If it isn’t the birth of a gorilla, it’s the arrival of a new porpoise. Youth seemingly gets served everywhere we look in today’s world, especially in Chicago’s zoological community. Hardly a month goes by without one of our zoos or the aquarium trumpeting a newcomer.
Just in the last few weeks, the media have camped out at Brookfield Zoo to film the public debut of a new litter of otters and the first outdoor steps taken by the zoo’s new 4-month-old, yet-to-be-named polar bear cub. Before that, it was the birth of Nadaya, a Western Lowland Gorilla, that made news.
Such events never fail to capture attention. “Everybody loves to see the baby animals,” says Sondra Katzen, a Brookfield spokeswoman.
But seldom do we hear about the senior residents at Brookfield, the Lincoln Park Zoo or the Shedd Aquarium – those grizzled animals, birds and fish that have been quietly going about their business for decades. Some have been on the job for more than 60 years, and not once been featured on TV or in a newspaper story.
So here is an attempt to redress the balance:
Brookfield Zoo
Our first codger is Cookie the Cockatoo. Cookie’s once-brilliant pink and crimson colors have faded a tad in these, his twilight years, but he reigns over everyone as the staff’s favorite star here.
He is the only inhabitant of Brookfield who was there when the west suburban zoo opened in 1934. “Everyone loves Cookie,” said Lee Stahl, his handler. No one at the zoo is sure what the record for longevity is for Cookie’s species, but given that the birds’ average life expectancy is 50 years, Stahl knows this cockatoo is special. Though his exact age is unknown, he already is at least 17 years beyond what is considered his normal biological lifespan.
“We check with nutritionists and are very strict with his diet,” Stahl said, “and he gets regular medical checkups. It’s not surprising to us he’s been with us a long time. We’d like to think he’ll be around for many more years too.”
Rating his own quiet cage in the otherwise bustling Perching Bird House, Cookie usually can be found sitting regally on a branch staring straight ahead through the wire mesh of his quarters. Visitors can wave, jump up and down and make faces, but, aside from a blink of his brown eyes, an occasional cock of the head, or shift of the feet, he rarely acknowledges anyone’s presence.
Cookie has seen it all. More than 116 million people have passed through the zoo since its first day and it’s a good bet many in that staggering number have visited the colorful cockatoo too. Perhaps he can be forgiven his expressionless indifference, as if he is saying to himself: “How many of these goofs do I have to endure?”
Cookie is one of the few creatures at Brookfield to receive fan mail, according to zoo spokeswoman Sondra Katzen. He also rates a write-up, plus picture, in “Let The Lions Roar,” a $40 coffee-table book published four years ago by the Chicago Zoological Society on the zoo’s long history.
Brookfield once toasted Cookie with a birthday party — though no one knew what his official natal day might be — and this June they plan to make him a featured VIP during a zoo anniversary party. Nothing strenuous, though.
“I’m not even sure if he can fly anymore, but I doubt it,” Stahl said. “He’s developed some cataract problems, and we’re not going to mess with him.”
Cookie is part of the Leadbeater cockatoo family, whose members are frequently called “Major Mitchell Cockatoos” in honor of Sir Thomas Mitchell, an explorer who first wrote about the beautiful species in glowing terms in the 1800s. They are indigenous to Australia, and Brookfield records indicate Cookie was obtained from a zoo Down Under.
Leadbeaters, because of their stunning looks, are popular as pets, but, interestingly, are the least suitable in the cockatoo family for that purpose because they become more aggressive with maturity.
Stahl can attest to Cookie’s growing crankiness.
“He used to be in a cage with other cockatoos, but it got so he couldn’t get along with them and we moved him into his own cage,” he said. “Even then, he’s come to recognize certain handlers and he’ll bite if it’s someone he doesn’t know.
“As he gets older, he doesn’t like change.”
Lincoln Park Zoo
In a starkly bare 10-by-15-foot room here lives the Rodney Dangerfield of crocodiles. He is out of sight of the viewing public, and his major perk is a shallow pool of water at one end of his space in the Regenstein Small Mammal-Reptile House.
This African Dwarf crocodile, who is about 6 feet long and weighs 60 pounds, has been at the zoo since 1940. But being senior resident of the zoo entitles him to little respect. He still has to share his space with another African Dwarf croc about two-thirds his size.
Lincoln Park officials can’t even agree on his name. Some zoo employees call him Henry, but aren’t sure why. Years ago, he also was called Eddie in honor of a previous handler. Lately, he’s called R-1 in keeping with his listing in the zoo’s computer files as “Reptile 1.”
For three years in the 1980s, R-1 was shipped to the Brookfield Zoo while his Lincoln Park home underwent major renovations. His current residence, zoo officials say, is also only temporary, a move necessitated by the arrival of some house guests in the Regenstein — 26 birds who needed a place to stay while their quarters get updated.
“Actually we might not have had to move him except some of them are shore birds,” said Diane Mulkerin, one of R-1’s handlers. “They would’ve been lunch for a crocodile.” As it stands now, R-1 gets a weekly ration of herring, or a large rat, for his meal. “The metabolism is very slow for this species and that’s all they need,” Mulkerin said.
Zoo records indicate that R-1, who was given to Lincoln Park in 1940 by what appears to have been a private donor, was only a foot long when he arrived. According to John Gramieri, curator of small mammals and reptiles, that would have made him less than a year old at the time.
“He’s outlived every captive member of his species that we know of and this makes him pretty special,” Gramieri said. “He’s been a favorite. He’s always been pretty laid back through the changes. Once, when he was sick, he had to be force-fed for almost a year and he took that in stride too.”
Lincoln Park officials said R-1’s “puppy dog” disposition started to change five years ago, when Maggie, a female African Dwarf crocodile about half his age, was obtained from a zoo in Dallas and moved in as a roommate.
Though much smaller, Maggie was “a holy terror,” according to handlers, and continually upset cage tranquility with her aggressiveness toward R-1 and anyone else who got close.
“R-1 finally started biting back,” Mulkerin said. “I think it was a case of him having to step up or get completely dominated. They went through quite a period of adjustment.”
R-1 and Maggie obviously have reached some sort of agreement, proving that sometimes the best things in life are right under your nose. A few months ago, handlers noticed the two crocodiles had begun breeding.
“She’s no spring chicken either,” Gramieri said, “but who knows? Mating season is coming up soon. Maybe we’ll get some eggs from them.”
Shedd Aquarium
It is not unusual to hear visitors in front of the Australian lungfish tank wonder aloud whether the big, spotted fellow at the bottom is alive. And it’s a good question.
The fish, a little under 4 feet long and weighing approximately 20 pounds, doesn’t move much. When he does, usually it’s to swim to a different spot and resume snoozing, or meditating, or whatever he’s doing while immobile. .
He’s called Granddad by his keepers, an appropriate name, considering that the Shedd has been his home since 1933. After watching his lack of progress for a while, and noting how old he is, it is easy to conclude his dull, blotchy markings are liver spots from old age instead of what they are, coloration from overlapping scales typically found on male lungfish.
Lungfish are docile creatures, sluggish and nocturnal. Not much gets the Australian version excited. Reproduction follows this simple courtship: The male nudges a female, eggs are scattered, get fertilized, and both parties, like two ships in the night, move on with no display of parental concern.
Even in captivity, the Australian lungfish, unlike its feistier African cousin, is known for getting along well with neighbors. In Granddad’s tank, No. 123, there are three other lungfish nearly 50 years younger than he is and their apparent laziness makes the only other occupant — a red-bellied, short-necked turtle — look like a geriatric Richard Simmons.
Granddad is the unchallenged senior star of this tank, however. Having taken up residence at the Shedd during the Depression, he is the building’s oldest inhabitant — and the oldest in any of Chicago’s public zoos and aquariums.
“We’re not exactly sure about the life expectancy of the Australian lungfish because they’re fairly rare,” said Allen Feldman, curator of fishes at the aquarium, “but every year he’s here he sets a new standard for us. We’ve grown quite fond of him. It would be a sad day when he’s no longer with us.”
Granddad, who was plucked from an Australian stream on a Shedd collection trip in the early 1930s, came to the aquarium just three years after it first opened. His arrival occurred less than a year into Franklin Roosevelt’s first term in the White House. The 1933 Century of Progress Exposition was underway just outside the aquarium doors, the tallest structure in town was the relatively new 44-story Chicago Board of Trade Building, and John Dillinger was still on the lam.
According to Feldman, there is no reason to believe Granddad won’t be with us for many more years. His diet, like that of any aging species, has changed through the years to accommodate digestive abilities. Keepers give him more vegetables in place of harder-to-metabolize items such as small fish.
While his vital signs appear stable, Shedd scientists have excused Granddad from research they are conducting into the sexual cycles of the tank’s other two lungfish.
“At his age, he doesn’t need the stress,” Feldman said.
