Disney World - The Online Guide -

Passporter WDW 2003
(UK customers)

Animal Programs Team Works to Protect, Propagate and Preserve Animals and Habitats

Whether they are conducting surgery on a tarantula in the veterinary hospital, eavesdropping on elephant conversations on the savannah or tracking rehabilitated sea turtles in the ocean, the Animal Programs team at Walt Disney World Resort is dedicated to providing their professional excellence to animals both at the theme park and in the wild.
Prior to opening Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 1998, Disney assembled a highly experienced team of animal experts, including veterinarians, animal managers, scientists and educators. Today, this Animal Programs team includes about 350 cast members who represent more than 2,500 years of animal care experience at more than 85 accredited zoological institutions. This team is responsible for animals not only at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, but also at The Living Seas at Epcot, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge, and the Tri-Circle-D Ranch at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground.
“We are fortunate to have such an outstanding group of animal experts here at Disney’s Animal Kingdom,” said Dr. Beth Stevens, vice president of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. “Over the past five years, we have reached many significant hallmarks in our work with animals at the Walt Disney World Resort and in the wild. The more we learn about animals and their environments, the better decisions we can make to protect them.”
Science at Disney’s Animal Kingdom
The scientific efforts of Disney’s Animal Programs focus on a variety of topics including communication, behavior, reproduction and conservation.
One of the most fascinating discoveries involves Disney’s Animal Kingdom elephant herd, which is the largest group of African elephants living together in North America. Scientists have been studying the vocalization patterns of the elephants for the past two years to examine how elephants communicate physiological and behavioral states to one another.
Because many elephant vocalizations occur at a frequency that is below the range of human hearing, Animal Programs scientists worked with Disney Ride and Show Engineering to create special collars that record both audible and infrasonic elephant vocalizations. While these vocalizations are being recorded, scientists videotape the behavior of the elephants and work to match the animals’ behavior to the audio recordings to examine the meanings of the elephants’ vocalizations.
One of the discoveries that Animal Programs’ scientists have made is that females tend to vocalize with more frequency and fervor about 21 days before they go into estrus. Because elephants live in matriarchal societies, where the males live separately from the females the majority of the time, these vocalizations may serve to signal the males to begin the journey toward the females during this critical time.
Field Research
Beyond work at Walt Disney World Resort, the staff leads and participates in many field efforts. Currently programs are underway in Colombia, Guam, South Africa and Florida. Disney professionals travel to these destinations to work with other conservationists and the local communities in an effort to help wild animals and wild places thrive.
For example, Dr. Anne Savage -- Disney’s conservation biologist -- is working with Research Associate Humberto Giraldo to save cotton-top tamarins, an endangered species of monkey found only in northwest Colombia. Through a Disney-funded program called Proyecto Tití, she is working with other scientists to study all aspects of cotton-top tamarins including their reproductive biology, social behavior, parental care and the habitat in which they live.
The two biggest threats to cotton-top tamarins are long-term habitat destruction and capture for the local pet trade. To help counteract these two factors, Dr. Savage has developed community programs to help raise awareness of cotton-top tamarins in Colombia and to find ways to preserve the habitat. The program is designed to work with local communities to develop feasible alternatives to habitat destruction and to discourage capturing animals for the pet trade. For example, the Proyecto Tití team developed bindés, small cook stoves made from clay, that significantly reduce the amount of wood that is burned for cooking. Instead of burning 15 logs a day, a family burns only five logs daily using a bindé to cook their food, thus helping to save the local forests.
Closer to home, scientists are exploring sea turtle nesting habits and hatchlings. Near Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, staff from Disney’s Animal Programs team, along with cast members from the resort, are working with the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to study sea turtles. Every morning, they scour the beaches for turtle tracks. They mark nests and collect data including the depth of nests and number of eggs. And, of course, they help protect hatchlings.
Another project focuses on the movement patterns of juvenile sea turtles. Disney’s Animal Kingdom and the team at The Living Seas at Epcot is again collaborating with the University of Florida, the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to utilize advances in technology to track young sea turtles. Since 2001, the group has been working to design and test satellite transmitters on sea turtles and is getting closer to finding a design that will stand up to the exposure and help produce long-term data.
Similarly, Disney’s Animal Kingdom and The Living Seas teams are working with the Manatee Rehabilitation Partnership to track manatees that have been rehabilitated at The Living Seas and released back into the wild. The tracking devices help scientists monitor manatee movements and health to determine their progress after release.
Rapid Response Teams
When possible, the Animal Programs team offers assistance for conservation emergencies around the world. For example, when the crash of an oil tanker off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, put a flock of highly endangered African penguins in severe peril, the team took part in a worldwide effort with other animal specialists to save the oil-drenched birds. They assisted in washing the oil from the feathers of each penguin, conducted blood tests, and provided vaccinations to better ensure the overall health of the birds. Overall, about 50 percent of the total flock of about 20,000 birds were cleaned and rehabilitated.
The Animal Programs team also responded when thousands of endangered turtles were confiscated in Hong Kong after they had been illegally captured as food items. Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Living Seas’ staff members joined other zoo professionals in Port St. Lucie, Fla., to evaluate and treat every turtle before it was sent to a permanent facility.
Managed Breeding Programs
Disney’s Animal Kingdom is home to 33 species that are listed as endangered or threatened. The facility participates in internationally cooperative breeding programs that take responsible, strategic measures to increase animal populations through captive propagation. These programs are important to maintain healthy populations of these endangered species. Since the park opened, more than 116 species have reproduced at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Some of the endangered species that have had successful births since the opening include mandrills, lowland gorillas, black rhinos, white rhinos and okapi.
Animal Enrichment and Training
To ensure a safe and healthy environment for the animal care staff, veterinarians and the animals, the team at Disney’s Animal Kingdom focuses much of their time on training animals to be comfortable with the routine medical care they receive. The animal care staff uses conditioning techniques to train the animals to voluntarily cooperate with their own medical and husbandary care.
For example, blood samples for elephants are taken from the large veins in the elephants’ ears. Elephants are trained to extend their ears to the animal care staff veterinarians, making the procedure much safer and without stress for the animals. Similarly, lions and tigers are trained to open their mouths wide for examination of their teeth, gorillas extend their arms for vaccinations, and even the storks step on scales so keepers can track their weight over time.
The animal care team also conditions the animals to return to their barns at night when hearing a specific sound cue. The team has accomplished feats of training that many thought impossible, including training tarantulas to shift into a separate habitat, and training bats to respond to a signal to go into their backstage areas at night.
Animal Enrichment
Another critical aspect of animal care is enrichment. Enrichment means encouraging natural behaviors by providing incentives for animals to make choices, be active and explore. This can be accomplished with the design of habitats, introduction of new landscape items, toys and unique scents.
For example, the tigers’ favorite scent is inexpensive perfume. By occasionally spraying this perfume in the tigers’ habitat, exploration and marking behavior is encouraged. Large plastic balls encourage the tigers to “hunt.” Natural foraging behavior in our cotton-top tamarins is encouraged by presenting their food in a “puzzle feeder.” Fruit-eating bats are given “bat-kabobs” made of fruit, and white rhinos are provided with mud wallows so they can mud bathe.
Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund
Through the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund (DWCF), guests visiting Disney’s Animal Kingdom, The Living Seas at Epcot, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge or Disney Cruise Line have the opportunity to join the Animal Programs team to help protect wildlife and wild places around the world. The DWCF is a global awards program that funds non-profit conservation focused on endangered animals and their habitats. Annual applications are issued to respected conservation and education organizations and are reviewed by a dedicated committee of scientists, educators, veterinarians and other professionals.
The fund was established in 1995 -- the year Disney’s Animal Kingdom was announced. In 1998, it grew to allow guests to “Add A Dollar” at designated shops and locations. One hundred percent of all guest contributions go directly to non-profit organizations and are matched by Disney. Since 1995, DWCF has devoted more than $6 million to conservation efforts and has funded more than 230 projects.

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