{"id":15482,"date":"2020-03-21T12:05:40","date_gmt":"2020-03-21T16:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=15482"},"modified":"2020-04-03T18:00:29","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T22:00:29","slug":"stone-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2020\/03\/21\/stone-zoo\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Care Of Animals At The Stone Zoo During Coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"

The flock of flamingos in the Caribbean Coast exhibit continues their honking and fluttering around regardless of the fact that Zoo New England’s\u00a0Stone Zoo<\/a> announced on March 13 that it would close until at least March 31 to help stem the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re in the middle of courtship right now. Nothing stops that,\u201d says Pete Costello, who oversees zookeepers and the day-to-day care of the animals as assistant curator at the Stoneham facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been closed now a week,\u201d Costello tells me by phone. \u201cIt seems longer. A lot longer. It\u2019s really weird. \u2026. Its really weird to walk around the zoo and be the only one here. … Normally you\u2019re answering questions from guests. But there\u2019s no guests here, so it\u2019s really strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Flamingos<\/a>
Flamingos at Stone Zoo in Stoneham, March 20, 2020. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His animal care crew remains nearly fully staffed, he says, except for a few zoo keepers who have stayed home to care for family members. A new pack of six wolves recently arrived and they\u2019ve been placed in quarantine for three weeks, as is the zoo\u2019s usual practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have pretty high standards of care,\u201d Costello says. \u201cWe\u2019re really not changing anything. All the animals are going on exhibit. The only real change is we\u2019re giving some of the animals more enrichment.\u201d Especially animals animated by guests they see walk by during normal times.<\/p>\n

\"Stone<\/a>
Stone Zoo in Stoneham, March 20, 2020. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cSome of the animals are noticing that there are no guests here,\u201d Costello says. \u201cThey\u2019re super focused when the keepers walk by.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among these are the white-cheeked gibbons. Zoo keepers procured a bubble machine to occupy the apes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did notice the otter looking out into the public area. They\u2019re another species that interacts with the guests a bit,\u201d Costello says. So keepers have been freezing buckets of ice that they toss into the river otter\u2019s pool. Fish are frozen into the middle of the big ice cubes. \u201cSo it gives them a reward when they dig through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Stone<\/a>
Stone Zoo in Stoneham, March 20, 2020. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Can zoo animals catch coronavirus? \u201cWe don\u2019t know,\u201d Costello says. The zoo already has protocols to keep human illnesses from spreading to the zoo\u2019s animals, especially the primates, who can be more susceptible to human ailments. \u201cWe don\u2019t have direct contact with them anyway. \u2026 If a zoo keeper comes in with a cold, they won\u2019t work with primates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are there lessons we can take from our animal cousins to help us get through a crisis?<\/p>\n

\u201cJust kind of deal with the change,\u201d Costello ventures. \u201cDon\u2019t freak out over something you don\u2019t have control over. Very rarely do you see animals hoard. They just use what they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"Stone<\/a>
Stone Zoo in Stoneham, March 20, 2020. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Stone<\/a>
Stone Zoo in Stoneham, March 20, 2020. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Stone<\/a>
Stone Zoo in Stoneham, March 20, 2020. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Stone<\/a>
Stone Zoo in Stoneham, March 20, 2020. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Stone<\/a>
Stone Zoo in Stoneham, March 20, 2020. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Stone<\/a>
Stone Zoo in Stoneham, March 20, 2020. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Stone<\/a>
Stone Zoo in Stoneham, March 20, 2020. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The flock of flamingos in the Caribbean Coast exhibit continues their honking and fluttering around regardless of the fact that Zoo New England’s\u00a0Stone Zoo announced on March 13 that it would close until at least March 31 to help stem the coronavirus. \u201cThey\u2019re in the middle of courtship right now. Nothing stops that,\u201d says Pete […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[706,144,146,145],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15482"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15506,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482\/revisions\/15506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}