Roar, Rumble and Snort: San Diego Zoo Stories
By Dani Dodge
The first thing animal trainers focus on to get birds ready for a big outdoor show is their exit.
That way, the finish is what they remember the most clearly.
That way, it is the move the birds do most instinctively.
That way, no matter what happens during the show, the bird can always get back home.
But a week and a half before “Soar – A Symphony in Flight” was to open at the San Diego Zoo, Lloyd, a 4-year-old Hadada Ibis, wasn’t getting it during rehearsal. The football-sized bird with a long, black, curved beak flew from his exit point, a tree limb at the edge of the Hunte Amphitheater, into the seats. And just stayed there.
“Lloyd, Lloyd,” called Cari Clements, the director of interpretive programs for Natural Encounters Inc., which is presenting the show. The bird ignored her.
Clements walked to where Lloyd was sunning himself and helped him find his way back. When he was released again, he circled. And circled. But he didn’t find his exit.
A few days before the show was to open practice, positive reinforcement and patience paid off. (OK, I said a few prayers too, but I know they would have pulled it together without me.) Lloyd wasn’t only making his exit – he and about 50 other birds in the show were getting down their entrances too.
“Soar – A Symphony in Flight” is the spectacular new nighttime show that opened June 27 at the San Diego Zoo. Birds of every size, shape and color turn the amphitheater into a production with Las Vegas-style lights, staging and sound.
The show opens with Quito, a double yellow-headed Amazon parrot singing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” It continues with a story of how destruction can be healed with conservation efforts.
The goal of the production was “something bigger and better than anything done before,” said Steve Martin, the president of Natural Encounters Inc. Among the people on the creative design team were Doriana Sanchez, a choreographer on the reality television show “So You Think You Can Dance,” and Jeremy Railton, who has designed sets for Cher, Kiss and the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. They and Tony Huston – a screenwriter from the famous family of Anjelica and John Huston – also helped with the new daytime bird show at the Zoo, “Take Flight – An Avian Adventure.”
Given all that human talent involved, you’d be forgiven for thinking the birds look like rock stars.
Martin started his animal training career at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park in 1976. He left in 1980 and began his own company, now located in Winter Haven, Fla. Natural Encounters has 40 employees and more than 400 birds. Martin has worked at more than 70 zoos and aquariums in 17 countries as an animal behavior consultant. This is his first show back at the San Diego Zoo.
“I wanted something beyond the imagination,” Martin said. “If you could imagine it, it wasn’t enough.”
And he wanted the birds, not people, to tell the story. Birds bigger than 6-year-olds. Birds more colorful than the neon lights on Broadway. Birds that most people have never seen before.
That brings us back to Lloyd, the Ibis. Clements, the Natural Encounters trainer, didn’t worry when Lloyd failed to make his quick turn-around to the exit. She knew he would come back.
“The biggest challenge is they are free-flying birds,” Clements said. “They have a choice. Nothing keeps them here except our relationship.”
All these years, they’ve never had a bird fail to return.
“Soar – A Symphony in Flight” is free with San Diego Zoo admission.
Dani Dodge is a former newspaper reporter and editor now working at the San Diego Zoo. She can be reached at [email protected]. Call the San Diego Zoo at (619) 231-1515.
