00:01Here at the San Diego Zoo, taking the best care of our animals is top priority.
00:05But exactly how do you do a health checkup for over 90 flamingos?
00:09The Flamingo Roundup!
00:16I'm with my good friend, Yopi, who happens to be the animal care manager for our bird department at the
00:21San Diego Zoo.
00:21Now, Yopi, I see a lot going on with our flamingos today. What is this?
00:24Yeah, today is the annual roundup for the flamingos.
00:27We also get a health assessment, and it's a one time a year. They actually put our hands on each
00:30and every flamingo to check them out.
00:32And what are the steps now to go through all of this with these flamingos?
00:35So it starts very early in the morning, just at daybreak. We build the corral that we want to contain
00:39all the birds in.
00:40We slowly move them into that corral, and then they're all taken out one at a time, and they're getting
00:45weighed, their bands verified,
00:47they have a transponder under their skin like you normally do for dogs and cats,
00:51and then they get a health assessment from the veterinarian department and then return back to the exhibit.
00:58It was very smooth. It was a great day, a beautiful sunny day, and we did 96 birds this morning.
01:03And it takes a lot of people to handle 96 flamingos.
01:06I was about to say, where did all these people come from?
01:08So a variety of different departments. We actually had some folks from Backstage Pass,
01:11so if you come to the Backstage Pass and handle those flamingos, some of their staff came.
01:15Oh, okay.
01:15Veterinary Services came, Avian Propagation Center staff came, and as well as all the people from the bird department came.
01:21So your own flock came together to take care of the flamingo flock.
01:23Our own flock of 35 or more people came to take care of 96 birds, yeah.
01:27And why is something like this so important for the flock?
01:29Well, the flamingos, we want to make sure they're healthy and breeding season is coming up soon,
01:34and so we just want to get an annual one time a year look and see and see how they're
01:38doing.
01:38Just like as if you took your pet to the vet's office and they look at all those things, that's
01:42what we do here as well.
01:46Pretty amazing to think our team got over 90 exams done before the zoo even opened to the public.
01:51It just goes to show you how important teamwork really is to getting things done.
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