What's New at the Zoo?

SCBI scientists work to predict the next emerging infectious disease

Pete Marra, an SCBI scientists, is helping launch an Animal Mortality Monitoring Program (AMMP) in Africa sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development that will alert authorities to animal deaths—“mortality events”—that occur on a larger-than-normal scale. Known as AMMP, the network is intended to serve as an early warning system for emerging infectious diseases that can pass from animal populations into the human population. Recently, Marra and his collaborator Isabelle-Anne Bisson, a research associate at the Migratory Bird Center, took a few minutes to answer some questions about this new initiative.

Ambika, our grand dame, has always been the most social of our elephants and much of her entertainment involves her interactions with the other elephants and the keepers. Some people would assume that because she is now 64 years old (the third oldest elephant in North America!) that she would be exhibiting all these obviously geriatric elephant behaviors, but that is just not the case. We, as her keepers, are treating her differently because we are mindful of the particular issues that can come up as elephants age but I don’t think Ambika is acting significantly different than she did 30 years ago.

Starting Jan. 30, teams of frontline staff from tiger reserves in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, China and Russia will be in Nepal learning from SCBI and partners how to adapt their conservation strategies to combat poaching, prevent tiger parts from entering the stream of commerce and other threats to tigers.

Having grown up in San Diego, Sumatran tiger Damai is experiencing her first real winter this year.