Zoos, Koalas, Rhinos, and More

San Diego is home to one of the best zoos in the world and I just had my first visit to it. Now, as a student growing up in Washington, D.C. I spent many many days at the National Zoo and became a FONZ (Friends of the National Zoo) in high school. I would go down to the zoo to get behind-the-scenes tours. It was a wonderful experience. At the time, San Diego seemed so very far away on the opposite coast and even though the distance was great, word of it being a special place was common knowledge. It was the only place to see Koalas in the U.S.

Luckily Zoos in our area have worked hard to be conservation leaders and though there is still much controversy about zoos, the folks I have met there are very conservation oriented. For example, the University of Oregon’s Institute of Ecology and Evolution recently invited Candace Williams to talk about her work on white rhinoceros and how their gut flora affects the rhino’s fertility. I had a chance to sit down with Candace during lunch to hear about her work. It was especially interesting to me because I had recently visited Kruger National Park in South Africa and the very rare opportunity to see a mother black rhino and her baby out in the wild. Poaching has devastated the rhino populations throughout their home ranges in Africa and I had read in the paper on the day that I returned that a mother and baby rhino had been killed on the park the day after I saw my rhinos. I don’t know if they were the same, but I was heartbroken to hear the story. So, I am quite happy to hear from anyone working to keep the species going and I am therefore grateful for Candace William’s interests and those of the San Diego Zoo in their work.