WBEZ | Animals

The year Chicago lost Bushman on New Year's Day

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 12:15:00 -0600

New Year’s Day 1951.

Time magazine had called him “the best known and most popular civic figure in Chicago.” Now he was dead, and the city mourned.

His name was Bushman. He was a gorilla.

Bushman was a two-year-old, 38-pound baby when he was brought to Lincoln Park Zoo in 1930. He had been purchased from a West African missionary for $3,500. Gorillas were still a rarity in America, and Bushman was soon drawing crowds.

Things were pretty casual in the beginning. Visitors to the zoo would often see Bushman and his keeper tossing a football around on the park lawn. But as the gorilla grew bigger and less docile, he had to be kept locked in his cage. Bushman eventually topped out at 6'2" and 547 pounds.

Despite living his life in captivity, Bushman had a sunny disposition. He was gentle to the mice he might catch and he never attacked a keeper. Reclining in his cage, he munched grapes like a Roman emperor while downing endless quarts of milk. School children loved him. On his birthday he always received a cake or three from some class on a field trip.

The Lord of Lincoln Park became the most famous zoo animal in the country. Bushman was featured in magazines and newsreels, on t-shirts and postcards. Like any celebrity, he sometimes lost patience with the paparazzi, and would throw food at photographers. “He got a kick out of seeing them scatter,” his keeper laughed.

In the summer of 1950, Bushman suffered a heart attack. At 22 he was not very old for a gorilla and had always been in excellent health. When news got out that he might be dying, Chicagoans rushed to the zoo. In one week, over a quarter million people filed silently past his cage.

By October Bushman had recovered. He seemed his old self. One day he managed to get out of his cage and roamed through the ape house for over three hours. Nobody could convince him to end his vacation. Then he saw a garter snake and retreated to safety.

On New Year's Morning 1951, one of the keepers found Bushman dead in his cage. This time the heart attack had been fatal. The news of his passing was reported on the front pages of all the city's newspapers.

After an autopsy Bushman's body was stuffed. Today he is in permanent residence at the Field Museum.

Baby giraffe makes debut at Brookfield Zoo

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 08:16:00 -0600

A baby giraffe has made his debut at Brookfield Zoo in suburban Chicago.

Zoo officials say the baby boy was born Nov. 12 but didn't go on public display until Wednesday. His mother is five-year-old Arnieta and his father is four-year-old Hasani. The baby boy weighs 140 pounds and is six feet, two inches tall.

The baby is the 58th giraffe born at Brookfield Zoo. Zoo officials say it's an important birth because he is the first offspring for Arnieta and Hasani. Hasani arrived at Brookfield Zoo in 2010 and is on a breeding loan from Lee Richardson Zoo in Garden City, Kan.

Giraffes give birth standing up after 14 1/2-month-long gestation period.

When fully grown, the baby could potentially be 18 to 19 feet tall.

Charges filed against Aurora bird hoarder

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 09:27:00 -0600

Misdemeanor animal hoarding charges have been filed against an Aurora man whose home was filled with more than 400 birds.

The DuPage County state's attorney's office said Tuesday that 57-year-old David Skerberdis was ordered to appear in court Dec. 4.

The charges come after Aurora authorities last month investigated a report of multiple birds visible in Skerberdis' home.

Authorities say that along with 478 birds, Skerberdis' home contained mounds of garbage, bird feces and bird seed, and had potentially hazardous mold counts.

Skerberdis started collecting birds seven years ago, and he acknowledges his bird collecting got out of control.

Skerberdis could face six months in county jail if convicted of the hoarding charges.

The Founding Pets: How animals shaped America's history

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 08:00:00 -0500

Most Americans know the major stories that have shaped our history. But few realize that many of these moments involved underappreciated animals.

"Behind most historical figures at key points in American history are the animals that planted the ideas that changed our society forever," explains comedian Steve Waltien. At The Paper Machete's special All-American show, Waltien and associate Katie Rich embodied, among others, Declaration of Independence scribe Thomas Jefferson and his little-known pet cat Brown Sugar. Read an excerpt below or listen below:

Steve: Good afternoon. Katie and I are actors in Chicago and we've come here to do what we do best.

Katie: Pay tribute to American history. Look at my earrings!

Steve: We like to think of ourselves as actors slash educators, or act-ORs.

Katie: And it's our duty to look into American history and shine a light into areas that the white male patriarchical society tends to overlook.

Steve: Yes, act-ORs are able to overlook what historical texts cannot. We are able to bring to life on the stage historical figures at important turning points. What really happened and who were the major players in history.

Katie: The history books are only written by those who can write! And time and time again, those who cannot write are left out of the conventional narrative.

Steve: Animals.

Katie: Just because animals cannot write does not mean they do not have rights.

Steve: Good one.

Katie: Thank you. I'm an act-OR.

The Paper Machete is a weekly live magazine at the Horseshoe in North Center. It's always at 3 p.m., it's always on Saturday, and it's always free. Get all your The Paper Machete Radio Magazine needs filled here, or download the podcast from iTunes here.

Rare goat has kid at Bloomington zoo

Tue, 22 May 2012 09:43:00 -0500

A rare San Clemente Island Goat has given birth to a kid at Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington.

WJBC Radio reports that there are less than 500 San Clemente Island Goats in the world, making it a critically endangered heritage breed.

Bella is one of four adult San Clemente Island Goats at the central Illinois zoo, and she gave birth to a female kid.

It's the second-straight year that Miller Park Zoo's San Clemente Island Goats have reproduced.

WJBC reports that the zoo is the only accredited facility in Illinois to exhibit the rare breed.

Chicago-area skunk population raises a stink

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:05:00 -0500

There is a slight stench as Brandon Owen steps out of his truck. The biologist is a wildlife technician with ABC Humane Wildlife Control, and his company has captured 687 skunks so far this year in northeastern Illinois — about 200 more than last year.

Owen and the company's president, Vito Brancato, are on a skunk run in Des Plaines, a suburb near Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

Brancato determines that an animal they just picked up is a juvenile.

"We've very lucky in that way, because we're going to at least be able to approach the skunk that is a little less likely to spray," Brancato says.

This is good news for Brancato, because skunks can spray the oily substance they use to defend themselves up to 15 feet — and their aim is good. Brancato and Owen find the skunk in a small cage in homeowner Richard Kaulback's leafy backyard.

The animal is small. Its white stripe is visible, but its head is hidden behind the trap door. Skunks are nocturnal animals — it appears to be asleep, and thankfully, its tail is down.

Kaulback has watched all sorts of wildlife traipse across his yard over the nearly 50 years he's lived in Des Plaines. This year has been a bad year for skunks.

"This is an ongoing thing all summer," Kaulback says. "Before we had a lot of raccoons, but this is the first time we've had so many skunks. This is the second [or third] skunk we've got."

Brancato says skunk populations can grow large because they don't really have any natural predators.

"Their population numbers are only controlled by highways, you know, by cars," he says. "So they do pretty well because they don't really move a lot."

It's difficult to get a real count on the number of skunks in the state, says Illinois Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Bob Bluett. But the department makes a best guess by counting roadkill.

"We've seen a dramatic increase," Bluett says. He adds that there was a 46 percent increase in the number of skunks from 2009 to 2010.

Companies licensed by the department to capture skunks snared 8,700 of them across the state last year, most in the Chicago area. Bluett isn't certain why the numbers are up, but skunks in the Midwest are prone to rabies, and there hasn't been an outbreak to lessen their numbers for more than 25 years.

Even so, any skunk captured in Illinois is euthanized. And because skunk numbers are up, there's more chance of a household pet tangling with one outside.

"The first thing we tell them is don't let Fido or Fifi inside," says Rebecca Fyffe, of the Wildlife Control Policy Institute.

Wash them outside with peroxide and baking soda (not tomato juice, as the old wives' tale recommends) and make sure pets have rabies vaccinations. Of course, skunks aren't all bad: They love grubs and help keep the insect population down. And for years, they've even had their own cartoon mascot, Pepe Le Pew.

But Kaulback says there's nothing adorable about a skunk.

"They really stink up," Kaulback says. "Sometimes at night it's really bad out here."

And that's even with the door closed.

How a clever virus kills a very hungry caterpillar

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 23:01:00 -0500

Scientists say they have figured out how a very clever virus outwits a very hungry caterpillar.

The caterpillar is the gypsy moth in its larval stage, and the invasive species damages roughly a million acres of forest in the U.S. each year by devouring tree leaves.

But the damage would be greater if it weren't for something called a baculovirus that can infect these caterpillars and cause them to engage in reckless, even suicidal behavior, scientists say. The virus is so effective that the government actually sprays it on trees to help control gypsy moth outbreaks.

Now a team of scientists thinks they have discovered how the baculovirus takes control of gypsy moth caterpillars. The key is a special gene that's carried by the virus and affects the caterpillar's eating behavior, according to the team's new study in Science.

The discovery explains a phenomenon scientists have wondered about for decades.

Normally, gypsy moth caterpillars feed on tree leaves at night when predators including birds and squirrels can't see them. Then during the day, the caterpillars climb down and hide in the tree bark or even under leaves on the ground.

But caterpillars abandon that sensible strategy when they're infected with a baculovirus, says Kelli Hoover, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University and the paper's lead author.

"As they get sick they climb up to elevated positions and stay there and die," she says. What happens next is pretty gruesome. "The inside of the caterpillar gets pretty much converted to millions and millions of virus particles, then there are other enzymes that cause the exoskeleton to melt. And that liquefies the caterpillar and then it can rain virus down on the leaves below."

When other caterpillars eat those leaves, they get infected too.

A clever pathogen

Hoover and a team of researchers suspected that the virus was taking control of the caterpillar by using a gene involved in molting, which the gypsy moth larvae must do several times as they grow. The gene also affects eating behavior because in order to molt, larvae must stop eating.

To test their hypothesis, the scientists infected some caterpillars with a baculovirus that carried the normal version of this gene and other caterpillars with a baculovirus carrying an inactivated version of the gene. Then they put the caterpillars in tall plastic containers lined with a screen.

"Every time the caterpillars were infected with the normal gene they would die at an elevated position in the container," Hoover says. "If the gene was knocked out, they didn't."

That's probably because this gene disrupts a hormonal system that tells the caterpillar when to stop eating," Hoover says. "And to feed you need to be up in the tree."

The result is devastating for the gypsy moth, but great for the virus, says David Hughes, an entomologist and biologist at Penn State and a co-author of the study. So if you look at the world from the point of view of a baculovirus, it's easy to see how it would have evolved to carry this gene.

"The most important challenge for a virus is outcompeting other viruses," Hughes says. So a virus that could make its host die in a place that spread the infection to other hosts would have a big advantage, he says.

Other scientists say the finding reveals just how clever a pathogen can be.

"Who knew that a virus would be able to manipulate the behavior of its host?" says Jim Slavicek, a research biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, who also contributed to the new study.

Virus as a weapon against outbreaks

Slavicek says knowing precisely how baculovirus overwhelms the gypsy moth could help scientists develop more potent strains of the virus. It could also help them determine when in the gypsy moth's life cycle it is most vulnerable to infection.

And he says all that could help bring down the cost of spraying with baculovirus. Right now, he says, land managers often use cheaper methods, such as insecticides or a deadly fungus.

"The advantage of the virus is that it is specific for gypsy moth larvae, and so it will impact no other animal, insect, plant in the treatment zone."

Gypsy moth outbreaks in the U.S. are less severe than they were a couple of decades ago, thanks to better treatments, Slavicek says. But he says the pest remains a major threat that can leave a forest bare in a matter of weeks.

During an outbreak, Slavicek says, there are so many caterpillars that their remains make some roads so slippery that road crews have to apply sand.

And if you drive on those roads at night, he says, "millions of moths will fly to the car and it can be so dense that it's like a snowstorm. You can't see what's in front of you."

Doggone It! Canine Thefts On The Rise

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 04:50:00 -0500

Dognappings have risen 49 percent in the U.S. in 2011, according to data gathered by the American Kennel Club.

"We believe the increase is due to economic times," Lisa Peterson, a spokesperson for the nonprofit group, which has been tracking pet theft for several years, tells Weekend Edition Saturday guest host Jacki Lyden.

"You have people who want pets ... but can't afford to purchase them or pay the adoption fees, so we find that they're just taking them for themselves or to give them as gifts," she says. "But then on the other hand, you have the criminal element that steals dogs and tries to sell them to unsuspecting buyers."

Peterson says the top two ways dogs are being stolen are during home invasions and out of parked cars. She cites a case in Florida where criminals took a 55-inch television set and also Boo-Boo, the Yorkshire terrier, with all of his belongings.

Tying up a dog in front of a store also makes it vulnerable for theft.

Dog theft can not only be traumatic for the owner, she says, but also for the dog.

"Dogs thrive on routine," Peterson says. "They're valued family members, so there's actually two victims to the crimes here: There's the owner, who's missing their lovable pet, and also the poor dog, [which] is suffering perhaps a little anxiety, not knowing what's going on."

Peterson says the best step dog owners can take to protect their pets, especially with recovery, is to have a microchip implanted.

There are also common-sense, close-to-home measures like not letting your dog off its leash or leaving it unattended in your yard.

In addition, Peterson says, dog owners should be cautious with information they tell strangers.

"We saw a man in Tulsa, Okla., who was approached by a man in a park, [who asked] about his adorable pit bull puppy," she says. "Then apparently the criminal followed him home and the next morning broke into the house, tied up the family at gunpoint and stole the puppy."

Fighting Decline, Micronesia Creates Shark Sanctuary

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 05:14:00 -0500

Micronesian islands have declared vast areas of the Pacific Ocean to be a sanctuary for sharks. It's the latest move in a trend to create zones where sharks can live undisturbed.

These top predators are in serious decline around the world because they are being over-fished. Mostly, they are caught to feed an insatiable appetite for shark-fin soup in Asia.

This conservation strategy effort started out small. Two years ago, the tiny Pacific nation of Palau declared its territorial waters a shark sanctuary. Next came the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. This June, Honduras said it too would ban shark fishing in its waters. And last month the Bahamas followed suit.

But nothing tops what just happened out in the southwestern Pacific, where islands in Micronesia, including Guam and the Marshall Islands, have said they would ban shark fishing in more than 2 million square miles of their waters.

"We're talking about an area two-thirds of the size of the continental United States," says Matt Rand at the Pew Environment Group. "That is a significant safe-haven for sharks."

Pew has been working behind the scenes to create these shark havens. Rand says Micronesia's declaration is a huge step forward. And these nations aren't simply doing it because they care about nature. It's also about money.

"From an economic perspective, dive tourism is growing," Rand says, "and there's significant interest from divers to see sharks. It's the pinnacle of a dive when you get to see a shark in the open ocean."

Economic studies suggest a single shark can be worth more than $1 million to a local tourism spot. And protecting sharks also means protecting the rich marine life of the reefs where they live.

"It's very analogous to removing lions from the Serengeti or wolves from Yellowstone," Rand says. "When you remove the top predator you disrupt the whole balance of the marine ecosystem."

Signs Of Recovery?

Sick reefs mean no scuba divers, no Mai Tais under the palm fronds, and empty hotel rooms. There are places in the world where that's already the case, says Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

"When you go a place like Indonesia, where I was last year, it's basically shark-free over large areas," says Worm. "These places used to teem with sharks and they certainly don't anymore."

Worm says sanctuaries are a promising way to help reverse that trend. When he was in Indonesia, for example, he visited a refuge where shark fishing was banned about five years ago.

"You do see signs of recovery," he says, noting "more juvenile sharks, small sharks coming up in numbers. This made me very hopeful that indeed these protected areas can be effective in safeguarding at least some of those species."

Of course, shark sanctuaries only protect the species that actually breed in those areas. It's tougher to protect highly migratory species like the great whites and hammerheads.

And it's also true that the bigger the sanctuaries are, the harder it becomes to enforce the shark-fishing ban.

"You just can't declare a shark sanctuary and then hope that does the job," Worm says, "because we know from experience that illegal fishing can be rampant and can be a significant problem to enforcement."

He tells the story of a ship that was caught right in the middle of the Galapagos Islands national park, loaded with 300 dead sharks.

Worm says, in the long run, in order to take the pressure off sharks, we need to reduce the appetite for their fins. Worm says there's actually an attempt to do that in China, using celebrities to talk people out of ordering shark-fin soup, "making them aware of simple facts, [like] that shark fins for example don't grow back when you cut them off. A lot of people think that's the case but obviously that's not true. The shark dies."

And with more than 70 million sharks dying every year from this trade, Worm says, the world doesn't have a lot of time to preserve these magnificent creatures.

American Zoos Help Return Condor To South America

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 05:17:00 -0500

In the high Andes of South America, one of the world's great birds is making a comeback.

The condor is returning from the brink of extinction, thanks to a program in which condor chicks are raised in American zoos and then released in the wild. Success, though, depends on the cooperation of farmers and shepherds — and in one special case, a group of Colombian army soldiers assigned to a rocky cliff.

Getting to condor country requires going high, on narrow, boulder-strewn mountain passes in a sturdy, off-road vehicle. The mountains are so high and strikingly picturesque that they leave you breathless. Biologist Olga Nunez says it is hard to reach the high peaks that are home to the large birds.

Weighing as much as 35 pounds, with wings that can stretch up to 11 feet, the condor is simply magnificent. Using the roaring mountain winds and thermal currents to ascend to 15,000 feet, the birds search for the rotting remains of dead sheep, deer or rodents — and then strip meat off bone in minutes.

The condors' voracious appetite, coupled with their search for food across hundreds of square miles, led farmers to mistakenly believe they snatched sheep, and even small children.

"Indiscriminate hunting killed off the condors in this region," Nunez says.

American zoos, which had decades of experience with the birds, stepped in to painstakingly raise condor chicks.

"At about a year or a year and a half of age, when they are well on their way to development, that's when we start talking about exporting them to Colombia for release," says Michael Mace, the curator of birds at the San Diego Zoo.

The birds are then set free in the Andes Mountains of South America. There are now 30 condors in the stretch of mountains north of Bogota.

Nunez says a vital part of the program's success has been teaching farmers, shepherds and one small group of soldiers to care for the big birds.

A few miles from where the condors are released, 43 soldiers are deployed on a frigid base, 13,000 feet above sea level, at Pena Negra, or Black Cliff. Their job has been to guard vital radio communications equipment against anti-government guerrillas.

These days, however, with training from Nunez, Edison Quintian and other soldiers now watch for condors.

"Since we're here, we monitor the birds and let Nunez know if there's any change in behavior," Quintian says.

On a recent day, though the sky was bright blue, the condors didn't show up even as Cpl. Manuel Vargas scanned the horizon and explained that soldiers had laid out a cow's remains for the birds.

But Colombia now has perhaps 180 condors, more than twice as many as a decade ago, and the soldiers know the birds will be back.