IRPD 2017 Pueblo Zoo

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Imagine, if you will, that it is September in South Texas. If this is difficult for you to do, let me paint a picture: a humid, 90 plus degrees Fahrenheit picture that has mosquitoes crawling all over it. Now that you have that picture in your mind, imagine you had the opportunity to escape to the mountains for a weekend. There is one catch to this, of course--you will have to drive 12 hours to get there and then another 12 to get back home before you have to go to work on Monday. Still sound appealing? Damn straight it does.

For those of you who have been with me from the beginning, you probably remember my map. Maybe I should capitalize that to be THE MAP. This is the map that I have created to keep track of all of the zoos in the United States where I will see red pandas. When trying to decide where I would spend International Red Panda Day 2017, I needed only to consult THE MAP. I knew this would have to be a quick weekend trip since I am taking off the first week of October for my next extended one and I don't have extra vacation days to use, so that meant it had to be within a day's drive. Well, as you probably guessed, I took that very literally when deciding on Pueblo, Colorado.

Last year we spent IRPD at the Lee Richardson Zoo in Kansas so we thought we would try a different driving direction this year. I looked west on THE MAP and the first zoo was in Pueblo. When I mentioned this to my sister (the one I told you about at the beginning of this whole thing--the one who went on that crazy road trip with me and her four kids plus my one to Delaware), she was instantly excited. You see, she has been trying to get me to go on a family vacation with her to Colorado for the past two years. She and her husband and kids LOVE it there and take at least one big trip there each year. IRPD also just happened to fall on hers and her husband's anniversary this year so they decided to leave the kids at home and come with us on their first ever Red Panda Pilgrimage trip.

As you might expect, the whole thing worked out beautifully and, while spending an entire day in a car is not anyone's idea of a grand time, it was at least a mostly scenic drive with minimal meltdowns from the adults and actually none from the 6 year old.

I will say that I did not do much research on the Pueblo Zoo before arriving. In fact, the only point of reference I had was that a friend of mine took a picture of the zoo's red pandas two years ago and texted it to me. Because it wasn't a zoo in a large city, I had an expectation that it would be small, but I should have known better than to have such an expectation. You remember what happened with the Bronx Zoo, right? "How big could it be?" I said. "It's in the middle of NYC," I said. While the Pueblo Zoo was by no means 265 acres, it was still larger than I expected and took me a couple of hours to see all of. Even then, I'm not convinced I got it all. The zoo has an interesting layout with many diverging paths so you have to backtrack a little to make sure you don't miss something.

When I arrived, my contact Greg from the Education department was getting all set up for the event. He had about 5 Teen Volunteers in place to help with activities and to bring out animals from the zoo's education collection for guests to see up close and even touch. There were three main stations set up for IRPD. The first was an information table where guests could pick up the official IRPD 2017 activity book and make a donation to be entered into a raffle for a behind the scenes experience with the red pandas. How cool! The second table had materials to color your own red panda face mask, which you could then take to the third station where visitors could pose in front of a red panda tail for a photo. If guests posted the photo to social media and tagged the zoo, they could be entered for a chance to win a free red panda plush. Also at this third station was a cart with sidewalk chalk and some graphics showing how to draw a red panda. I enjoyed walking back to this area throughout the morning to see everyone's artwork.

It was a pretty quiet morning at the zoo, but the weather was gorgeous and the red pandas were more active than I expected. As we all know, most of the red panda watching we get is just seeing them snoozing away in their trees and, while there was definitely plenty of that, I also had the opportunity to see two of them working on some training skills with zoo keeper Arlisa Homan. While Arlisa was doing target training with Leela and Yanhua (nicknamed Yani), Brittany Merlo gave a fantastic keeper talk to the public. She gave basic information about red pandas as a species and then talked about the personalities of the individuals at the Pueblo Zoo (which you all know is what I really love learning about). There are currently three red pandas at this zoo: Leela (7), Yanhua (6), and Phi (3). All are females, but there was one male, Damien, who passed away last year. They are hoping to get another male soon to be paired with Phi who is currently on her own on exhibit. Most of us know that this is not at all uncommon for red pandas. They are solitary animals and I found it very interesting that the other two females were so bonded. In fact, when I first arrived at the zoo that morning and saw Leela and Yanhua, they were cuddled on top of one another. According to Brittany, while they definitely get along pretty well, Leela is the more dominant of the two.

Some of these red pandas' favorite things are misters in the summer months when it is hot outside and snow in the colder months. And grapes of course! Without saying it outright, I think Brittany was hinting that these pandas can be a bit stubborn at times and are set in their ways, which means they do not enjoy enrichment activities as much as some other animals at the zoo. They still get that enrichment, however, but their keepers do not have high expectations for these animals to exhibit much interest.

Another very important part of the keeper talk that Brittany gave was informing the public about the threats to red pandas in the wild, such as deforestation and poaching. One of the threats she mentioned that I was not familiar with is the fact that dogs can spread distemper to red pandas. I had never heard of this before! The message Brittany was trying to get across to her audience was that the Red Panda Network is working very hard in regions where red pandas are still found to change the way people view these animals and their importance in the ecosystem. This begins with helping the people in an area so that they do not need to go into the forests and cut down as many trees. If you haven't already read about the great work Red Panda Network is doing, be sure to check out this article https://redpandanetwork.org/improved-cookstoves-for-red-panda-stewards/

I had a wonderful morning at the Pueblo Zoo, talking to visitors and zoo staff about what we all love--animals! In case I don't say it enough, I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have grown up in a zoo environment. Having that upbringing has given me a sense of belonging in every zoo I visit. I can't wait to visit them all!

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Photos

Photo Credit Rachel Kardon

my little panda
Photo Credit Rachel Kardon

Yanhua
Photo Credit Pueblo Zoo

Phi
Photo Credit Pueblo Zoo

Leela
Photo Credit Pueblo Zoo

Damien
Photo Credit Pueblo Zoo