Chicago wildfire smoke: How animals are being effected

We want to check in with Casey Cronus. She is at Lincoln Park Zoo to see how all of this is affecting the animals. Casey. Hey, Terrence, that's right. And that is on so many people's minds is how is this hazardous air quality impacting not only our pets at home, but the animals at the zoo. Joining us here is the general curator of Lincoln Park Zoo. Dave Bernier. Thank you for being with us. Just to start, talk a little bit about what protocol you enacted yesterday when we all woke up to those hazy skies. So we monitor air quality like we monitor temperature and other kinds of things. So when the air quality was really poor yesterday, we sent emails out to everyone, all the curators and the Zoological managers to make sure that they were aware of the air quality, first of all, and then what steps we would take in order to, like, minimize the risk to our animals. So the first thing we do is we look at animals that could be compromised based on poor air quality. That would be like maybe very geriatric animals or animals with a pre existing condition, not unlike people who might have asthma or respiratory problems and whether or not we would keep them inside or let them have access to their exhibit. Sometimes keeping them inside can be more of a welfare impact than giving them access to another shelter. And so, like yesterday and today, we didn't have any animals that we actually kept inside, but they all had access to go into a space and the zookeepers are monitoring them essentially around the clock, I assume. Well, just when we're here, we do have a lot of cameras, but when we're here, yes, we're monitoring them and they're in communication with our management staff and also our veterinary team. So if anything comes up that needs attention, they can respond very quickly. And talk about are any animals more susceptible to experiencing symptoms during air quality events like this? I think it would be based on their health status more than anything else. So we have a few animals that are older animals that were monitoring or animals that may have cardiac conditions that we might be monitoring. So those ones will watch for, like, if it was a bird, if we saw open mouth breathing or if we saw any kind of struggle like that, then we would say they're probably having trouble in that space and we'll move them to a different space. And right now we are in the Regenstein small mammal and reptile exhibit. Tell us a little bit about who we have. So in the exhibit right across from us, we have white faced sake monkey, amazon river turtle with a white blotched stingray, which has been swimming around a little bit. And those sake monkeys are a little hidden right now, right? Can we see them? I can't tell. There's one. I see the female. She's in the very back of the exhibit. I don't see the male. He kind of scooted. They've been running around. Yes. And they've been interested in us out here, I think. So they've been kind of keeping an eye on what's going. They're very curious about the camera. And then rob just pointed the camera down. We've got a turtle here that you mentioned amazon river turtle and we have a white blotched stingray, which might make a circuit here. He's over on the left side of the exhibit right now, but it's a freshwater string stingray from south america. And what's over here really like this guy? Yeah, we have a spectacle came in behind us. This is an adult. This is as big as they get. And he's a really great exhibit animal for us. He's actually a really good training subject. The keepers really work with him very closely. So most people don't think that reptiles are good with training, but he's really good at it. And I assume that for the reptiles, they are not as impacted perhaps as other animals that may have outdoor access. Correct. I mean with indoor access, all the air that comes through here is all filtered. And so we do have a lot of like air turnover because we need to keep the air moving a lot, but it's all filtered air. So they don't have the same kind of risk when it comes to like temperatures. Yes, we have to watch reptiles just as closely as what's actually reptiles adjust a little harder to temperature changes than mammals do. But in case of air quality, if they're inside, they're gonna be okay. Dave, thank you so much for joining us. Lincoln Park Zoo is open until three p.m. Today, then back at it tomorrow morning and coming up later at four and five. We are chatting with an emergency vet about how you can keep your pets safe at home. Stay tuned for that later on. Terrence. All right, Casey, thanks so much.