Long May They Roam

It’s showtime at the Akron Zoo, and a black crow named Jinx doesn’t disappoint his audience. Jinx swoops to a tree trunk to demonstrate how crows in the wild hide food. He then nudges a piggy bank in front of showgoers who can’t resist his plea. Perhaps the zoo’s most unlikely champion of conservation, Jinx has raised about $22,000 in the past 11 years for the cause.

Jinx is a small yet mighty example of the zoo’s global conservation mission in which every species and staff member plays a part.

Zoo President and CEO Doug Piekarz lays it out. “In the last 40 years, more than 50 percent of the wildlife population has disappeared globally,” he says. “Are we going to lose the rest of the populations, or are we going to rise to the challenge and do something about it?”

The zoo doesn’t take this prospective demise lightly. When visitors pivot their bills toward Jinx’s piggy bank, they can be assured their donations benefit animal rehabilitation at wildlife centers such as the Medina Raptor Center, Lake Metroparks and Arrowhead Reptile Rescue. While not always this direct, the zoo’s 415,000-plus annual visitors are continuously engaged in conservation. For instance, the zoo’s Cans for Corridors recycling raises money to save Brazilian rainforests while its Care for a Critter program gives visitors an opportunity to supply food, medical care, habitat maintenance and conservation support to a species of their choice for a year. Many visitors aren’t aware of all the behind-the-scenes preservation work the zoo does. So the ambitious and constant challenge remains: providing visitors with a rich understanding of how humans and wildlife are intertwined with, rely upon and impact the planet.

Piekarz takes on that challenge. He joined the zoo in 1997 as a general curator and later held three vice president positions before becoming CEO in 2015. The city boy from Clifton, New Jersey, who grew up 14 miles from Manhattan, still carries with him the appreciation for wildlife his Eagle Scout grandfather instilled in him. Piekarz spent almost every weekend and school break of his childhood at his grandfather’s Catskill Mountains cabin. There, Piekarz and his grandfather enjoyed long days outside examining beavers’ dam-building techniques, tracing mammals’ journeys by following their tracks and scat, examining birds through binoculars and identifying frogs.

“I was that weird kid who valued wildlife because of the example my grandfather set for me,” Piekarz says.

It’s that respect for nature he wishes to build in zoo visitors. “I quickly came to understand that not everyone understood the natural world around them,” he says. “As cities built, they pushed nature away. I had a recognition others didn’t have that I could have a role in this thing and teaching about all that is being destroyed.”

Lifesaving Mission

Piekarz lets his passion for wildlife be known by personally taking a stand to save declining species. He recently returned from Washington, D.C., where he lobbied for the protection of sharks. They are killed for their fins, which are used to make a delicacy: shark fin soup. The reduction of the ocean predators is leading to a population explosion of prey and an ecosystem imbalance, he says. He doesn’t expect everyone to go to D.C., but he does think the zoo can call on people to help.

“Our mission is to connect our life to wildlife.We are all part of nature and everything we do has an impact on nature,” says Doug Piekarz, zoo president and CEO.

Before Piekarz took over as CEO, he was vice president of planning and conservation programs for almost five years. He led by example, studying conservation of the Brazil merganser in the rainforest, torrent ducks in the Andes Mountains of Venezuela and white-headed ducks in the south of Spain. Since Piekarz became CEO, he has continued his journey to protect wildlife. To support the African lion in the wild, for instance, the zoo hosts annual Hope for the Wild fundraisers during which Piekarz has spoken about local conservation efforts to save wildlife worldwide.

The zoo, which began as a children’s zoo in the ‘50s, earned accreditation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in 1989. Since then, the zoo strengthened its emphasis on conservation, beginning by donating one percent of every admission ticket to an average of 18 local and global conservation projects each year. In addition to supporting field work, the zoo’s conservation focus includes wildlife protection, research, education and green practices.

Exhibit graphics, interactive play, keeper talks, volunteer roamers and discovery cart activities help involve visitors in every conservation step. For example, visitors can see Humboldt penguins in a habitat mimicking their native Peru. Through a posted sign, they learn about the species’ vulnerabilities caused by ocean pollution and disruptions to their nesting sites. They can later attend Pancakes with Penguins at the zoo to hear about the threats these creatures face. That can lead them on an excursion to Peru with zoo staff to take direct steps — through education outreach and environmentally responsible practices — toward the penguins’ survival.

“It’s all about building opportunity,” Piekarz says.

Alternatively, the zoo shows guests actions to take in their everyday lives. Piekarz explains that in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, islands of plastic garbage roughly the size of Antarctica are destroying fish that digest and die from plastic objects they identify as food. A fish that survives the otherwise fatal meal may end up on dinner plates and transfer toxic chemicals to consumers. Piekarz says that diminishing single-use plastics, which wind up in landfills and oceans, could lessen this progression. The zoo staff participated in Plastic-Free July last month, trying to eliminate single-use plastics in their daily lives.

Good Eggs

When bird-watchers across the Western Hemisphere flock outdoors every December to conduct the Christmas Bird Count, Piekarz is out there with them.

He became a volunteer birder for the National Audubon Society-administered wild bird census in 1998. He spent his first 15 years as the leader of a section monitored by a local Audubon group the zoo partners with for the Christmas Bird Count, where citizen scientists use binoculars to identify birds and count them. The data collected in Akron becomes part of an international census used by conservation biologists who study the long-term health and status of bird populations and devise ways to protect them. The Christmas Bird Count deeply links people to wildlife.

“Once they are in the field and recognize what flew overhead is not just a bird but a turkey vulture or a red-winged hawk, an appreciation comes,” says Doug Piekarz, zoo president and CEO.

Meanwhile, out on Akron city streets in the wee morning hours, a small band of zoo volunteers suited in red reflective vests inspect building windows for bird strikes. Leading the group, Zoo Animal Curator Shane Good guides his fellow volunteers on a Lights Out Akron-Canton mission. Through the local Lights Out chapter, the zoo participates in a national initiative to prevent migratory birds from flying into tall building windows.

Good explains that warblers, woodcocks and other songbirds, which migrate at night to avoid predators, spot their reflections in lit windows. Often coming out of forested areas in Central America, the birds are disoriented amid unfamiliar skyscrapers. They identify what appears to be a way out of a cluster of high-rises and collide into lit windows.

“There’s no reason the 40th floor of a building should have lights on at night,” says Good, pointing out that building operators who turn off their lights save birds critical to the ecosystem and energy costs.

Check out some of the Akron Zoo's conservation efforts here.

During their spring monitoring period, the Lights Out volunteers collected 39 birds that struck downtown Akron buildings between March 15 and June 1. All but one of the birds were found dead. Lights Out uses the data internally and shares it with its partners. The program encourages owners of buildings struck by birds to turn off uplights and lighting on high-level floors. With four buildings now participating in Lights Out, Good hopes to see a decline in bird strikes when the group hits the streets in the fall.

As an existing example of what buildings should do, the zoo’s Barnhardt Family Welcome Center displays decorative decals on its windows to prevent bird strikes. While Lights Out is in its infancy in Akron, Good says its ability to make an immediate impact is not only profound, but clearly tangible.

“This is something we can do,” he says, literally with the flip of a switch.

Pandamonium

As Red Panda Day — Sept. 15 — approaches, Biru isn’t primping for the fanfare he is about to receive from zoo visitors. Chances are, the elusive red panda will be snoozing in his favorite tree hideaway while children cuddle plush toy animals and will likely sport faces painted in his likeness on his day.

Biru, the zoo’s lone red panda, has more than a cameo role in the future of his endangered species. Bred twice before he arrived at the zoo, Biru is part of one of the zoo’s 45 Species Survival Plan programs. The end goal is to release species in human care back to the wild. Before that can happen, a species population requires diversity, the right mix of age, gender and genetics. It also needs a habitat in which it can survive. Enter Wild Animal Keeper Lisa Melnik and the Red Panda Network, one of the programs partially supported by zoo admission.

Melnik joined other wildlife conservationists on a trip to Nepal for the Red Panda Network, a conservation program the zoo partners with to protect 2,000 to 10,000 red pandas and their forest habitat in Nepal.

“When you look at conserving a species, you should begin where you have the largest population of that species remaining and work with that species in the field while working with an assurance population in human care,” Piekarz explains.

The Red Panda Network collaborates with Nepalese participants who serve as forest guardians. They monitor the conditions of the Himalayan foothills, where red pandas live, as well as their population, both of which are declining.

“They’ve become endangered in the wild due to human encroachment and fragmentation of their habitat,” says Melnik, explaining that trees chopped for wood have created a disjointed and sparse environment for the mammals. Coupled with wildlife trade threats, red pandas face an uncertain future.

“People think they are cute and fuzzy and want them as pets or want their fur. Poaching has been happening for a long time, but recently there’s been an uptick,” Melnik says.

To thwart these threats, the Red Panda Network not only keeps watch over the conditions of red pandas’ habitat and numbers in Nepal, but prevents their endangerment through local education. It’s a complicated mission.

“You can’t just go into a remote area and tell people to stop cutting trees and killing animals,” Melnik says.

Instead, the Red Panda Network provides alternatives: nurseries for planting trees needed for wood for infrastructure as well as income, structured pens for livestock to graze outside of forests and stovetops that reduce the amount of wood needed for fuel. To curb poaching, the network’s 70-some forest guardians report findings of traps and wildlife remains to law enforcement.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the world from Nepal, Biru and the education centered on his species’ survival strive to engage zoo visitors in the global movement to save his wild relatives.

“He’s an ambassador, opening people up to learning something about red pandas,” says Lisa Melnik, wild animal keeper. “People begin to realize how much of what we do here affects the environment on the other side of the world.”

Melnik explains how the zoo educates on steps to reduce carbon emissions and climate change. She describes how climate change affects the growth of bamboo, red pandas’ primary food source. A warming climate requires bamboo to grow outside of its natural zone at a higher altitude, forcing the endangered species to move along with it.

“If we educate people about what’s going on there, they will donate to and practice conservation,” Melnik says.

Endangered Zone

Watching Bandar, the zoo’s sole Sumatran tiger, bask in his majestic glory under the sun, visitors begin to grasp just how rare and precious his presence at the zoo is. As few as 400 Sumatran tigers exist in the wild.

“That population could disappear quickly unless we constantly stay on top of threats,” Piekarz says. Poaching, for instance, could slowly eliminate the remaining tigers.

“We may not live in Sumatra, but there are things we can do in the U.S. that affect their habitat,” says Doug Piekarz, zoo president and CEO.

Piekarz offers suggestions. Reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere. Provide support to a nongovernment agency in Sumatra, such as the International Rhino Foundation, working to protect the last few hundred tigers remaining on the Indonesian island. These actions matter — a lot.

Conservation is a process made up of small actions. As the zoo looks to the future, it will continue to seek new opportunities in wildlife and resource conservation and engage its community.

But now, the zoo is focused on protecting endangered species like Bandar and making sure visitors know how dire his situation is. It participates in the Sumatran Tiger Species Survival Plan, which centers on creating an assurance population of tigers in human care to prevent their extinction. The zoo covered its Sumatran tiger exhibit’s windows in May 2015, leaving only tiny holes through which visitors could get a glimpse and understanding of a permanent disappearance of this iconic creature.

“We recognize that it is entirely possible that this species will become extinct in the wild in the very near future,” says Piekarz.

He describes two possible reactions. “Tigers are amazing; nothing I do affects them,” he poses and then offers the reaction he has and hopes zoo visitors will leave with: “Tigers are amazing and they are endangered. What can I do to help them?”