Speaker 1: The experts with Jason Lauren, your vessel specialists who specialize
Speaker 1: in very special things.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 3: I'm Kelly Hopps and I'm an animal behavior specialist at
Speaker 3: Werribee Open Range.
Speaker 4: Soon let's hear from the expert.
Speaker 5: So, yes, we are joined by an animal behavior expert.
Speaker 1: Hopefully she can teach us how to deal with Lauren. Kelly.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. Morning Kelly morning. All right, we
Speaker 4: have many questions.
Speaker 1: Firstly, favorite animal.
Speaker 3: Lion or why love lions? I love the way that
Speaker 3: they have a really kind of tight knit group. The
Speaker 3: females run the show. The guys are kind of the
Speaker 3: brute strength, Okay, whatever, but the females are the brains,
Speaker 3: and they're so good at raising. They're young, and they're
Speaker 3: just a really cool animal and so smart.
Speaker 5: You're a behavior specialist, can you tell by looking at
Speaker 5: an animal when it's going to attack?
Speaker 3: They give us look animals to communicate effectively.
Speaker 1: This is what she does. She would be able to.
Speaker 3: Tell animals are really really fantastic communicators. We are not
Speaker 3: so great at picking up on their ques. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: they give us lots and lots of signals that they're
Speaker 3: not feeling that they're not feeling good or they're feeling
Speaker 3: uncomfortable in a situation, and it's up to us to
Speaker 3: be able to read those cues and say, all right,
Speaker 3: you're not feeling comfortable, I'm going to back off and leave.
Speaker 1: You see them colp and you know they're going to go.
Speaker 2: Just don't go near them, No, leave them alone. I reckon,
Speaker 2: Are there any animals that are untrainable or what is
Speaker 2: the hardest animal?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? No animal is untrainable. Say humans are the hardest
Speaker 3: animal to train. Every organism that is living learns. That's
Speaker 3: how we survive.
Speaker 4: You're telling me we could try. I could train an ant,
Speaker 4: absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3: We've trained crocodiles, frogs. What's the hardest, I'd say there's
Speaker 3: there's It depends on the individual. Depends on the individual, and.
Speaker 4: You know, get like a smart crocodile or a dumb crocodile.
Speaker 4: Crocodiles are so smart.
Speaker 3: They were one of the animals when I first kind
Speaker 3: of started doing this role that just blew my mind
Speaker 3: at their intelligence.
Speaker 1: What are you training them to do? Like jump? I
Speaker 1: could see, well with the dolphins, no.
Speaker 3: Care, so it's all for their kind of healthcare. So
Speaker 3: we're able to we're able to medicate them or weigh them,
Speaker 3: because that's a really important part of their care.
Speaker 1: How do you weigh a crocodile, Well, you.
Speaker 3: Can ask them to station. So a station or a
Speaker 3: target is when you ask them to move to a space.
Speaker 4: Can they just walk there? Okay, exactly walk.
Speaker 3: It's pretty much exactly the same way as you'd call
Speaker 3: a dog over, But you're doing it in a way
Speaker 3: that the crocodile might understand or recognize.
Speaker 1: Can you give me an example, sure, so if.
Speaker 3: So, Let's say we're training our crocodiles, we would use
Speaker 3: a station which was like a red reflector on the
Speaker 3: end of a stick. Pretty simple thing that we just
Speaker 3: banged together. But when we presented that to the glass
Speaker 3: of the crocodile's enclosure, the crocodile will come over and
Speaker 3: investigate that. As soon as it touched its nose to
Speaker 3: that bit of class where the reflectors give it a
Speaker 3: bit of food.
Speaker 4: Throwing a little bit of fish.
Speaker 2: It's always yeah, good boy, he's a muffin.
Speaker 5: Follow that reflector Anywhay, Hey, Kelly, did the animals recognize
Speaker 5: you or remember you?
Speaker 1: The reason I.
Speaker 5: Asked you loved because I love the videos where the
Speaker 5: animal is reunited with its handler and they they.
Speaker 2: Pretty orphan lie and then we got brought up by
Speaker 2: that family and they released it to the wild and
Speaker 2: came back.
Speaker 1: Do you have any reunion moments.
Speaker 3: I definitely have moments that the animals recognized me reunion moments.
Speaker 4: Okay, So I used to work.
Speaker 3: With a gorilla when I was young and the gorilla
Speaker 3: was a baby, and so I was very lucky enough
Speaker 3: to work with this beautiful young gorilla. And then about
Speaker 3: fifteen years later I got to work with him again,
Speaker 3: and would I would very much like to think there
Speaker 3: was some recognition there that might just be my If
Speaker 3: there was, I think there was because there was a
Speaker 3: lot of communication and from that gorilla that was very comfortable,
Speaker 3: there were pleasure grumbles.
Speaker 4: So they kind of do this like gorilla.
Speaker 3: So I do think that the animals, again, they're so
Speaker 3: good at recognizing different things of different people.
Speaker 2: And one hundred when Missouri me, so what did that mean?
Speaker 2: Because Clint met Missouri the gorilla and.
Speaker 4: It picked up to visit him in the UK Poopy.
Speaker 2: When it got relocated to the UK. I think he
Speaker 2: recognized you from from home and.
Speaker 1: Dislike he grabbed his turds and he threw them.
Speaker 4: Is that in love or hate? It could be both.
Speaker 3: When we really don't know, you'd have to ask Missouri
Speaker 3: and be like, was he trying to get your attention?
Speaker 3: It literally could have been an attention seeking behavior. So
Speaker 3: he might have been like, I can see Clint, and
Speaker 3: I'm going to throw some pooda get him to look
Speaker 3: at me.
Speaker 4: Is that it was?
Speaker 1: Let's just say, do you throw yours back?
Speaker 4: Missouri Kelly. Some people are very critical of.
Speaker 2: Because obviously we've seen a big movement and we don't
Speaker 2: make dolphins dance anymore, and we don't keep whales, we
Speaker 2: don't do any of those things that people did in
Speaker 2: the eighties, and then Tiger King came around, and we
Speaker 2: shouldn't be keeping tight like we know that. So a
Speaker 2: lot of people don't think zoos are good places.
Speaker 4: Is there a place for zoos? Why these animals in
Speaker 4: a zoo not in the wild?
Speaker 3: I totally understand your question, Lauren, and I think it's
Speaker 3: a really good one because there are a lot of
Speaker 3: zoos around the world, and people are in animals that
Speaker 3: probably aren't doing it in the best way that they could.
Speaker 3: I do think there's a great place for zoos and
Speaker 3: zee's Victoria. We have such a high welfare standard and
Speaker 3: we're constantly improving that nobody does everything at one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: We're constantly learning about new ways that we can improve
Speaker 3: the health and welfare of around Aimal. There's like a
Speaker 3: list of zoos that like people should go to knowing
Speaker 3: that they're the right kind of zoos. Sometimes, like I
Speaker 3: found myself at places and I'm like, oh, this doesn't
Speaker 3: feel feel right. Yeah, you can check the accrediting body
Speaker 3: bodies of zoos around the world to make sure that
Speaker 3: they're credited.
Speaker 2: Okay, Kelly, is it true. I've told this to many
Speaker 2: many people here that giraffe I went on this funny story.
Speaker 4: Actually I went on a date ones.
Speaker 2: And years ago and this guy asked me, like what
Speaker 2: I my hobbies were, and I said, I studied to
Speaker 2: be zoologists.
Speaker 4: I don't know why I made it up. I panicked
Speaker 4: and I started reeling off giraffe facts.
Speaker 2: And giraffes have the biggest hearts of all the land animals, Kelly.
Speaker 1: Kelly is not agreeing with it.
Speaker 3: They need very well the blood very well be the case.
Speaker 2: They need to beat their heart and it needs to
Speaker 2: go all the waut their neck to the heads and
Speaker 2: when they bend down, the valve in the neck.
Speaker 4: Shuts it off so the blood doesn't rush to their head.
Speaker 3: Lauren, you've got it like you've got it right.
Speaker 4: That was you should be a zoologist.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: You're basically did it work out with the shocked I didn't.
Speaker 5: Hey, Kelly, thank you so much coming in this morning.
Speaker 5: Wear we open range zoo. Get out there. The animal's
Speaker 5: on in the zoo, you know. Yeah, We're at a
Speaker 5: zoo the other day and before they put the lions
Speaker 5: out in the enclosure, people were paying to walk through
Speaker 5: the lion enclosure and see the environment.
Speaker 4: I didn't get that, did you.
Speaker 5: I and the people's family were watching, taking photos, and
Speaker 5: my eight year old was like, now's a good time
Speaker 5: to release the lions.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm so sorry. Hey Kelly, thanks for coming in.
Speaker 1: Good to see you, kel.
Speaker 4: Lauren wake up feeling good on number one hundred. Lauren
Speaker 4: on social