Tornero represented a big success for husbandry of animal ambassadors. They were not typically included in breeding programs, but the animal care staff wanted to change that, to include more genetic diversity in the population. Instead of moving Xena to another zoo, a male came to San Diego to be with her, with Tornero being the happy result. Nicki Boyd, associate curator of behavioral husbandry at the Zoo, said: “It was such progressive work to have a mother-reared ambassador, get a breeding recommendation, have that animal still be an ambassador, get pregnant, have a baby, still do programs with a baby, and have the baby easily transition to ambassador training. It show what breeding cooperation can do.”

First weigh-in: It’s very important to get a weight on a new aye-aye infant daily for the first few days. This lets the vets and animal care staff know if the newborn is thriving or not. The challenge? To do this, they needed to retrieve the infant from under Styx, weigh him, give him a quick health checkup, then place him back in the nest. Styx was on to the keepers, but was very cooperative with the whole process—and Aloka was doing great!

Rare New Additions

The Zoo welcomed babies of two unusual species in 2019: a Linné’s two-toed sloth (left) on April 19, and an aye-aye (above) on July 12.

Xena, a two-toed sloth that was one of the Zoo’s best-known animal ambassadors, gave birth to her first offspring, a male named Tornero. He soon proved to be big on personality, and was outgoing and curious from the beginning. Xena was comfortable with the trainers handling him, and both mom and son eventually did public presentations together.

The Zoo’s female aye-aye, Styx, gave birth to her second baby in July. The little male weighed 82 grams at birth and was bright-eyed, active, and alert. He was named Aloka, which means “shadow” in Malagasy—a fitting name for a species (a type of lemur) that is almost entirely nocturnal.

2019

Integration 2017 - 2026