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| home> conservation & research> zoo atlanta around the world> south america> free-ranging | |||
| Free-Ranging at the Zoo | |||
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The main purposes of the golden lion tamarin free-ranging program are:
The "Monkey Island" Free-Ranging Site: A special site in the Orkin's Children's Zoo at Zoo Atlanta offers zoo-born tamarins a place to free range like wild tamarins--a place to find food and water, to orient themselves among the thick leaves, and to move among the trees using the aerial rope pathways in a wooded area. The free-ranging exhibit has no cage walls or barriers. It is completely open to the rest of the Zoo. From about May through September each year, a new group of tamarins is released into the site. Free-Ranging: Living in the wild obviously presents more complicated problems than living in captivity. Food does not appear on a regular basis neatly chopped and in a bowl. In the wild, GLTs use their long, slender fingers and hands to probe into small holes and crevices. Captive animals do this quite naturally, but at a lower frequency than wild animals. In the free-ranging exhibit, food is presented in a variety of ways to encourage exploration of the environment. It may be hidden in tree crevices or special feeders to increase the amount of time spent foraging and probing for food.
The wild environment is much more complex and hazardous than any zoo exhibit ever could be. A major finding from the first set of 13 tamarins released was that zoo-born animals were very reluctant to use slender vegetation that bent and swayed. They also had place to another. They did not seem able to plan out a complicated route to get to a food source. The free-ranging exhibit in Orkin's Children's Zoo offers layers of complexity to the animal's environment and branches that bend and sway under their weight. A highway system of ropes simulates a forest network of branches and vines that wild tamarins follow from tree to tree in search of food. To encourage the tamarins to find new places to eat and new ways to return to the nest box or indoor exhibit, the staff changes where food is hidden. Data Collection: The tamarins are observed and their behavior is recorded by interns. Data Collection is important to the free-ranging program for many reasons. Primarily, it helps us to better understand the behavior of golden lion tamarins. It enables us to compare the behavior of zoo-born GLTs with that of wild-born, and re-introduced animals. It also helps researchers to see the changes in the behavior of the free-ranging group throughout the season and it allows us to compare the data with groups from years past. Finally, in the event of a reintroduction, at the end of the season, researchers and animal care staff would use the data to assess each group's abilities and determine their fitness for reintroduction. |
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