A
binturong, commonly known as a bearcat, rests on the shoulder of Jen Dew of the
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium during a visit with Mansfield Middle School
eighth-graders on Monday. It’s not every day that you see an African black-footed penguin walking around the gym at Mansfield Senior High.
But
there he was Monday, staring at eighth-graders sitting on the floor as he
followed his handler from the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.
The penguin was one of several animals and birds brought to Mansfield by a three-member school-visitation team from the zoo that included Shane Gorbett, son of Mansfield Middle School counselor Kathi Gorbett. The focus of their 45-minute presentations – one for eight-graders, another for seventh-graders – was “amazing adaptations,” characteristics and behaviors that help animals survive in their natural habitat. The Richland County Foundation funded the zoo visit.
Handler
Katie Stevens held up the penguin, explaining how his wide webbed feet flatten
out to propel him through the water.
“How fast do you think Olympian Michael Phelps can swim?” she asked. After several guesses that were too high, she provided the answer: “About 4 miles an hour.
“But how fast do you think this penguin can swim? About 15 miles an hour.”
The
fast-moving program included a binturong, commonly known as a bearcat, native
to the rain forests of southeast Asia. It rested on the shoulder of handler Jen
Dew as she walked among the seated students.
“The binturong can support its entire weight when it hangs by its tail,” Gorbett explained.
A
red-legged seriema, a bird native to the grasslands of South America, stood on
a table to demonstrate how it repeatedly smashes a lizard on a rock to make it
soft enough to swallow whole.
Also featured was a Harris’s Hawk, which flew back and forth between the students from the front table to a perch three-fourths of the way down the basketball court. Students got an up-close look at Madagasacar cockroaches (they don’t climb, fight or sting) and had an opportunity to touch a baby alligator.
Gorbett
told the audience that he could make an Australian kookaburra laugh by telling
it a joke.
“Why did the IPhone have to go to the dentist?” he asked. “Because it had a Bluetooth.”
The kookaburra, perched on the table at the front, burst into what appeared to be a shrill laughter. Actually, students learned, it was his territorial warning to tell others to stay away. In the Australian outback, he said, the kookaburras send up the piercing cries at sunrise, earning them the nickname “the bushman’s alarm clock.”
The
show culminated with the appearance of a 4-year-old cheetah, led carefully into
the gym by Gorbett and Dew. The animal sat patiently on the table as students
learned its characteristics, including its ability to run 70 miles an hour. The
graceful animal was led out before students were dismissed.
Gorbett,
who attended school in Ontario, knew at age 7 that he wanted to become a
zoologist. His mother has the proof.
“I still have a drawing he made in first grade in which he said he wanted to work at the zoo,” Kathi Gorbett said. “He is living his dream.”
Gorbett,
25, is in his fifth year at the zoo, including a summer he worked there before
graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Beyond
entertaining at schools and nursing homes, Gorbett and his colleagues encourage
conservation and work on behalf of endangered animals.
“We have raised most of these animals since they were babies. They are the zoo’s animal ambassadors, We say this is their job,” he said. “Some, including the kookaburra here today, appeared with Jack Hanna on the David Letterman Show.”
Gorbett’s department at the zoo raises about $15,000 each summer to benefit endangered animals and conservation efforts. Audiences respond to the cuteness and the abilities of the trained animal ambassadors.
“Our goal is to teach people,” Gorbett said. “Our motto is: Touch the heart to teach the mind.”