The Coati Comeback: Brevard Zoo’s Breeding Success

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:00:00] So Peter, when I say the word island, what exactly do you picture? [00:00:04]

Peter Gros: [00:00:05] Well, I immediately think of a white sand beach and palm trees in the Caribbean or maybe a rock covered in seals on the Channel Islands off the coast of California. [00:00:13]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:00:15] Well, of course, that's what anyone would think. But I recently traveled to a very different type of island. In the middle of the southern Arizona desert, there's a moisture-rich mountain range called the Sky Islands. And when I was there, I got to see 1,000-year-old petroglyphs carved into stones by indigenous people. And they looked a lot like a cute cousin of the raccoon called the kawaii. [00:00:38]

Janine Hernbrode: [00:00:39] We know that these people had special relationships with animals, and they put the images of the animals that were important to them on the rocks as part of their religious experience. [00:00:53]

Peter Gros: [00:00:56] Today, we'll take a deeper look at the coati, which due to habitat loss has become increasingly rare in the United States. We'll also learn about the people who are working to protect this species' future. I'm Peter Gross, wildlife expert and educator. [00:01:11]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:01:12] And I'm wildlife ecologist, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant. And this is Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, The Podcast. Episode 8, The Coati Comeback, Brevard Zoo's Breeding Success. [00:01:24]

Peter Gros: [00:01:35] While you were trekking through the sky islands in search of ancient art and wild coatis, I had a chance to play with some baby coatis. They scrambled all over my arms, up around my neck, played in my hair and came back down and I tried to corral them in my hands. This was quite an experience. But I don't want to ever suggest because you saw me playing with these animals that had to have a medical checkup that they would ever make a good pet. No endangered exotic animal should ever be considered as a pet. [00:02:03]

Lauren Hinson: [00:02:04] They're just balls of chaos, so we knew it might be a challenge just to contain them, to keep them actually on camera. [00:02:12]

Peter Gros: [00:02:13] Lauren Hinson is the Director of Animal Programs at the Brevard Zoo and was instrumental in bringing these babies into the world. [00:02:20]

Lauren Hinson: [00:02:21] They're just curious and like to get into everything. So, okay, we're going to climb on your head and we're going to jump all over you, and we are going to try and get off the table. So, it turns very chaotic very quickly. [00:02:36]

Peter Gros: [00:02:37] These eight baby coatis were not only incredibly adorable, they were a conservation success story. For years, the Brevard Zoo in Florida had tried unsuccessfully to breed coatis in hopes of growing the population so that the people in the US, who would likely never get to see one in the wild, would be able to learn about these animals. [00:02:58]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:02:59] For seven years, not a single kawaii was born in a North American zoo. But finally, through years of trial and error and close observation, Lauren and her team figured out the exact combination of variables that coatis need to produce healthy offspring. I got into that and a whole lot more when I had the chance to talk with Lauren recently. How would you describe coati, per your expertise, to someone who's never even. [00:03:26]

Lauren Hinson: [00:03:27] And seen one? I think the easiest definition that we use when we're talking to guests is a South American raccoon. Okay, and why is that? They've got that similar face and the long nose and their hands that they can kind of manipulate things with their good climbers, they're very resourceful, they're omnivores, like they're looking for anything that they could get those little hands on to eat fish, bugs, plants, grass. Like all of that type of stuff. So, everyone knows what a raccoon is. So, it's easy to relate. Yeah, no, that's a good one. And they're fairly similar in size to a racoon. Their coloration is much different. They're more on the red, brown, and they have the white marks on their face, which raccoons kind of have the black marks on their face. But you know, as far as their coats and the size, they're pretty similar. Okay, but my favorite part about coatis is these cool tails. They use their tails to follow each other when they're traveling in large groups. So that tail is straight up in the air and their tail is very beneficial for them for climbing. They're able to climb actually straight up and straight down trees. So, their feet can actually move around 180 degrees so that they can. Go straight down whereas you know you know what happens when a cat goes up a tree and then they can't get down. Coatis can just go face down perfectly comfortably. So, we love them. [00:05:01]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:05:01] And, you know, the Brevard Zoo and many other facilities are working hard to protect them. Are coatis an endangered species? And what are some of their biggest threats these days? [00:05:12]

Lauren Hinson: [00:05:13] They're not listed as an endangered species overall, but it depends on where you're looking. So, there's some pockets where coatis no longer exist because there's been so much human encroachment and it's kind of driven them out of that habitat. And then there's other areas where coatis are everywhere. Like people will tell you, they went to Costa Rica, and they see them walking next to the restaurant. And it's a really common occurrence. And then you look at the United States and you've got this very small population, and it isn't really sustainable and most likely, as humans continue to populate and grow those areas, they will get pushed farther and farther out of that space. So, they may not be considered, you know, an endangered species, but they're a species that's had lots of ups and downs and declines and have been lost from specific ranges where they had historically been. So, I think we look at overall wanting to just conserve and make people aware that this species does exist and is important and provide that education so people just know what's out there. Yeah. [00:06:28]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:06:29] And Peter had this bunch of kits at the Brevard Zoo. Tell me about these kits, like how old were they when we filmed and what is their future gonna look like? [00:06:40]

Lauren Hinson: [00:06:42] At the time that we filmed, I believe they're only about seven weeks old. And they had, you know, spent the first three or four weeks just in a nest box with their mom, not ventured out much. And then in those last few weeks before the filming is when they started to be really, really active. They were just figuring out they were coatis and how to do all the things that coati do, like dig and. Carry around rocks and climb and very active. So right now, they're about eight months old and they're still together and they are doing great, super active and have grown. And it's time now for us to look at what their future is. I've actually just been spending this week working on figuring out where all these little guys are gonna go and. Who they might be set up with later so that they can breed themselves so we can keep increasing the population. [00:07:38]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:07:39] Is part of the goal to release some of those qualities that you all breed back into the wild or do they all stay at? [00:07:46]

Lauren Hinson: [00:07:47] The Brevard Zoo? The goal is not to release them into the wild unless there were extenuating circumstances and that was needed, which we've seen happen before in the past with like scimitar horned oryx and animals that have almost gone extinct or have gone extinct. This is like the buffer population in case something like that were to happen. But as far as now, we don't keep all the animals at Brevard. We go through the process, reproduction, kits, and then... Look at the genetics and figure out where they can go. So if zoos want to really be a part of the breeding program, then we'll look at those zoos and give them individuals that they can start their own breeding program with at their zoo, but it's still part of a bigger population. [00:08:32]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:08:34] Wow, okay. And I heard you say that this is the buffer population. So you all are breeding them so that they're strong and healthy and just as like insurance, right? For in case anything, God forbid, goes wrong in the wild. [00:08:48]

Lauren Hinson: [00:08:49] Yeah, insurance and also making sure that we have animals in human care, because if people don't get the opportunity to be up close and understand animals, they don't necessarily know to work on things to conserve them in their natural range. So I think having kawadis in zoos, and like most of the other animals we have in zoons, it's really to connect people with nature so that they want to help conserve. Spaces and work on some of those things so that koalas do have a space for a wild population. [00:09:23]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:09:25] In addition to all of Lauren's responsibilities at the zoo, she's also in charge of tracking the lineage and location of all the coatis housed in all American zoos. This stud book, as it's known, helps her essentially run a dating site for the kawaadi breeding program, and it hasn't been easy to achieve success. [00:09:44]

Lauren Hinson: [00:09:45] Yeah, the challenges are big. So we hadn't had any births in a North American zoo in AZA in seven years, which was huge. And that's why the population had started to decline. But you're looking at a species that, you know, reproductively from ages three to eight, that's all you have. It's just a short window. Another big thing that we have come to figure out is that somewhere along the line, we started. Housing these animals different from what their natural history is. So in their native range there are large groups of females called in bands and they are mothers with their offspring and the males are coming in seasonally to breed with them and then the males go off. But in human care we had started to them more in pairs, so just a male and a female. Which doesn't necessarily do what they need for that natural history. They tend to react in what we call like a sibling syndrome and they don't do some of the behaviors that they should be doing because it's not natural. [00:10:56]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:10:57] He was realizing that the coatis would have a better chance of breeding if they housed the female coatis all together in a pack, just like in the wild, and then brought the male in during mating season. [00:11:09]

Lauren Hinson: [00:11:10] And we just happened at Brevard, we were invested in the species, but we also had a silent donor that offered some funds to build more habitat space. So we ended up building a Kuwaiti complex, and it's connected with tunnels, and then we have other areas where Kuwaitis could go. So we had the ability to say, hey, we could have actually a large group, and we could the mail and we can do this and see what happens and saw that it was successful. [00:11:39]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:11:40] Even once they had the infrastructure, it wasn't guaranteed to be a successful pregnancy. They had to monitor the female constantly, but at the same time, be mindful not to get [00:11:50]

Lauren Hinson: [00:11:51] her way. I don't think we slept for weeks checking overnight to make sure that everything was okay, making sure that the nesting material was right, it was quiet, there was enough heat, the cameras were working, that the females you know weren't stressed, they had enough food, there are things that can go wrong and you know we put everything into that. It feels like it was lifetime ago and now we're going to start setting up for them to breed again. I think we learned a ton from 24-7 monitoring them, which isn't always easy. And we went through lots of trials, because they would pull the camera out of the nest box every time they got an opportunity, or they would move it, or smear something across it. And then we couldn't see, and we had to try and get back in there and adjust it. Being able to have those observations of them, just 24-7, to watch what they do was huge for us. And now we feel a lot more confident going into it the next time. But yeah, lots of work. I mean, there were endless amount of things that tried to go wrong that we could get a handle on. And then the next thing would come up and we would get a hand on it. And then next thing we come up including a hurricane. Yes, hurricanes, you know, we had during Milton who came through this year. You know, I slept at the hospital, and that's a hurricane-proof building for our ride-out crew. So then we can check first thing in the morning when it's safe to do so, make sure animals are, one, where they need to be, but everyone is also safe and there's no major damage. I could talk forever about how many things that we went through to like, but there was no way we were not going to force these animals to do well and survive. [00:13:38]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:13:39] Well, congratulations, Lauren, and your team. Congratulations for this huge success. So I'm a bear biologist, and in my research life, I will handle bear cubs and give them a checkup and whatnot and then return them to their mother. But a question I get a lot is, how does the mom deal with a human scent deposited onto her babies? Is that a problem or not? And I'm kind of curious, in the case of whether it's your zookeepers that you manage or, you know, special guests like me or Peter at the zoo. Does handling the kawaii kits do anything negative when it comes to their relationship with their mom? [00:14:20]

Lauren Hinson: [00:14:20] There is instances of coatis in particular who will end up hurting their young when they get stressed or they feel some stress response from interaction with humans. So we would wear gloves and we'd make sure that we would shift mom to another stall and then we would take the babies and weigh them, make sure they looked okay and then put them right back and kind of rub some of the hay and stuff from the nest box on them. So at that point, they were completely acclimated to being a coati but also understanding how to deal with humans, which is really the perfect situation for them because they're calm, but they're not to the point where they're hand raised. [00:15:04]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:15:04] Cool. That was yeah, I was kind of curious about that. So in our episode with kawadis and Peter has all these little kids They make this like kind of like a squealing sound. I would describe it Does that mean something specific or is that how they communicate throughout their life? Yeah, they have [00:15:24]

Lauren Hinson: [00:15:25] have a big repertoire of vocal communications. So when they were doing those little squeaks, they're just curious and responding to what's around them. When they're upset, it changes and it's a little bit different. When you're talking to each other, they communicate in a different way. So it's really interesting and there hasn't been a ton of research on coati vocalizations, but there is a lot of them. That we can relate to different instances, like when we're doing introductions and they're communicating with each other, or when the kids would get upset if they thought they were separated from their mom or something, and they would call to her. We have an idea of what those mean. [00:16:10]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:16:11] What do you think the future looks like for kawadis? Do you think we're looking at a positive, hopeful future for them? [00:16:17]

Lauren Hinson: [00:16:18] Yeah, I do. I've been managing the program since 2018, I think, and this is the first time that I actually feel positive about the program. For a couple of reasons, obviously the kits were born, so we had successful breeding from two different females, but also we actually worked through doing some imports from Mexico for new genes to come into the pool for breeding. So we've got. Pairs set up not just here at Brevard but at other zoos that are going to also put in that effort to really try and get them to breed and breed successfully. Awesome. [00:16:58]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:16:58] Went looking for coatties in the wild. And, you know, we were hot on the trail of wild coattie, but we didn't see them. And although I was disappointed kind of for selfish reasons, I knew that that was actually a good thing, right? Coatties don't need to be seen to be doing well. And I had a sense that just with the people I know working in conservation, to help them thrive that it's probably just gonna get better day by day. And you can't say that for every species, but that's also what I believe, Lauren. And so what would you say to people who want to help protect Kauati habitat, support Kauai conservation, what are some things that they can do? [00:17:42]

Lauren Hinson: [00:17:43] Some of the things are just supporting your local zoos. The people that have those connections and are sending resources to those organizations or those peoples that are boots on the ground. It can be as simple as that. [00:17:56]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:17:57] Lauren, you are a hero of co-odies, and it has just been wonderful, wonderful to speak with you today. [00:18:03]

Lauren Hinson: [00:18:04] Thank you so much for having me. I do really appreciate being able to be a part of this podcast. [00:18:10]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:18:15] Now it's time for conservation connection. Just like today's guest, Lauren Hinson talked about, the more we can connect with animals, the more likely we are to protect them. So today, we're bringing you the story of a bird that came back from the brink of extinction. [00:18:30]

Peter Gros: [00:18:31] Here's Lisa Faust, Senior Director of Population Ecology at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo talking about the Puerto Rican Parrot, which once numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Today, the species is critically endangered. But thanks to efforts of people like Lisa, their numbers are rising. [00:18:49]

Lisa Faust: [00:18:50] So this is a beautiful parrot that's only found now on the island of Puerto Rico, kind of medium sized. It's right green and then has beautiful blue and gold kind of accents on the under feathers. It's a species that really relies on rainforest. They need these large empty cavities in old growth forest, really in dead kind of trees to raise their young. They are monogamous and they form pair bonds for a really, really long time. So they go back to the same tree cavity often. When Puerto Rico started getting completely deforested in the 1800s and 1900s, the parrot's population really declined. Basically, the population got down to about 13 individuals. And at that point in the 70s, they made the decision that captive breeding and reintroduction might be the only future for the species. These parrots are important to Puerto Rico, partially because they help make sure forests stay healthy, eat the fruits and they distribute the seeds. Having them in forest kind of protects those forests and makes sure that those forests remain intact for other species. But they are also super culturally important in Puerto Rico so it's so fun to work on this program and kind of drive around the island and you see them painted on a bakery sign or you see then painted on the side of the highway or all these different moments where you see the species across the island, and you know it's kind of a touchstone. I've done a lot of modeling for other species that have much more pessimistic projections, and so it's a fun species to work on because the dedication of the field partners, you know, they've bred and hatched over 2,000 parrots in those aviaries over those decades. They are working so hard to release animals into the wild, and I think that there is a very good chance that wild parrot will be kind of fully recovered and flying across island even outside of these little forest remnants they're in right now. [00:20:50]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:20:51] That conversation was recorded at the 2024 Annual Conference of the AZA, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in Calgary, Canada. [00:21:00]

Peter Gros: [00:21:04] Thank you for listening to this episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, The Podcast. And remember, if we protect wildlife and the environment today, we can ensure magical moments in the Wild Kingdom for future generations. [00:21:17]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:21:18] Join us next week where we explore the oceans with diver and shark researcher Candice Fields. [00:21:24]

Candace Fields: [00:21:25] In the media, it's always about a shark attack, whether it's fatal or not, you know, there's no headline saying, shark casually swims by snorkeler. But that's what's happening 99.9% of the time. [00:21:38]

Peter Gros: [00:21:39] We'll talk to you then. Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, the podcast, is a production of Pineapple Street Studios and Mutual of Omaha. Our senior producer is Stephen Key. Producers are Elliot Adler and Jenny Van Soelen. [00:22:02]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:22:03] Associate producer is Lisa Cerda. Editor is Darby Maloney. Executive producers are Barry Finkel, Gabrielle Lewis, and Jen Wulf. Pineapple's head of sound and engineering is Raj Makhija. Senior audio engineers are Marina Pais, Davy Sumner, Javi Cruces, and Pedro Alvira. This episode was mixed by Davy Somner. [00:22:26]

Peter Gros: [00:22:27] Production music courtesy of Epidemic Sound and Hearst Media Production Group. [00:22:31]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:22:31] Episode Clips, courtesy of Hearst Media Production Group. Marketing and promotion by Emily Poeschl. This podcast is hosted by me, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant. [00:22:41]

Peter Gros: [00:22:42] Peter Gross, a special thanks to Katelyn Williams, Sophie Radmelamich, and Stephanie Diaz. [00:22:47]

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:22:48] Today's episode is based on the Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom series created by Don Meier. Our next episode will be out in a week. [00:22:56]

Peter Gros: [00:22:56] Make sure you listen on the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts. [00:22:56]