Business trip

Woohoo – an expenses-paid trip to Melbourne! Two years ago, Australia imported 8 Asian elephants for breeding. Half went to Taronga Zoo, which had their first elephant birth in July, and the other half went to Melbourne Zoo, which is expecting their first elephant birth in December. Parturition can occur any time during a 2-3 month window, and because things can go wrong when you’re delivering a baby that big, it’s helpful to know exactly when the baby is going to come so you can have your whole team ready. There is a change in hormone expression that indicates the delivery will happen in the next few days, so Melbourne Zoo is trying to set up a system for monitoring hormones in order to catch that change. Unfortunately, it’s not going so smoothly, which is where I come in.  I went down to Melbourne Zoo for 2 days to help them figure out why their assay wasn’t working and offer some other tips. I’ll never get over some of the perks of working at a zoo. This trip’s highlights: I got to watch them draw blood from an elephant,


and was able to help groom a snow leopard while they were doing an exam. There was SOOO much hair that came off that cat!