Blog: From Elephant Dung to Salamander DNA – Zoo Science in Action!

How do you teach a camera to tell whether a pygmy hippo is male or female? What’s the best way to move a Critically Endangered fish? Rather than being the openings of a set of bad jokes, these are legitimate questions that have real world conservation or scientific value - and can be effectively answered by zoo science.

The application of science in zoos and aquariums is broad, and vital to how modern-day conservation is carried out. Most of the science in zoos is aimed at informing the care of individuals and species that are housed within them, focused on everything from their nutrition, behaviour and health care to the quality of their environment and beyond. Every part of how we look after animals in zoos can be guided by science and this evidence-based animal care is key to successful conservation in zoos, but there are also many other ways in which science in zoos contributes to wider conservation around the world.

Zoos are uniquely positioned as inspiring places for people to engage with the diversity of the natural world, as well as to learn about this diversity in a more structured, research-focussed way. How can we best conserve species in the wild? How do people feel, and change their behaviours after a zoo visit? These are questions that zoos can answer through research. I personally love this broad application of zoo science and it is important to show these various contributions we make as an active and integral part of global conservation efforts.

A big part of the science we do in zoos involves working with academics and students, and this means that we provide an exciting way for these students to learn and develop research skills and the opportunity to answer so many different questions covering the wide variety of zoo science topics. It would be incredibly difficult for these collaborators to develop so many of these skills without the opportunity to work with zoos, and by providing these opportunities zoos are often the training grounds for conservationists of the future. 

Linking our work in UK zoos and aquariums is an incredibly valuable part of what we do – and research is something we can do to deliver this. We can learn so much from our zoo animals that will directly help with conservation efforts in-situ. Taking Asian elephants at ZSL as an example, we have an active research program that investigates how we can support work by our own conservationists as well as partners in the field.

A key threat to wild elephants is that they are increasingly coming into contact with human populations, with the resulting human-wildlife conflict often resulting in injury or death to both elephants and people. To provide an early warning system as a defence against this, we collected tens of thousands of thermal images of the Whipsnade Zoo elephants and, with colleagues, used these images to train cameras to recognise an elephant at any time of the day - which would then send a warning to local people in an attempt to stop any conflict. This camera training process would not have been possible without zoo support, as collecting the numbers of images needed in-situ would not be feasible. Similarly our elephants have helped to answer conservation questions including how we can use dung samples to extract DNA from wild elephants, whether it’s possible to confidently ID elephant tail hair to combat the illegal wildlife trade and how we can tell the health of elephants from their toenails.

And it isn’t just large mammals in zoos that help us to answer vital science conservation questions. Colleagues at ZSL are building a project to confirm environmental DNA (eDNA) survey methods to detect the presence of Chinese giant salamanders in the wild. Chinese giant salamanders are the largest amphibian species on earth and as a Critically Endangered species in need of conservation, the accuracy of these surveys is incredibly important for guiding their protection and restoration. But how do you most efficiently research whether any proposed method works? Answer: by working with individuals cared for at London Zoo. The conservation zoo became home to a population of the incredible amphibians in 2019, after UK Border Force rescued four from being smuggled into the UK in cereal boxes as part of the illegal wildlife trade. As experts in the species, we gave them a much-needed home, and they in turn are helping their species in the wild through our work.

It is only by working in zoos like London Zoo where we have the winning combination of animals and expertise that it is possible to make these valuable scientific discoveries, with real world conservation applications.

This sort of exciting, zoo-based conservation science is not only happening at ZSL’s conservation Zoos, London and Whipsnade. You will find similar examples happening across the BIAZA membership (and in zoos globally). The research projects are too numerous to mention, but all UK zoos carry out valuable research and so by supporting your local zoo with a visit, you’re also supporting unique and vital science.

- Lewis Rowden, Zoo Research Officer at ZSL and Co-chair BIAZA Research Committee

All blogs reflect the views of their author and are not a reflection of BIAZA's positions.