Zoo roaring after baby boom
After many years of struggle, establishment says new cubs and calves to thank for boost
It’s been nearly a year since Heather Kalka last saw Juno sound asleep.
Born more than 13 months ago at the Toronto Zoo and completely hand-raised because her mother couldn’t produce milk, the polar bear now weighs 90 kilograms.
Her diet now mostly resembles that of an adult bear; although she still receives formula, she can also gobble down about three kilograms of meat in a day.
But despite how fast she’s grown up, Juno’s keepers say she’s “still very much of a cub.”
“Juno being Juno, she definitely has a lot of personality,” said Kalka, zookeeper of the Americas. “I call her our diva bear because she is very stubborn, she’s very set in her ways, she definitely knows what she wants and when she wants it and expects it at that moment.”
Kalka says Juno has grown into a mischievous bear: one that’s curious, but also fearless.
“Even the first time she was in the large pool, she kind of walked around the edges, she explored and got a sense of the environment and then she just decided to dive in,” Kalka said.
“She’s very interactive with the public and anybody that’s here.”
On multiple fronts, it’s been a positive year for the zoo after many years of struggle.
It saw more than 1.2 million visitors through October, a 16-per-cent jump from 2015, on track to reach its target of about 1.3 million visitors for the year.
Revenues for that 10-month period were up 22 per cent from last year and all visitor-driven revenue streams reached their full-year expectations by early November.
In staff reports earlier this year, chief operating officer Robin Hale credited improved attendance in part to the zoo’s recent baby boom.
In addition to the highly anticipated births of two giant panda cubs in October 2015, 21⁄ weeks earlier, the zoo wel
2 comed four white lion cubs, Juno in November and an Indian rhino calf in February.
A Bactrian camel calf was also born in August.
At 15 months old, the zoo’s white lion cubs aren’t too different from your typical teenagers. The four males are eating more food than the adults in the pride (anywhere from three to three and a half kilograms a day), hanging with each other more than with their parents and sleeping in at each opportunity.
“Lions are so lazy,” keeper Julie Ward said. “They have definitely taken that to heart, especially as males. They sleep anywhere from about 18 to 20 hours a day.”
They now range in weight from 97 to 100 kilograms, reaching half of their expected adult size in mid-November.
“We basically treat them as adults now,” Ward said. “The only difference between them and the adults is we weigh them twice a week just because they’re growing; we want to make sure they’re getting enough food so we need to adjust it accordingly.”
The four brothers hang tight with one another but all have distinct personal- ities. There’s Gus, who’s “super chill, super laid back” and has the biggest mane of the bunch.
Hank is the “primary hairstylist” for his brothers and dad, Fintan, as he’s constantly grooming the family.
Harrison, the “tough guy,” has the loudest roar. “I think he’s always thought he’s been older than he is,” Ward said. And then there’s Oliver. “He’s trouble,” she said. “From the time he was tiny, tiny, Mom was constantly disciplining him. When we put him in with Dad, he was the first one to go up, smack Dad across the face, pull dad’s tail. But he’s our most animated and you can always tell him. He walks, the tail’s up in the air. He’s just such a clown.”
The cubs are the first lion cubs the zoo has had in 16 years and the first white lions born there. White lions themselves are a rarity, with only 300 estimated in the world.
These ones, however, are less white these days than they are a dirty blond, a sign their mom isn’t grooming them much anymore.
“They used to stick close to Mom; now they can figure stuff out for themselves,” Ward said. “She’s a wonderful mom, but she’s done her work, so she kind of saunters off away from them.”
Similar to the lions, the zoo went 16 years without an Indian rhino calf until Nandu arrived nearly10 months ago. He’s a big eater, already weighing 603 kilograms and putting on about a kilogram moreeach day.
Although Nandu still nurses occasionally, he’s already on an adult diet consisting of hay, produce and tree trimmings.
“He’s grown pretty fast,” keeper Ryan Hegarty said. “He was pretty timid for the first two to three months, but he’s definitely come a long way. He’s very playful, he’s very curious of us. He’ll come over to us and he loves to get scratched.”
Nandu has recently begun the training all rhinos at the zoo receive.
“He’s really quick at picking up the different behaviours. You can tell by his size he’s very food-motivated,” Hegarty said.
“Training is really easy for him because he loves those foods. Some of the things we do with him are targets. We teach him to touch a ball at the end of a pole so we can move them in different positions. He knows ‘open mouth’ so we can look at his tongue, his teeth.”
Training is a bit more challenging for Jamarcus, the four-month-old Bactrian camel. Keeper Jenn Martin says that unlike his two-year-old half-sister Josie, Jamarcus can be a bit of a pain.
“There’s a big difference between girls and boys. Girls are just a little bit calmer, they can still be pretty pushy but the boys at a young age, they just kind of get that ‘I’m a boy, look at me’ (attitude),” Martin said.
“Camels are very pushy animals. They push you and shove you, they try and trip you and bite at your ankles,” she said. “Sometimes if he’s being too much of a pain, Mom comes over and bites him and chases him.”
Martin said staff are training Jamarcus to know that being a nui- sance is not acceptable behaviour. He’s gotten better as of late at leaving an area when told “that’s enough.”
Although the baby boom made for a memorable year at the zoo, many of the cute faces could soon be on the move. This holiday season will be the last chance for Torontonians to see the white lion cubs. The zoo announced on Dec. 21 that in the new year, they’ll be heading to Parc Safari zoo in Quebec to form their own pride.
The move signifies the next step in the cubs’ behavioural development.
“Definitely as they go from these cute and small calves and cubs then suddenly you have all these adults around, there’s a lot of planning involved,” Gabriela Mastromonaco, the zoo’s reproductive physiologist, said. “We need to have the space. If they’re genetically related to each other, then there has to be some decisions made of who’s housed with whom.”
With Jamarcus the camel, for instance, two options are available. By two years old, he’ll reach about 454 kilograms and could eventually grow up to 907 kilograms. At that point, he could head off to another zoo to be bred.
“We’re in a bit of a limbo right now, Jamarcus being a boy,” Martin said. “If he does end up staying with us, there is a chance that he could end up being castrated and then being able to stay with the herd.”
Nandu’s future is far clearer.
Although he’ll still be at least three years away from sexual maturity and full growth, by two or three years old, he’ll be leaving the zoo.
“Around that time, that’s when the mother would start to push her calf away,” Hegarty said. “So at that time in a zoo setting, that’s when Nandu will go off to another zoo and be part of the breeding program at another zoo. He won’t be staying here.” Juno’s future is still up on the air. “The zoo is always looking for the best situation, the best scenario for any of the animals, so definitely they would be looking into seeing kind of where Juno’s best suited to fit in,” said Kalka, Juno’s keeper.
Abarrier divides Juno from the rest of the polar bears at the zoo at all times because of her size — she’d be vulnerable to injury if she was housed with them right now, Kalka said. She said Juno will eventually reach upward of 295 kilograms, depending on the time of year.
Juno’s older brothers, Hudson and Humphrey, also hand-raised, recently returned to Toronto after each spending a number of years at Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park Zoo. The stay helped both of them develop their skills at “being bears” by communicating with other polar bears.
Kalka didn’t rule out a similar path for their younger sister.
“At this point in time, I don’t know,” she said. “She’s such a confident bear. I’m very happy with how she turned out.”