Sun, Aug 03, 2014 page7

• Staten Island Zoo banks on obscure animals

  • NY Times News Service
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  In a city where lions, tigers and bears are only a subway ride away, the Staten Island Zoo is betting on the binturong.

  Founded in 1933, the zoo is the only one of New York City’s six animal parks not under the auspices of the internationally regarded Wildlife Conservation Society.

  Also, with only 3.2 hectares, the zoo has in recent years decided to pursue the allure of obscurity by obtaining some of the more diminutive and lesser-known members of the animal kingdom.

  “The nickname for the Staten Island Zoo is ‘New York’s biggest little zoo,’ and we’re actually trying to define that,” said Marc Valitutto, the zoo’s general curator and chief veterinarian. “We are bringing in the biggest of the small animals in order to offer something that is new and different.”

  Since taking over as zoo curator two years ago, Valitutto has brought in such animals as Patagonian cavies, a cassowary and a capybara, more than doubling the facility’s collection of animals to 1,500.

  Valitutto, who grew up nearby and volunteered at the zoo as a teenager, has also turned to a new way of raising money — the crowdfunding Web site Indiegogo.

  In his quest for the cassowary, a very large, odd-looking bird that some say resembles a dinosaur, Valitutto raised US$9,000 on the site last fall; he bought the year-old, 27kg bird in May.

  “People were donating US$10 to US$200,” he said. “Another zoo donated money because they loved what we were doing. The Dallas World Aquarium sent us a couple thousand dollars. It was like: ‘Here, go get your cassowary.’”

  The second-largest bird in the world after the ostrich, cassowaries can grow to 72kg and have large, wedge-shaped crests, or casques, on top of their heads.

  With a sharp, 15cm claw protruding from each leg, the bird is known for its fighting prowess. Although it can attack humans and dogs, it mostly tussles with other cassowaries.

  With the acquisition of the bird, the zoo can now claim the four largest avian animals on the planet: two ostriches (native to Africa), the cassowary (Australia and New Guinea), a rhea (South America) and an emu (Australia).

  The zoo also has three of the world’s four largest rodents, including the Patagonian cavy, a sweet-tempered mammal that looks like a cross between a jackrabbit and a dog. (There are two adults on display and two babies in the nursery.)

  Also, the zoo has three of the world’s four largest tortoise species, including recently acquired Galapagos tortoises. In a few months, a Burmese mountain tortoise is to join the group. The Burmese tortoise competes with the leopard tortoise, already at the zoo, for fourth place in terms of size.

  The new focus has paid off. The number of visitors rose to 177,000 this fiscal year, from 154,000 in 2011.

  “These animals are small enough for our zoo, but large enough to excite people,” Valitutto said. “If we cannot specialize in big ‘wow’ animals, we are going to specialize in the small ‘wow’ animals. Then visitors will say: ‘I have never heard of this,’ and will want to learn more.”

  Until the 1980s, the Staten Island Zoo did, in fact, own traditional zoo animals. There was even a chimpanzee in the mix.

  However, as the zoo, like many in the US, started to modernize its exhibits, replacing cages with more naturalistic habitats, the board of trustees decided to dispense with the largest animals; homes for them were found at other zoos.

  A few larger specimens remain — a pair of Amur leopards and a troop of kangaroos.

  Recruiting Valitutto, 33, was a way to inject some youthful energy into the zoo, on a street with large shade trees and gracious houses.

  Valitutto was fascinated by wildlife at a young age, researching animals and committing facts to memory the way some boys digest sports statistics.

  “This was my hometown zoo,” he said. “My family is right around the corner. We were members here, but we went to all the zoos.”

  By age 19, he was working at the zoo’s camp as a science instructor. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school, he trained at the Bronx Zoo and then worked at the National Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, outside Washington.

  Brainy and boyish-looking, Valitutto is as comfortable on the set of the Today show with C.C. — a two-toed sloth — as he is expounding on the zoo’s baby tamandua, a lesser anteater native to Central America.

  “We are the first zoo to breed one [of the anteaters] in the New York area,” he said.

  The zoo acquired a 2-month-old binturong, or bearcat, native to Southeast Asia in early July. For the moment, the animal, named Onyx, is being reared by Valitutto.

  On weekdays, she stays in his office in a clear plastic bin, her tiny, inquisitive face pointed upward; at night and on weekends, she goes home to his apartment, where he bottle-feeds her.

  “They are in the same order as cats, dogs and bears and can weigh up to 60 pounds [27kg],” he said. “They are so uncommon in captivity that we want people to get to know them.”
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Jeers as Real Madrid fall 2-1 to Man City

  • 2

    Taiwanese tourists go viral in video during Japan quake

  • 3

    Climber to attempt free solo of 101

  • 4

    YouBike to require insurance for all riders from Jan. 1

  • 5

    US military might ‘waning,’ editorial says