Touring Chester Zoo with a Curator

MANAGING A MODERN ZOO

6th July 2013

On Saturday 6th I toured Chester Zoo with a party of people from the ZooChat website in the company of the Curator of Mammals, Mr Tim Rowlands. We have had several of these tours over the past few years, Tim or one of the other curators gives us some insight into the working of the zoo and we make donations to one of the zoo's projects. We have a few ground rules: the zoo never announces animal pregnancies* and we understand that negotiations about the transfer of animals between zoos are sometimes too delicate to be discussed. On the other hand we sometimes see off-show areas of the zoo and occasionally we learn an interesting piece of news off-the-record. I won't break any confidences here of course, but I can describe what I have learned about the way this large and successful zoo is managed.

I think I can best explain this by writing about the zoo’s Eastern black rhinos. We started our tour with these animals and Tim introduced us to one of the team of rhino keepers. I remember the first pair of black rhinos at Chester more than 50 years ago: they bred successfully in the old house which is hardly changed, except that it is now off-show. But for many years the rhinos at the zoo did not breed at all. In spite of their size and proverbially thick skins, black rhinos are sensitive creatures. They have individual personalities and preferences. In the past few years, better management, including testing of the hormone levels in the dung of the females, has helped the keepers to arrange the mixing of males and females producing better breeding results. Tim was formerly a keeper on the giraffe section, so he knows how important skilled keepers are for getting the details right.

Chester now holds 2 bulls and 5 cows of this highly endangered species and 3 calves have been born since last October. Port Lympne Animal Park in Kent has a similarly sized herd and recently Chester sent the young bull ‘Asani’ there. ‘Asani’ is the number one son of Chester’s bull ‘Sammy’ who was bred in Japan and is unrelated to the other rhinos in the European studbook, so this move will help to widen the gene pool.

There are four interconnected rhino paddocks and one house on-show in the zoo, with three more paddocks and three houses off-show (although the paddocks can be seen from the entrance road and the car park). Recently simple shelters have been built in several of the paddocks to provide shade allowing the rhinos to spend more time out of doors, further improvements are planned. 

In the Tsavo house we saw female ‘Zuri’, who was born at Paignton Zoo, with her week old bull calf sired by ‘Magadi’. All baby animals are cute, but I think a baby rhino’s combination of sturdiness and vulnerability is particularly charming – although they grow into tough muscular beasts remarkably quickly. I love the ring on his face where his second horn will grow. The calf has been named ‘Embu’ since our visit. The lighting inside the house is always poor and I knew that most of my photos would be blurred even with a high ISO setting. I chose the low value of 200 ISO and took lots of images, resting the camera on the barrier and trusting the VR feature (vibration reduction) on my 105mm lens, to produce a decent shot when the calf was still for a moment. I have done some colour correction to compensate for the mixed lighting, but I haven’t quite got rid of the pink cast in the calf’s shadow.

Each species in the zoo has its own special requirements, although only a few are as demanding as the black rhinos. Some species do so well that it becomes hard to find suitable homes for surplus stock, other species run into problems and in the end the curator has to decide the best way to solve them. As we walked around the zoo we talked about the animals and the exhibits as we passed them. When we stopped between the oryx and the zebra we asked Tim about progress with the Islands development. From this point you can see the newt-proof fence surrounding the Islands site, which is over 110 000 square metres, almost all outside the current area of the zoo. The first step has been the capture of a large number of great crested newts which have been released into other areas of the zoo's land, one part is being developed as a nature reserve. This is a legal requirement, but the zoo must also be seen to set a good example by protecting this locally endangered species. It also shows the foresight of the zoo’s founder, George Mottershead, who bought up a lot of land along the zoo’s original boundaries, providing space for future projects.

Work will soon start on site to provide services (electricity, water and drainage) before building begins. There will be a large Indonesian house, holding the zoo’s Sumatran orang utans plus birds and macaques, a smaller house for Komodo dragons, with further mammal exhibits and aviaries. There will also be a restaurant, a shop and other visitor facilities. Landscaping, planting and the introduction of the animals is due to be completed around Easter 2015. The total cost will be around £30 million, so the zoo’s managers have been checking and rechecking the plans. As I have mentioned before, Tim has already started to bring in new stock for some of the Islands exhibits, so far the banteng and a Malayan tapir have arrived. I am sure that the other curators will be planning their exhibits too.

* As I was drafting this, Chester Zoo announced that shortly before midnight on 7th July (the day after our tour), 'Asha' the female Indian rhino gave birth to her first calf. Tim did not give us the slightest hint of this.