‘We didn’t expect it’: A baby boom at John Ball Zoo

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — It’s been an exciting time for Tim Sampson and other employees at John Ball Zoo.

In just the past four months, the zoo has welcomed eight new baby animals: a snow leopard , an eastern mountain bongo , three lynxes and three Magellanic penguins . Although the births were planned, they did catch the zoo off guard.

“I definitely didn’t plan on it happening so close to each other,” Sampson, a curator at the zoo said. “There’s a lot of planning involved. I mean, we had rough estimates that they’re close based on observed breeding and based on natural history of the animal. But we didn’t expect it, especially since both the cats were first-time moms. A lot of times, they don’t really conceive on the first time, so we weren’t expecting that. We were just hopeful. So we’re pretty excited (about) what happened.”

All three lynxes, named Rocky, Yukon and Jasper, and Chestnut the eastern mountain bongo are now out in their exhibits at the zoo. The three penguin chicks and the snow leopard cub have yet to make their debut, but Sampson said they could be out as early as next month.

The zoo has been focusing on breeding the endangered and threatened species they have in their care. It works with other zoos and organizations on a Species Survival Plan (SSP) to bring in or send these animals to breed with other species and help the population grow.

The process can be difficult, however. There’s more to it than putting a male and female animal in the same enclosure and letting nature take its course.

“Sometimes they’re completely incompatible, and it just doesn’t work, Sampson said. “And sometimes you put it, put them together, and they love each other and they will never separate. So, I mean, it’s really, you know, it’s like throwing leaves in the wind. You don’t know where it’s going to land.”

That’s where the SSP comes in handy. Sampson said that typically more confident and stronger animals will breed more easily than some inexperienced animals. The zoo has run into that problem with trying to breed its tigers.

“We actually have a newer tiger. We had Titan, we had his brother Finn before that. We paired them up with our female,” Sampson said. “They’ve never reproduced before. So there’s a lot of unknown and a lot of confusion on both of them. They didn’t really know what was going on or the right cues to follow. So we sent Finn out to (a) zoo in North Dakota, where he was put with an experienced female and then we brought an experienced male in. So, sometimes it’s as little as that.”

They hope to begin the tiger breeding process once again in the fall. Sampson said there are efforts to start breeding the pygmy hippos as well.

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