How does the National Zoo differ from other zoos?
One of the great things about the Smithsonian is all of our different resources and levels of expertise. Not every zoo has a pathologist, or nutritionist or the level of keeper training that this zoo has. The standard of animal care that we provide is excellent, so I think that, along with the ability to contribute to science and conservation, is what really sets us apart. We use what we learn to take care of animals here and to learn how to manage animals in the wild. We have a lot of conservation programs where we use information from the wild to help manage animals here. We have a project in Kenya looking at kori bustards, the largest flighted bird. In captivity, we found that they have a high instance of liver disease, of hemochromatosis, which is the storing of iron in the liver. We studied what they’re eating in the wild, collected blood samples, analyzed that for iron and then compared to what we do in captivity. We learned that they’re not eating much meat in the wild. They’re
