence reflects the important role that science and scientists are playing in zoos these days. No longer harsh environments exploiting caged animals merely for human amusement, most zoos are now sanctuaries for the survival of endangered species that utilize sophisticated scientific techniques for that purpose. Zoo science has become a multidisciplinary effort, engaging both in-house and collaborating scientists, whose fields run the gamut from molecular biology to nutrition to fertility. Through the efforts of Betsy Dresser, director of research at the Cincinnati Zoo, and collaborating scientists, for example, various cat and antelope species at the zoo have been born. "This frozen zoo and our 18,000-square-foot research building, where we will eventually have a staff of 25 scientists, is the culmination of my dreams," says Dresser, a reproductive physiologist who now works in a 1,000-square-foot space shared by seven other people. "When I talked about the germ-plasm bank only 10 years ago, my colleagues said it was too science fiction, too high-tech." But it was an idea whose time came. This year Dresser won a $109,000 grant from the Institute of Museum Services in Washington, D.C., to help establish her frozen zoo. Dresser hopes to set up frozen zoos throughout the world. Two others zoos in the country already have frozen zoos--the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and the San Diego Zoo. In the future, says Dresser, transport of animals between zoos and into the wild will be through frozen embryos. In fact, she is currently collaborating with Richard Leakey, director of the Kenyan Wildlife Reserve in Nairobi, where one of the projects will involve taking embryos fertilized in vitro from captive parents and trying to put them into a wild mother. This kind of reintroduction of an animal into the wild before it is born removes some of the obvious problems of returning animals bred in captivity into an environment that doesn't have humans as caretakers, says Dresser. It also infuses some novel genes into species at the brink of survival because too much inbreeding has exposed recessive and deleterious mutations. Dresser, who is also on the faculty of the College of Medicine of the University of Cincinnati, is one of a new breed of scientists who have found their niche working in the approximately 150 zoos in the U.S. accredited by the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums (AAZPA). When Dresser joined the Cincinnati Zoo 10 years ago, zoo curators were changing their mission from recreation to conservation. They began to allocate some of their scarce resources to hiring staff scientists with specialties in animal reproductive physiology, genetics, endocrinology, animal behavior, nutrition, and animal infectious diseases. Before, very few zoos had in-house scientists. The curators realized that, given the diminishing natural world, zoos would have to play a role in replenishing species of wild animals threatened by extinction and would therefore have to develop strategies to propagate their own captive populations of animals. The job of these scientists was to help develop a rational basis for the care and management of endangered species in the zoos and to help reintroduce animals into the wild. "Prior to 10 years ago," says Sandy Andalman, director of the Center for Wildlife Conservation (CWC), located at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, "zoos were somewhat isolated from each other and from research activities at medical, academic, or veterinary institutions." Now, she and others say, there is a whole network of collaboration among the zoos as well as with outside institutions. As zoos redefined their raison d'Ætre, zoo design underwent dramatic transformations that, in turn, changed their image in the larger scientific community. "Instead of housing many different male and female pairs of rare species in concrete cages behind bars, zoos began to re-create naturalized environments where more animals of one species were able to roam freely," says Don Lindburg, editor of the journal Zoo Science and an animal behaviorist who studies cheetahs and primates at the San Diego Zoo. While the older zoos' artificial surroundings and small population size were criticized by academic zoologists and field scientists as invalid for any scientific inquiry, he says, these new zoos have become vital resources for these same scientific groups. Michael Hutchins, the director of conservation and science for AAZPA, corroborates Lindburg's assessment: "Zoo scientists are working with field conservationists and involving them in decisions as to what animals should be let aboard the zoo ark." Dan Wharton, the Bronx Zoo's assistant curator and registrar of animal management services, adds: "Besides serving as sanctuaries for endangered species, these new zoos have been instrumental in developing the scientific principles of small population management that wildlife reserves now use." Cost-Conscious Research But these changes weren't easy. Since zoos often relied on beleaguered city budgets for money, it was hard to justify spending money on animals when the cities were cutting back on basic services for humans. When Betsy Dresser was hired by the Cincinnati Zoo, there was no research budget. So she went to the medical and veterinary community and, instead of asking them for money, found that "a lot of these researchers and doctors were interested in zoos and getting into something out of their mundane routine. They would run samples [from the zoo animals] in their laboratory or they would contribute with their talents, like helping with cryopreservation or implantation surgery....If it wasn't for these people our research wouldn't be as successful as it is today." Bricks and mortar, however, are not the same things as services. Money for her new research facility and for similar enterprises in other zoos usually comes from private fund raising. The Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle recently came up with its own cost-effective strategy to do research. Initially, CWC, an organization dedicated to promoting conservation research and enhancing native wildlife populations in the Pacific Northwest, was part of the zoo. "But it was hard to justify to the city our efforts that extended beyond the physical boundaries of the zoo," says research director Andalman. So various regional zoos, the University of Washington, and some city and state agencies pooled their resources, and now CWC is an independent entity that the different agencies can use. Andalman is in the process of looking for an off-site research facility (see accompanying story). Because CWC focuses on native species, it is unique among the zoos that do research, says Andalman. She feels zoos should concentrate on local species because climatic conditions are more conducive for survival for them than, say, for a tropical animal. Her approach is not very widespread among zoos because they feel that the public wants to see exotic animals. Zoo Research Protocols Cost considerations notwithstanding, zoos are pushing ahead with research programs. In a study conducted in 1986 by T.W. Finlay and T. Maple (Zoo Science, 5:261), 76 percent of the larger zoos surveyed said they wanted to expand their research programs. But AAZPA's Hutchins says that for research to be successful, the zoos need an organizational structure in which to do it. Hutchins created a peer-review research model for zoos at the New York Zoological Society's Bronx Zoo in 1989, before he came to AAZPA. "I wrote a manual to help zoos deal with the many issues raised by doing zoo research that had only been addressed informally before," says Hutchins. "These include a zoo's liability regarding visiting scientists...[because] zoos can be dangerous places to work... general rules and regs for these people working at the zoo, and information on zoo animal tissue requests." Most important, says Hutchins, the manual defines what research is appropriate for zoos. He writes: "In any discussion of the types of research that should be allowed in zoos and aquariums, there arises the inevitable conflict between basic and applied science. Pure or basic science is generally focused on theoretical questions, whereas applied science is intended to solve practical problems in animal management and propagation. The [New York Zoological] Society allows both basic and applied research to be conducted at its zoo and aquarium facilities, but gives highest priority to projects that meet its own institutional requirements and which are likely to have a demonstrable impact on captive and wild animal management and breeding." Computers have also helped zoos modernize and coordinate their research efforts. The 17-year old International Species Information System helps researchers decide what zoo animals should mate. The database, run by Nate Flesness at the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, Minn., keeps an inventory on 112,000 captive animals, covering some 4,200 species. Such pedigree information allows zookeepers to know if a San Diego Zoo tiger is sufficiently unrelated to a San Antonio Zoo tiger so that their offspring would represent an adequate genetic shuffle. Besides helping endangered animals, the new professionalism in zoos is helping them survive. AAZPA's Hutchins hopes to continue to use scientific principles, and not entertainment, as the basis for what zoos do in animal management and breeding. To that end, the 77-year-old association just started a research coordinators committee made up representatives from 30 zoos who have the responsibility of coordinating research in their institutions. Although the group still lacks a chairman, it agreed to establish, for the first time, an award for excellence in zoo and aquarium science to be given at the association's annual meetings. "The idea," Hutchins says, "is to promote achievements in our field... and the committee will get these people together to share ideas so they don't always have to reinvent the wheel." Conservation scientist Sandy Andalman is looking for an off-site research and breeding facility away from Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, where she works. She contends that such a facility is needed because of space limitations at the zoo, animal health considerations, and the fact that some animals breed better in more naturalized environments than zoos--away from contact with people and other animals. Andalman, director of the Center for Wildlife Conservation (CWC), a not-for-profit entity affiliated with the zoo, is involved in a joint project with the state of Washington to help rehabilitate the western pond turtle population. "In Washington, we are down to 100 turtles in the wild; they are also in trouble in Oregon and California," says Andalman. But when she and her group started to bring the turtles in for captive breeding, they realized that the animals were sick. "They couldn't float straight because their lungs were all bloated," Andalman says. "Being near them you'd hear that they were gasping for breath." Twenty-three hatchlings from the wild were also collected and kept in isolation. "These turtles, by nature, are shy. In fact their whole strategy for survival is avoiding other animals," she says. To protect the other reptiles at the zoo and the turtles themselves, she kept the adult turtles quarantined in the zoo's animal health facility and gave them antibiotics. Of 37 adult turtles captured, 20 lived, as did all the babies. Since there was no space for the 20 eight-inch turtles at the zoo's clinic, once the adult animals were healthy, they were sent to a makeshift state facility. The babies remained at the zoo. "But the problem with [the state] facility was that emergency funds had to be found to renovate it. It was an indoor [fish] hatchery," she says. Had there been an off-site breeding and research facility, it would have had, most likely, a natural pond for reptiles and amphibia that would have saved the state time and money, says Andalman. One of the criteria for the off-site location is having at least one natural pond that would already be a source of food. "We would have chicken wire above it to prevent raccoons from getting in," says Andalman. She is also hoping to find about 300 acres of grazeable land, "since we don't really have the money for food." And if there are buildings already on this land, that would help keep down any construction costs, she says. The state of Washington has offered CWC 10 sites, any of which the group can have rent-free. Two other private sites Andalman is pondering would require leasing or purchase, but one has a laboratory facility. She is hoping that she can get some money from the state for one of these latter two sites. As for the turtles, the ultimate decision rests with the state, but CWC is recommending that the state release half the hatchlings and monitor them very closely in two different locales, one being the original pond that they came from. "It is a mistake to put all our eggs, so to speak, in one basket," Andalman says. Andalman is still concerned about disease transmission from the adults. She has recommended that four females of the 20 adults saved be encouraged to breed while the other animals just stay in the facility. Andalman says: "They are not in a situation yet where they can compete with other turtles for food and are safe from predation. We expect to return them to the wild in the spring of 1992." As the destruction of the natural environment continues, situations similar to the western pond turtles' will arise. Says Andalman: "We will need more and more places like the one we are looking for to help them. Originally we thought that the coalition of zoos could address these kinds of problems. Now there is a public-private partnership of local, state, and federal agencies [doing so], one product of which, hopefully, will be the off-site facility." --R.E.

Scientists Roam The Habitat As Zoos Alter Their Mission

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