Backstage at the Knoxville Zoo

by Adrienne Martini

The alpaca is pissed off. These pony-esque beasties look like a strange combination of a goat and an emu and only get trimmed once a year. Like legions of mothers who take their small boys in for a crew cut every June, zookeeper Pat Parks is also trying to ensure that this alpaca has a comfortable, hair-free hot season. "Feel how soft this is," Pat says, holding out a handful of newly shorn fur. It is downy and feels like a more substantial angora. "We have a woman who collects and spins it," he adds.

The alpaca's summer 'do is a two-person job, one to hold a canvas lead steady while the other trims. Pat, a big, meaty guy, tried to go it alone, armed only with some clippers and a harness. Perhaps the animal is spooked by the gibbons howling in the clinic next door; perhaps Pat thought that the wilting summer heat would take some fight out of this mammal. No such luck. Now a wandering zoo worker holds the reins while the alpaca tries his level best to escape this torture, rolling his eyes and constantly attempting to back out of the restraint. "His brother's easier," Pat assures me.

To be honest, I've long wished to be reincarnated as an animal in the zoo. People bring you food, clean your environment, and, for the most part, leave you alone. Time to just lie on a rock, stare into the distance, and harass a small child every now and again, just to spice things up. But, like most things in life, the action behind the scenes at this idyllic animal wonderland belies my unrealistic fantasy. Keepers do more than simply throw in three squares a day and hose the place down. They are responsible for a variety of not-immediately-obvious tasks, from medical care to enrichment activities, all of which require some cooperation from an animal who rarely understands the purpose behind all of the ruckus. Take, for example, Pat and the highly irritated alpaca.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Tina Thornhill is the woman responsible for sapping the stress out of the animal's (and keeper's) daily lives. Tina is the Knoxville Zoo's animal behaviorist, a position that is less than a year old but has already made great strides in changing and enriching the lives of animals in the zoo. Tina, who is short, slight, personable, and looks like she could wrestle-with-kindness any beast that messed with her, got her start with the marine animals. "It's something I lucked into," she says of the behaviorist position. All of Tina's training has been on the job, working in close proximity with keepers and animals. "We feel like we're making a difference," she says. The difference, however, would probably be completely invisible to those not privy to step behind the fence.

River Otters

The first thing you notice about the otter enclosure is the smell. It's like sticking your face in a box full of fish. The source becomes readily apparent—a white plastic cutting board with neat rows of fish chunks on it, setting on the cement floor. You can see it once you step into the otter's home, behind the exhibit proper. It's a fairly nice little apartment, if you were an otter, with a private pool, a few toys, and some shade—a luxury for these animals that were caught in the wild. And the fishy odor is something an otter would really dig.

It's clear that they do, excitedly pacing behind the wire mesh of their inner sanctum. There's barely room for both Tina and Amy Flew, the otter keeper, much less a nosy reporter, in the otter's home-behind-the-scenes. But we squeeze and I get a first-hand look at the keeper's high-tech training devices.

Amy is holding what looks like a wooden dowel with one end covered in colored electrical tape. What is it, I ask. "It's a stick covered with tape," Amy answers. The target stick is used to help the animal focus all of its attention on one spot by putting its nose on it. Amy puts a whistle in her mouth. Tina has a similar one around her neck. They keep referring to their sound as a bridge, which is shorthand for an auditory reinforcement for the proper execution of a behavior. With the bridge also comes a hunk of fish or a lump of a special blend of ground meat, fully getting the point across that this particular behavior is one that the otter should continue doing.

Maverick is first on deck and he doesn't cotton to the presence of a stranger. He's also, apparently, groggy. "We had to get them out of bed," Amy explains. "Usually they are eager to work but Maverick seems to have a touch of the summer blues." Training continues regardless of crankiness, however. Amy pokes the target stick through the mesh of a cage that has been set up in the enclosure. Maverick starts to move into it but hesitates and looks around. "It's all right, Maverick," she calls. He steps into the cage and presses his nose onto the target. After a second or two, Amy blows the whistle and gives him his treat. This continues. Amy moves Maverick into the cage, turns him around, and gets him to present his paws through the wire mesh so that she can touch them. He complies. She also asks him to roll over, which he does, with a brief hitch to scratch his back on the concrete.

This training, despite appearances, is not a series of circus tricks designed to amuse and entertain paying customers. In fact, the keepers are the only people who ever get to see what the otters have learned. The cage work is designed to get these formerly wild creatures comfortable with the object that brought them from the wild to the zoo, a stressful journey that the otters associate with the cage. Tina and Amy want to make the cage a positive place for the otters to be, which will ease transporting them, should that ever become necessary. Soon, they will start desensitizing the otters' hips by poking them with a fake syringe. Why on earth would they do that? Simply to ensure that the otters can get their vaccinations without having to endure the stress of being knocked out or otherwise immobilized. The paw-touching and roll-over command give Amy a chance to examine their bodies for scratches or other potentially harmful oddities.

Red Pandas

The Knoxville Zoo is number one nationally in breeding red pandas, which look like large, amber, exotic raccoons. No one is really sure why our zoo has had this much success. It might have something to do with the weather. I speculate it's because of Susan Steines, their keeper, whose elastic face breaks into a broad grin when discussing her furry charges.

The pandas know we are coming and run to the back side of their hangar-like cage. Beijing begins to climb the fence, exposing her fuzzy belly and closely examining us. Probably, she is looking for a snack, but she almost seems to look forward to the work that is about to take place.

"We're not undressing," calls Susan as she and Tina step into the enclosure and take off their belts. "We've just learned that the pandas are tricky enough to knock us over when our hands are full." The two thread their belts through another high-tech training device, a travel mug filled with cut-up apple.

The goals for the pandas are slightly different from those of the otters. First and foremost is to train them to not jump all over their keepers in their excitement to get a piece of apple. Second, to teach them to stand on their hind legs so that the keepers can look at their bellies. And third, to get the pandas to station, which is keeper-talk for sitting in a designated place when told to. Stationing makes getting in and out of the animals' enclosure less risky and stressful for both keeper and animal.

Beijing and Max, the adults, have all of this down to a science and run through the series of exercises with ease. The panda pups, however, don't get the whole concept. "They don't quite understand that there is more than one piece of apple in the world and will scramble to get at the next one," Susan relates as she smirks. And getting out of the panda pen is an ordeal. "It looks pretty funny, these big people running away from these small pandas," says Tina. But run they must, lest these kids follow them right out of the door.

Speaking of kids, there is a veritable child-parade past the panda exhibit the whole time the training is occurring. "Look, it's a raccoon!" they scream, and no one takes the time to explain that they're not. "Do they bite?" a couple of kids yell. "Yes," answers Tina as she tries to concentrate on bridging the right behavior. Susan has been bitten quite a few times, usually when distracted during her work with the animals. But it seems impossible not to have half-an-ear cocked to the people yelling from the other side of the fence.

The Macaque

Rich Saudargus, psychology Ph.D. and UTK professor, is Tina's advisor. His work with the zoo started with chimps, which he claims was conceptually the same as child psychology, his specialty. Today he is videotaping Tina to make sure that she and her keepers are working as effectively as possible. He will review the timing of the bridges and the response of the animals. But he's watching more than the animals' behaviors. "Tina also trains the keepers so that they feel more in control of what they do," he says. "Eventually, she will fade out of the picture and the keepers will be on their own."

There has been some resistance around the country to similar programs. These are wild animals, the argument goes, why should we train them just for our convenience? It's not natural for animals to spontaneously produce these behaviors. "Wait a minute," counters Rich. "They're in a zoo. They will have human contact, like it or not. Why not make it nice?"

We're walking to the clinic and have to stop to dip our shoes in a pan of antiseptic, several of which are stationed throughout the building. We're here to see Laurie, a male macaque, a small primate with a distinctive mane, who has just had surgery. The place looks like a bush hospital, all clean steel and linoleum floors, and there is a human-style gurney in the middle of the main room. It is a sterile, bright place that is strangely quiet compared to the rest of the zoo. "You're lucky," Tina tells us. "Most people don't get to see the macaques." They're not currently on exhibit because there is no place to put them.

Laurie's training continues despite his recent operation. Tina and macaque-keeper Peggy O'Neal are teaching him to hold onto a carabiner, a loop of metal that fits around the cage's bars. When he holds onto it, he gets a bridge and a piece of fruit (and looks like a little old man riding the bus). He can grab a carabiner with each hand and foot, exposing his torso for examination.

His dexterity with the carabiners is what put him in the clinic in the first place. A few days ago, Peggy got to have a good long look at his body and noticed something was seriously wrong. One of Laurie's testicles was grossly swollen and, as it turns out, herniated. Had Peggy not had the chance to take this gander, she explains, his testicle could have torqued, putting the macaque's health at serious risk. Her explanation draws grimaces from the men standing around us, but she seems rather nonplused. After all, it is what all of this training is for— just another day at the zoo.