SUMMARY: President Trump is expected to sign a sweeping bipartisan lands bill into law this week, with broad implications for development of wilderness areas, state conservation funding and hunting and fishing on public lands. Judy Woodruff sits down with Lisa Desjardins to discuss the details of the landmark legislation, including its unusually high level of support in both chambers of Congress.
The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed its first significant public lands conservation bill in years, designating more than 1 million acres of wilderness for environmental protection and permanently reauthorizing a federal program to pay for conservation measures.
The House passage of the bill, on a vote of 363-62, sends the measure, which was passed by the Senate this month, to the desk of President Donald Trump. The vote Tuesday offered a rare moment of bipartisanship in a divided chamber and a rare victory for environmentalists at a time when the Trump administration is working aggressively to strip away protections on public lands and open them to mining and drilling.
Nonetheless, Trump was expected to sign the bill into law. But the 1 million acres of wilderness that would be protected by the bill stand in contrast to the administration’s plans to open up for drilling 9 million acres of protected habitat for the sage grouse, 2 million acres of protected land in Utah, parts of the vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and most United States coastal waters.
Lawmakers and environmentalists celebrated passage of the bill as a victory for bipartisanship and conservation.
“This bill represents Congress at its best and truly gives the American people something to be excited about,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz) chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. “It’s a massive win for the present and future of American conservation.”
Grijalva is one of several Western lawmakers from both parties who have worked for four years on the bill.
The bill is packed with parochial provisions designed to help the home states and districts of its authors. Among those is a provision for a land transfer in La Paz County, Ariz., to allow for the development of a solar farm, and a land exchange of 360 acres in Custer County, S.D., to allow the county to expand its airport.
Among the most consequential provisions is the permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a federal program established in the 1960s that uses fees and royalties paid by oil and gas companies drilling in federal waters to pay for onshore conservation programs.
Although the program has long enjoyed bipartisan support, Congress typically renews it for only a few years at a time, and it expired on Sept. 30 and has not been renewed. The new public lands package would authorize the program permanently, ending its long cycle of nearing or passing expiration and awaiting congressional renewal.
SUMMARY: The San Francisco Bay’s wetlands are disappearing at an alarming rate due to encroaching development, leaving the local ecosystem at risk. Moreover, the wetlands can store as much carbon as a tropical rainforest, an invaluable asset in the effort to slow global warming. Sonia Aronson of the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs takes a look at a new and contentious proposed tax to save the bay.
WOMAN: Welcome to the Oakland shoreline. This is Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Park (Shoreline).
SONIA ARONSON (Student Reporting Labs): These local high school students have volunteered their Saturday to clean up the San Francisco Bay.
CHRIS LA, Volunteer, Save the Bay: We are helping restore and replant and reinstall native plants into this area of the wetlands.
SONIA ARONSON: They are here with Save the Bay, a local organization that mobilizes the community to restore the thousands of acres of wetlands surrounding the bay.
They also educate volunteers and student groups like this one about the crucial role that wetlands play in sustaining the bay.
Chris La is a sophomore at Oakland High School.
CHRIS LA: We should be connected to our environment, because that’s what we should be worried about first. Without the world, without nature, we wouldn’t be here. And we’re slowly doing a better job at sustaining ourselves, but, so far, we kind of screwed up over the last 200 years.
SONIA ARONSON: In that time, the wetlands that surround the bay have been disappearing at an alarming rate, which could endanger not just the local ecosystem, but the worldwide effort to address global warming and sea level rise.
PATTY OIKAWA, University of California, Berkeley: So, originally, this was all wetlands. About 150 years ago, people came in and drained those wetlands and started growing crops like corn and alfalfa.
SONIA ARONSON: Patty Oikawa, a postdoctoral researcher at U.C. Berkeley, is studying the unique ability of wetlands to store carbon, a trait that can offset the effects of climate change.
SUMMARY: Biologist and Pulitzer winner E.O. Wilson has spent his life studying animals and fighting for their conservation. As species go extinct at 1,000 times the normal rate thanks to human interference, Wilson’s new book “Half Earth” holds a bold plan to preserve the world’s biodiversity: set aside half of the entire planet for natural habitats. Jeffrey Brown talks to Wilson for more.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Scientist and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward O. Wilson first gained fame for his study of ants. Through the years, he’s moved from small insects to big ideas, and now a very big one, one made more urgent by the problems of climate change.
Jeffrey Brown has our profile in his second report from Southern Alabama.
E.O. WILSON, Author, “Half Earth”: I was just a 12-, 13-year-old boy, and it was just a wonderland to me.
JEFFREY BROWN: Edward O. Wilson spent his formative years in Mobile, Alabama, looking for snakes and insects in the surrounding delta.
E.O. WILSON: If I could, I would just do the same thing today that I did then, but it would look funny.
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY BROWN: The experience would shape him, as biologist, evolutionary theorist, naturalist, and at age 86 perhaps most important to him now conservationist.
E.O. WILSON: What is man? Storyteller, mythmaker, and destroyer of the living world.
JEFFREY BROWN: His new book, “Half Earth: Our Planet’s Fight For Life,” takes on nothing less than the survival of plant and animal life on earth.
E.O. WILSON: Yearning to be more master than steward of the declining planet.
JEFFREY BROWN: Wilson’s solution is in the title, setting aside half the Earth as natural habitat.
We spoke beneath the old live oak trees at Fort Blakeley Historic Park, where Wilson’s great-grandfather fought in one of the last battles of the Civil War.
Half Earth. Are you serious?
E.O. WILSON: I’m serious. I know it sounds radical, but we must have it if we’re going to save most of the species remaining on Earth. And it’s easier to do than most people might think.
JEFFREY BROWN: It sounds impossible. It sounds for some people crazy.
E.O. WILSON: I was just going to use the word insane.
JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.
E.O. WILSON: Yes, it sounds that way, because they envision cutting the Earth into two hemispheres, one for us and one for the other 10 million species. But, no, we mean giving 50 percent or setting it aside, patches, some large wilderness areas, others far, far smaller, in order to make that amount of reserve area.
SUMMARY: Southern California's tranquil Coachella Valley has long been an environmental battleground. Home to 27 endangered and threatened species, the valley has also seen enormous population growth, with residents projected to double in the next 20 years. But a government plan 10 years in the making aims to balance conservationism with urban development. Special correspondent Cat Wise reports.
CAT WISE (NewsHour): The views from Chino Canyon high above Palm Springs are grand. The rocky hillsides are home to the endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep and a number of other species. But this tranquil canyon has long been an environmental battleground.
NICKIE MCLAUGHLIN, Friends of Palm Springs Mountains: If the project had been completed, you would have been looking at a 500-room hotel, a five-star resort, and all surrounded by an 18-hole golf course.
CAT WISE: Nickie McLaughlin heads up a local nonprofit that recently purchased 600 acres of privately owned land in the canyon to prevent that development.
NICKIE MCLAUGHLIN: There will be nothing here. It will be preserved as it is in perpetuity. This was a huge success.
CAT WISE: The push to save Chino Canyon is part of a much larger environmental conservation effort unfolding in Coachella Valley, a 45-mile stretch of desert dotted with upscale cities like Palm Springs, as well as areas of deep poverty.
The population here is expected to almost double in the next 20 years. Golf courses and condos butt up against fragile desert ecosystems.
TOM KIRK, Coachella Valley Association of Governments: In a lot of places throughout this country, we know that we have done development perhaps in a rash and vast way. In the Coachella Valley, we didn't want to do that.
CAT WISE: Tom Kirk heads up the local government agency now managing a plan that took more than 10 years to develop and that will be on the books 75 years into the future.
It's called the Coachella Valley Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan. Nearly 2,000-pages long, it is essentially a huge compromise between government agencies, private landowners and developers, scientists, and environmental groups.
SUMMARY: African lions are getting new protections from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Five months after an American hunter killed an animal named Cecil in Zimbabwe, a new classification will help prohibit imports of lion trophies from Central and West Africa. Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss the change.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed Central and West African lions as endangered, generally prohibiting importation of lion trophies from that region into the U.S. Lions in Southern and Eastern Africa are now classified as threatened, which will allow U.S. trophy imports only under certain conditions.
The move comes five months after an American hunter killed a lion named Cecil outside a national park in Zimbabwe, and almost five years after U.S. conservation groups petitioned for greater protections for lions.
For more, I am joined by Daniel Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
And welcome to you.
DANIEL ASHE, Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Thank you, Jeff.
JEFFREY BROWN: Why now? Is it right to see the killing of Cecil as a kind of game changer that galvanized public attention and now government action?
DANIEL ASHE: Well, we have been considering the listing of the lion for more than five years. We were petitioned under the Endangered Species Act, so that’s been our responsibility.
And we proposed listing the lion back in October of 2014, before the controversy over Cecil the lion, but Cecil and that controversy certainly have galvanized public emotions about lions and I think brings us to where we are today.
JEFFREY BROWN: Advocacy groups have wondered what took so long.
DANIEL ASHE: Well, we are a scientific organization. And we’re dealing with what many scientists call the sixth mass extinction.
So we have many, many priorities, a lot of work under the Endangered Species Act. This is one of those things. And we have had lots of comment and lots of science to pore through.
She was euthanized at Safari Park, her residence since 1989, leaving 3 northern white rhinos in world.
Nola, one of just four endangered northern white rhinos left in the world, died Sunday at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
The 41-year-old rhino had been under veterinary care for a bacterial infection and age-related health issues. Her condition took a turn for the worse over the weekend, San Diego Zoo Global said in a statement. Early Sunday morning, the Safari Park team “made the difficult decision to euthanize her.”
It is a crushing loss for the Safari Park, where Nola had lived since 1989. The gentle 4,000-pound animal was a favorite with the staff because of her sociable personality and love of back scratches. She was also a popular attraction for Safari Park visitors, who could always spot her because of her distinctively curved horn.
Nola’s death is also a blow to the northern white rhino sub-species. After decades of poaching, there are just three northern white rhinos left in the world. All three — a male and two females— live on the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.
The source of Nola’s lingering infection was recently traced to a large abscess deep in her pelvic region. Veterinarians performed a minor surgical procedure to drain the abscess on Nov. 13, and the majority of the infected material was removed. But her condition began rapidly deteriorating on Saturday, and the decision was made to euthanize her.
“It sounds corny, but with her, every day is a blessing,” lead keeper Jane Kennedy said last month, when she and her fellow Safari Park staff members were keeping an eye on Nola’s condition. “I would call her a symbol of our purpose. She truly represents what we are all dedicating our lives to.”
Nola had been caught in Sudan when she was approximately 2 years old. She came to the Safari Park in 1989 from the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic as part of a breeding program. But she and her fellow northern whites had already made a big impression on her new hosts.
“I met Nola and her group of rhinos in July of 1986, when I traveled to what was then the Czech Soviet Republic. The Soviet army was there, and so was this group of northern white rhinos,” said Oliver Ryder, director of genetics, Kleberg Chair, San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. “The last week I was there, a baby rhino was born. It made a big impression on me, because these enormous creatures were so gentle and so cautious and curious with this baby rhino. I was impressed yet again that there is a depth to their lives that we don’t understand.”
The hope was that Nola would mate with Angalifu, the Safari Park’s northern white rhino male. The mating happened, but there was never a pregnancy. At one point, staffers sawed off the horns of Nola and fellow female, Noti, to keep them from fighting Angalifu off. But without herd behavior to spur more frequent mating, there were never any northern white births at the Safari Park.
Two deaths since December
And then, there were fewer northern white rhinos altogether. Noti died in 2007, and Angalifu died last December. And in July, Nabire, a female northern white rhino living in the Dvur Kralove Zoo, died at the age of 32.
So when Nola was put on medical watch this year due to a sinus infection, the whole rhino-watching world began to worry. In May, she began receiving treatment for an abscess on her right hip. The life expectancy of the white rhino species, which includes northern and southern white rhinos, is 40 to 50 years. But when Nola’s abscess and the bacterial infection that it caused came back in September, the Safari Park community was on high alert.
“It’s tough. It’s like having your 90-year-old aunt get sick, and there is nothing you can do except give her basic care and keep her comfortable,” keeper Kennedy said last month, as she watched Nola recline in the shade of her Safari Park enclosure, with her companion southern white rhino, Chuck, nearby. “When her abscess came back the second time, you could tell she didn’t feel good. When her attitude sinks, ours has to jump up because we need to help her.”
For Kennedy and her fellow members of Team Nola, helping the rhino was a priority and a privilege. And the rhino made it easy. Due to an irregularity in her hooves, Nola needed regular nail trimmings. The constant interactions with the keepers made her comfortable with human contact and usually a cinch to work with, despite her massive size.
She did not like being in her boma corral, and she was not at all fond of taking her many antibiotic pills. But she loved her pedicures and her back scratches and hanging out in her 65-acre African Plains habitat with the equally sociable Chuck, who was very eager to track her whereabouts when Nola was getting her abscess drained last week.
“They are like the elderly couple who met late in life and became friends,” Kennedy said of Chuck and Nola. “I’ve known Nola for 26 years, and she is truly, truly one of the sweetest animals I have ever worked with.”
With neither of the Ol Pejeta northern white females able to give birth naturally due to advanced age or reproductive issues, it is up to science to save the sub-species. The San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research’s Frozen Zoo contains viable cell cultures from 12 northern white rhinos. Genetic materials from Nola have been preserved, and the plan was always to collect her ovaries and any viable stem cells upon her death. With the help of in-vitro fertilization, the hope is to use the recently arrived southern white rhinos living in the Safari Park’s new Rhino Rescue Center as surrogates for a hybrid rhino, which would be created with northern white sperm and southern white eggs. San Diego Zoo Global has one of the world’s most successful rhino breeding programs. To date, 94 southern white rhinos, 68 greater one-horned rhinos and 14 black rhinos have been born at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. As the genomic research, technology and procedures become more advanced, the goal would be to create complete northern white rhino embryos, which the southern whites would carry to term. Nola’s legacy will live on, and not just in the hearts and minds of the people who cared for her. “The white rhinos represent the wild places and prehistoric animals that are still with us,” said Steve Metzler, interim associate curator of mammals, who accompanied the Rhino Rescue Center’s six southern whites on their 22-hour flight from Johannesburg to San Diego. “It is devastating to think that in just a few hundred years, we can wipe that out. That is just wrong, and we need to do something about it.”
SUMMARY: There are just seven year-round residents -- and who knows how many cats -- in the Medieval Italian town of Civita di Bagnoregio, also known as the dying city. The picturesque hilltop town, visited by droves of tourists, is built upon layers of rock and shifting clay, susceptible to weather and natural disaster. Jeffrey Brown reports on efforts to revive and reinforce the city.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Next, an Italian hilltop town hovering between life and death, and the efforts being made to save it.
Jeffrey Brown traveled there as part of our ongoing series Culture at Risk.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Each morning, as the sun rises on this medieval town seemingly plucked from a fairy tale, the narrow lanes of Civita di Bagnoregio are quiet. By the latest count, there are just seven year-round residents, and who knows how many cats.
By mid-morning, though, the scene on this beautiful fall day has changed, as thousands of tourists make the difficult hike up a long, steep footbridge. There’s no cars allowed here, drawn by the beauty and peculiarity of this place, where staircases lead off cliffs and windows lead into the clouds.
In Italian, it’s called la Citta Che Muore, the Dying City, dying because it’s literally crumbling before our eyes. But now a mix a geological engineering and tourism is giving this ancient city new life.
CLAUDIO MARGOTTINI, Italy Geological Survey: After we have a collapse, it takes about two, three, 10 years to have the next collapse in the same part of the cliff.
JEFFREY BROWN: Claudio Margottini, with Italy’s Geological Survey, has worked in Civita for several decades.
So, here’s part of the problem, right, buildings falling down?
CLAUDIO MARGOTTINI: Yes, exactly. This is exactly an example of what the problem is in this town. So, we are just close to the cliff. And the cliff is falling down piece by piece, maybe five, six meters at a time.
SUMMARY: Could the technology used in Israel that successfully turned the country's water shortage into a surplus be implemented in California to ease the state's drought? KQED Public Media reporter Daniel Potter joins Alison Stewart via Skype from San Francisco to discuss.
ALISON STEWART, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR: Keeping Israel’s successful plan in mind, we wondered if or how Israel’s water technology, especially its use of desalination, could be put to use in drought-stricken California.
For more about that now, we are joined now from San Francisco by Daniel Potter. He is a reporter for KQED Science.
So, Daniel, it’s sort of obvious. People look and think, well, California’s is obviously right next to the Pacific Ocean. Why isn’t desalination a bigger part of the conversation about the drought? Why isn’t it?
DANIEL POTTER, KQED: I think the short answer is because desalination is a really — setting up a desalination plant is a very long-term process. It requires a lot of permitting and a huge amount of investment. So, setting up a desalination plant, a lot of people I have talked to have said there is a good chance that plant would not be finished until long after the drought ended.
ALISON STEWART: Are there desalination plant working, in progress in California? I know there are a couple that are in the process of being constructed, correct?
DANIEL POTTER: There are a few tiny ones that already exist and that are desalinating presently. The biggest one is in Carlsbad. It’s set to come on line probably this fall, and when it’s ready it will produce something like 7 percent of the water for San Diego County. That project is on the order of something like $900 million or maybe $1 billion.
SUMMARY: Over the past few years in Israel, the country's water shortage has become a surplus. Through a combination of conservation, reuse and desalination, the country now has more water than it needs. And that could translate to political progress for the country in the Middle East, one of the most water-stressed regions in the world. NewsHour's Martin Fletcher reports.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Today, there are thought to be little more than 30,000 African lions remaining on the continent, and about 70 percent of those live in just 10 major strongholds.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing that the African lion now be listed as an endangered species following a years-long push from a coalition of advocacy groups.
A representative from one of them joins us now, Jeff Flocken of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Well, welcome to you.
The Wildlife Service says the three main threats facing African lions are habitat loss, loss of prey base, and increased human-lion conflict. Explain what that means for us. What exactly is the threat?
JEFF FLOCKEN, International Fund for Animal Welfare: Sure.
Today’s announcement was very important for lions. It not only said that this — in fact, the species is endangered with extinction, but that it deserves protection. You mentioned the threats that include habitat loss, and when there’s conflict with local people and the lions are killed in retaliation, also loss of prey base.
But in addition to those, unsustainable trophy hunting have been a problem. When the government made an announcement today, they went out of their way to include a new system to monitor and regulate imports of trophy-hunted lion into the U.S. And that’s our best way to protect them here in the U.S.
They’re here! On July 20, we transferred the first critically endangered pocket mice to the new Pacific Pocket Mouse Conservation Breeding Facility, located in an off-exhibit area at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The first group of 10 was taken in June from the Dana Point Headlands and had been in quarantine for 30 days in the Safari Park’s Harter Veterinary Medical Center.
They are doing quite well so far. While in quarantine, all of the 10 gained weight and looked bright eyed. On Friday, after being transferred to their new cages, these Dana Point animals were extremely active, sand bathing and getting to know their new neighbors by standing right against the divider to the adjacent cage and digging.
We have them housed in what I call “social cages,” which are multiple individual mouse cages in one larger housing. There are dividers that are clear and slotted to allow the mice to be able to see and smell each other. We house them in this way because they are solitary in the wild and are aggressive with each other unless they are breeding, but this socialization reduces aggression and keeps females reproductive.
The 10 founders from the Santa Margarita population were in quarantine at our veterinary center and were transferred to the pocket mouse facility on August 3. Meanwhile, Maryke and Rachel are out in the field each night trying to trap founders from the last extant population in San Mateo South.
As a kid, I used to visit the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park every summer with my grandmother, so you can imagine my excitement when I was told I would be conducting research here as a summer fellow through the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research! Before arriving in June, I was contacted by my soon-to-be mentors, Russ Van Horn and Megan Owen, who outlined the details of the project I would be working on: collecting behavioral data from video footage of Andean bears.
Like many people, I had never heard about Andean, or spectacled, bears prior to this summer. So before traveling down to San Diego—I recently graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno—I made sure to read up on this often overlooked bear species. I didn’t find as much as you’d think. Surprisingly, relatively little is known about Andean bears, especially in the wild where it is often difficult to see them in the lush cloud forests they call home. Hence, the purpose of my project.
The video clips that I’ve inventoried and collected data from this summer were taken from a field site in Peru located in one of the few remaining tropical dry forests. The landscape allows for unparalleled viewing of the elusive bears and the chance to gain greater insight into Andean bears’ daily activity patterns, mother/cub interactions, and other behaviors. For further information on this project, see The Bear Necessities in Peru.
In addition to being involved with an amazing project that is drawing attention to the conservation of this threatened species—the Andean bear is listed as Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List—I have had a chance to witness the tremendous conservation, research, and animal-care efforts put forth by the entire staff here. Some of my experiences include:
This summer has provided me with so many unique and wonderful opportunities and experiences. I would recommend interning with the San Diego Zoo to anyone interested, especially with regard to the summer research fellowship opportunities. All you have to do is check out the San Diego Zoo job search site around the beginning of January when they post the applications for the Institute fellowships. In a few weeks I will be leaving for Ecuador to volunteer teaching English, but I know I will always remember this summer. I hope to share some of the information I’ve learned about the bears with the children I meet, since they are fortunate enough to have Andean bears in their country, and perhaps volunteer with local conservation groups. While I’m down there, if I’m lucky I might just be able to catch a glimpse of an Andean bear!
- Watering over 10,000 native grass seedlings at the Skinner Reserve in Temecula (I can’t tell you how many watering cans I refilled and carried over two days.)
- Monitoring Bai-Yun and her new cub in the video room (The cub is definitely cuter than it was a few weeks ago if you haven’t seen it yet.)
- Visiting the Zoo’s Jennings Center for Zoological Medicine while the veterinarians and technicians treated Houdini, the Zoo’s female Andean bear.
- Feeding a giraffe on the Park’s Caravan Safari (If you haven’t seen their tongues, they are incredibly long and quite slobbery)
All is well!
This morning, at about 7:15, we had our first opportunity to examine Bai Yun’s newest cub. For the past week or so, Bai Yun has developed a regular habit of leaving the den to get breakfast in her sun room. Today, we took advantage of Bai Yun’s breakfast outing to get our first real look at the cub. The exam lasted only 3 minutes, but in that time our veterinarians were able to determine that the 25-day-old cub is healthy and weighs in at a robust 704 grams (24.8 ounces or 1.55 pounds). For comparison, Yun Zi weighed 1,259 grams (2.8 pounds) at 29 days (see Baby’s First Exam), Zhen Zhen weighed 1,020 grams or 2.2 pounds at 26 days, and Su Lin was 618 grams (22 ounces) at 22 days. The cub was quiet at the outset of the exam, but soon enough gave us a great display of its strong lungs!
Veterinarians were able to do a quick, yet thorough, exam of the cub’s limbs, mouth, ears, and more, and we’re happy to report that everything looks good! While it may be a few more weeks before we know what the cub’s sex is, or whether or not it has webbed toes or a spot on its tail, today was an important step in confirming that this cub has the most important quality that a panda cub can have: good health!
Bai Yun also showed us her best maternal behavior. She began eating her breakfast away from the cub, in the sun room, as usual, when the cub emitted a loud squawk during the exam. Bai Yun made it clear that she wanted to return to the den to be with the cub, so the exam was halted. Her maternal behavior continues to be exemplary and, clearly, she is doing a great job taking care of her latest cub. We are all so lucky to see this amazing mother in action!
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| M'Bari |
We’ve had a lot of interest in an update on the San Diego Zoo’s largest field pair, and since we just passed the three-year anniversary for the two lions here, it seemed like an appropriate time. When I think about the last few years for M’Bari and Etosha, the phrase “smooth sailing” comes to mind (see The Pride of Elephant Odyssey). The last three years with these two have been pretty tranquil. More than anyone, I think that the lions have enjoyed the quiet constants in their lives. At nearly nine years old, much of the playful behaviors of their days at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s Lion Camp have been replaced with more mature endeavors.
M’Bari is a guy who appreciates his routine. As a creature of habit myself, I often feel a kinship with his way of life. His time spent on exhibit involves copious amounts of sleep broken up by the occasional need to eat, drink, or remind all of his adoring fans that he is big and you are in his house. During Nighttime Zoo, our guests get a special treat as he wakes from his slumber to enjoy his evening stroll. His evening routine includes patrolling his territory, calling loudly, and scent marking anything (or anyone) unlucky enough to get in his path.
M’Bari is maintaining much of the great husbandry behaviors he learned as a little guy through daily training sessions. He recently received his necessary vaccinations through a voluntary process in which he places his hip up against the fence to accept an injection. M’Bari is a great student…as long as you remember that he is the KING.
Etosha is definitely my choice for Miss Congeniality. This girl is as sweet as pie! Etosha is always happy to see her keepers, and she is always happy to see food. Her daily training sessions are met with great enthusiasm as she works to get the treats from the bucket to her mouth as quickly as possible. Etosha is also a champion sleeper, but she does take the opportunity to get a rise out of M’Bari from time to time. Particularly just following morning feedings, we see her rambunctious side come out. She stalks slowly toward M’Bari, creeping around the rockwork, and as quickly as her legs will take her, she rushes in and jumps on his back. M’Bari, feeling way too dignified for this kind of play, shuts these sessions down quickly by moving away and giving a little growl.
After three years working with Etosha, I am still amazed at just how well she can read her long-time mate. I often tell guests that we can read M’Bari pretty well, but Etosha can read him like a book. She always knows just how much she can get away with. Whether it be jumping on his back, choosing to lie down right in his spot, or pushing him aside to get to treats, she knows what he will tolerate and when she should lay low.
I would like to invite you all to come by and spend some time with M’Bari and Etosha. Whether you catch a feeding, a quick play session, or silent slumber, you will surely take away a sense of awe and maybe even a reminder to enjoy the quiet constants in your own life.
