Illustration by Jessica Dunham
Most people think of the Cincinnati Zoo as simply a place that houses animals. Behind the scenes, though, hundreds of people are part of ongoing wildlife rescue, rehabilitation, and repopulation efforts through the CREW labs, international partnerships, or even collaboration with local fish and wildlife services.
Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership
Since 1999, the Cincinnati Zoo has been an active participant in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership (MRP). In fact, Manatee Springs was built specifically for the program. Initially, only two facilities outside of Florida participated (the Columbus Zoo was the other). However, in 2021, colder-than-normal temperatures killed seagrass, starving and killing more than 1,000 manatees. After the unusual mortality event, a couple more aquariums joined the program.
All manatees at the zoo are temporary guests. When the MRP finds undersized orphan calves in Floridian waters they’re sent to an in-state critical care facility before making the trip to Cincinnati in custom-built containers via DHL plane for rehabilitation.
“When we get them, they’re youngsters who have just finished being bottle-fed and they’re not big enough,” says Kim Scott, the zoo’s curator of mammals. “One of the release requirements is that they have to be at least 600 pounds—when we get them, they can be anywhere from 200 to 300 pounds. Our sole job in the year that we have them is to get them to at least 600 pounds.”
After a year of feeding and monitoring, the gentle giants are flown back to their native waters, where they’re tagged and released. As of this month, 32 manatees have been rehabbed by the Cincinnati Zoo. You can follow the releasees online through the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute’s satellite tracking program, and maybe even run into them in the wild.
“We have one particular curator here who visits Florida annually and we’re all like ‘Did you see anybody we know?’ ” says Scott. “If you see a buoy attached to a manatee, there’s a probability that it could be one of ours.”
USFWS Partnership and American Burying Beetle Reintroduction Program
Entomologists at the zoo don’t just take care of the bugs on display—they also help maintain ecological balance through insect containment and repopulation.
To stop the spread of the exotic pet trade, USFWS has been partnering with the zoo to take in trafficked animals confiscated at CVG and the Louisville airport. Some of these contraband creatures can be seen by visitors—like the Hercules beetles, Indian star tortoises, and armadillo lizards. According to Winton Ray, curator of ectotherms, mantises are the animals they get most often.
Photograph by Mark Dumont
“They send these [mantis egg] cases to us and we set them up, they hatch out, and then we raise the offspring and find other homes so they’re supporting new populations,” says Ray. “You just want the animal to have a positive outcome. Many times, animals that are illegally shipped end up suffering or dying. When we get a chance to support animals that have been confiscated, the first and most important thing is getting them healthy and seeing what they need to have a good living experience.”
Ray and the World of the Insect team also work with nonprofit safari park The Wilds to repopulate and reestablish the American burying beetle population of Ohio. These insects are vital to decomposition in our local environment, but the species has been eradicated from 90 percent of its original range. That’s why the insect team has a lab specially dedicated to the care and breeding of these beetles.
“We go to Nebraska every June and collect them and then we’re breeding them two to three times over the course of the next 12 months,” says Ray. “It’s the offspring we’re taking back and releasing in Ohio. [On June 17,] we released more than 400 American burying beetles that were bred at the Cincinnati Zoo, transported them up, and released them onto The Wilds property…it’s really special when you get to do conservation essentially in your own backyard.”
Bald Eagles
Since the 1970s, the zoo has been working with the USFWS to help with the rescue and conservation of bald eagles—including housing a few. The open-topped habitat outside the Reptile House was built specially for eagles with wing injuries that would make it difficult to survive in the wild.
“We received four different birds from four different facilities over the course of a couple years,” says Jenny Gainer, curator of birds and African animals. “Irene had a fractured right wing that didn’t heal properly. We have another female named Carla, she had a dislocated left elbow joint that never healed properly. Klaus had an injury to his right carpal. Our fourth bird, Griffin, also had a wing injury that didn’t heal properly.”
Photograph by Lisa Hubbard
Outside the habitat, the zoo has been a supporter and partner of RAPTOR Inc., a local nonprofit dedicated to the conservation of raptors and other birds of prey, for more than 15 years. Luckily, there is less work to do in the preservation of the species, as bald eagle populations have steadily increased over the last 40 years thanks to the hard work of conservation groups—including the zoo.
“In 1979, when they were on the endangered species list, there were only four recorded nests in Ohio,” says Gainer. “Currently, there are 946 active nests, and it was a huge collaborative effort. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, we bred bald eagles for that release program, and it’s just a cool story that we don’t have to do that any longer.”
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