TV producer accused of drugging, killing deaf sister, her dogs in staged fire

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

15 hours ago

#ConservationCorner: It’s World Penguin Day!🐧 What better way to celebrate than to highlight Shores animal care specialist Mallory and her recent volunteer work with the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) in South Africa near Cape Town! SANCCOB saves seabirds works to rescue, rehabilitate and release ill, injured, abandoned and oiled seabirds, particularly the endangered African penguin. In this video, Mallory (second from the right) helped release 14 African penguins who she helped rehabilitate while she was volunteering! During the three weeks, Mallory assisted with feeding the birds who required special diets, helped assess the rescued birds, and participated in a release! Did you know African penguins are warm-weather penguins? In fact, only a few species of penguins stay in cold weather all year round! The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is proud to be a supporter of SANCCOB since 2012. Learn more about SANCCOB here: sanccob.co.za ...

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

2 days ago

I’ll finish off the day with a couple blooper reels that were my favorites. The first is of one of the Bonnethead sharks taking a little nibble out of the camera. If you’ve ever wanted to know what a fish sees right before it becomes dinner…well, now you know. Don’t worry both the camera and the shark are fine. This actually brings up a good point about sharks and their senses. Just like other animals without hands, sharks use their mouths as one tool to sense the world around them. The Bonnethead sensed something new in the water and wanted to investigate to see if it was edible or not. Once it realized it wasn’t something to eat, she never bothered the camera again. The majority of (rare) shark bites sustained by people go down in a similar fashion. A larger shark most likely is “testing” to see if a human may be something it wants to eat but realizes pretty quickly we are too bony and they normally swim away. Of course depending on the species (larger mouths cause larger bites) that “test” bite can sometimes leave a human pretty injured.

I couldn’t resist posting the second video. While not a shark or a ray, the resident nosy Titan triggerfish decided to check out the camera and make sure the housing was watertight. He’s such a helper.

Well, that about wraps it up for me. I want to thank you for taking some time out of your day to tag along and learn about some of our finned friends here at Discovery Reef. I hope you possibly came away with a different perspective and appreciation for some of the most misunderstood animals in our oceans. These amazingly cool animals play a vital part keeping our oceans healthy and deserve our respect and protection. So how can you help? By simply coming to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, part of your admission goes toward the 70 conservation projects that the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium supports worldwide. One such program is Misión Tiburón Costa Rica, whose goal is to protect sharks through scientific tagging and local education efforts. Here at home, you can also help by being mindful of the seafood you eat by making sure it comes from a fishery that’s sustainable and minimizes bycatch like sharks. Check out the handy Seafood Watch App from Monterey Bay Aquarium at SeafoodWatch.org to help you select sustainable seafood at the grocery store or any restaurant. You can also help by avoiding any shark products such as meats, oils, trinkets (teeth and jaws) and especially shark fin soup. By taking some simple steps, you can help us conserve and protect one of the ocean’s most unjustly feared but also important residents. 💙🦈 –Aaron, Discovery Reef Aquarist ...

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

2 days ago

This guy here with the large black circles above his pectoral fins is an epaulette shark and personally one of my favorite shark species. Epaulette sharks have some of the coolest adaptations that make them pretty amazing. If you notice, as he swims toward the camera, he uses his pectoral fins to almost walk across the bottom. In their native habitat, epaulette sharks hunt for food along the shore, often in tidal pools. Well sometimes the tide goes out, which ends up trapping the shark in a shallow pool until the tide returns—often hours later. No problem for this guy! He can actually use those strong pectoral fins to “walk” out of water for short distances along the coral heads until he reaches another tide pool or open water. If it’s too far to the next body of water, this little guy has another amazing adaptation to help him survive in the low oxygen environment of a stagnant tide pool. He can literally shut down all but essential body functions to conserve oxygen until the tide returns. This way, he can survive in extremely low oxygen level environments for hours at a time.

Of course here at the Zoo, this epaulette shark is never subjected to such environments. You’ll find him (and his cousins, the white-spotted bamboo shark) normally sitting tucked into the rockwork around Discovery Reef. He’s one of the hardest animals in the aquarium to find, but if you really want to spot this guy, come to the 1 p.m. diver/Germain Keeper Talk at Discovery Reef, now on weekends only but starting daily April 30. He almost always shows up for a meal when our divers are in the water feeding. –Aaron, Discovery Reef Aquarist ...