Zookeepers play Cupid for species survival

Although he doesn’t don a bow and arrow, Farshid Mehrdadfar’s job is a lot like Cupid’s. As a curator at the Memphis Zoo, Mehrdadfar operates within a group of matchmakers that analyzes the compatibility of endangered animals.

Mehrdadfar’s matchmaking is done under the guidelines of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan, a program that offers a cooperative management system for animals that are threatened or endangered.

“It’s basically a dating service for animals,” Mehrdadfar said. “The whole idea of the species survival plan is to establish a cooperative breeding program with different species that we have.”

The association, a network that shares information among all zoos in North America, began the Species Survival Plan program in 1981 in an effort to implement uniformity in the care for threatened and endangered animals.

That care includes identifying the nutritional, psychological and genetic characteristics of zoo animals in each species. These findings go into an action plan every three years that identifies a species’ most immediate needs.

There are 229 zoos accredited by the association and 450 Species Survival Plans within the network of North American zoos.

Mehrdadfar curates the West Zone at the Memphis Zoo, which includes African lions, tropical birds and hippos. In an exhibit just inside the entrance of Cat Country, Mehrdadfar said his biggest payoff comes from what he notes as one of the “underdogs” in the zoological world: the fishing cat. His goal is for the zoo’s endangered cat couple to have cubs sometime soon.

“Tigers, yes. Many people recognize tigers. Lions, many people recognize lions, but fishing cats are some of these secret animals that not, yet, many people pay attention to,” Mehrdadfar said while observing Wasabi and Jonas, two fishing cats recently paired by the Species Survival Program.

Memphis Zoo education director Carla Cook places understanding of the survival program high on her list of teaching tools. The methods of introduction, however, vary according to the group.

“For instance, we aren’t going to talk to our kindergarten class at Zoo Camp about the breeding, but we can tell them that the zoo is working to make sure that they will always see their favorite animal at the zoo,” she said.

In the Frozen Safari class held for first- and second-graders, students learn about the effects of climate change on habitats. The Memphis Zoo hopes its research on polar bear pair Haley and Payton will contribute to the fight against habitat loss in the Arctic regions.

Central Zone curator Steve Reichling has been a leading researcher for the endangered Louisiana pine snake since the mid1980s. He says that since he personally lobbied the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to regulate care for the species in 2000, his work became much easier.

“Now zoos have signed papers that bind them to following the guidelines (of the action plan),” he said.

His work does not end within the confines of the zoo’s premises, however. The Species Survival Plan itself is not the end, but a means to an end,” he said. His group of Louisiana pine snake experts across the network of zoos is getting closer to that end.

In 2010, Reichling and his committee were able to begin reintroducing Louisiana pine snakes into the wild in their namesake state, and since have released 50 of the snakes.