In the Pipeline: Zoo Mystery #2

I am happy to announce that zoo mystery #2, Did Not Survive, is wending its way through the production process and should emerge blinking into the sunlight in July. Here's the cover, which gives you a clue about one of the themes.



Yes! You guessed it--elephants! Night Kill was the first in the Finley Memorial Zoo series. In the second, Did Not Survive, circumstances put a pregnant Iris Oakley into close contact with the little zoo's two elephants. While she learns to appreciate these marvelous animals, the book also addresses some of the difficult issues around managing elephants in today's world. Zoos, sanctuaries, wildlife parks, the native habitat not in parks--all have tough problems with elephants. And,of course, elephants have disastrous problems with us. Our two species have yet to find peace, with an alarming number of deaths on both sides. (You know about elephants being killed wholesale for tusks. And elephants kill 200-300 people a year in India.)

While a mystery intended to entertain can't provide definitive answers, I tried to touch on many of the quandaries faced by those who admire and respect these fabulous beasts. Feelings run hot and sometimes bitter about elephants in zoos and I can't hope to please everyone, only to offer a variety of perspectives.

Now comes the part of a writer's cycle where the focus is on letting people know about The New Book. I'm contacting bookstores, libraries, and zoos. Let me know if your writing group or other organization would like to host a discussion of this "zoo-dunnit."

Appearance at event, February 29

Just a note to let you know that I will be at the Multnomah County Library in downtown Portland (801 SW 10th) Sunday, February 28, from noon to three PM. This is the annual Writers Resource Fair and I will be personning* the Sisters in Crime table. Drop by and say hi!


* Yes, writers get to create neologisms.

Fame and Glory: Ancient Science Rediscovered

Well how about that. My old International Zoo Yearbook articles from my zoo keeping days are still available! Here's one on handraising a mandrill.

I'm pleased to say another article is cited in the IUCN Hippo Bibliography: Wilson, J. & Littlewood, A. (1978). First year of a hand-reared hippopotamus Hippopotamus amphibius at Portland Zoo. International Zoo Yearbook, Zoological Society of London 18: 211-213.

And part of Mellen JD, Littlewood AP, Barrow BC, Stevens VJ. 1981. Individual and social behavior in a captive troop of mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx). Primates 22(2):206-20 is online.

The Internet may be as close to immortality as I ever come. It was fun to write up the handrearing studies and make use of the tedious amount of daily records we kept on Kubwa Sana (the baby hippo) and Roger, the mandrill.

The behavioral study on mandrills was also very cool. It's rare to have the opportunity to simply hold still and watch animals. It's amazing what you can learn if you try to take yourself out of the equation, just hold still and watch. We did it with checklists and timers, but next time you are at the zoo, find some animal that is awake (a peacock will do) and watch quietly for ten or fifteen minutes. That's a long time for us busy primates, but you will see things that surprise you. Zoo visitors work so hard to interact with the animals, but many times you really can get more out of observation. Try to see with an open mind. Let go of Asesop's fables and kid's books and dramatic nature shows and all that baggage we bring to animals. Just watch.

Here's a couple of pictures from my hand-rearing days.

Roger meets his mother, Lulu.


Yes, you can cuddle with a hippo.

The Agony of Outlining

I'm shoveling gravel into plot holes and it's heavy work. I am thrilled that Did Not Survive, the second of the Iris Oakley zoo-dunnits, is due out from Poisoned Pen Press in August 2010. Did Not Survive is in production and that means it's time to start outlining #3. I'm bi-polaring between the delight of having a second mystery accepted and the pain of making my brain work. Each book is born from an outline, so all my writer's block happens at the front end. Writing is the reward for outlining, as I see it.

Why go to the trouble of figuring it all out in advance? Because I write myself into corners otherwise. I know I'll get better ideas as I write and, with an outline, I can more easily see where to go back and adjust for the brainwave.

The "outline" is really a chart of brief scene descriptions--the key elements with notes about what day it is, why the scene is necessary, and so on.

Here's a photo of cedar waxwings that my husband took recently. I'm using it as therapy for my sore cortex. Aren't they perfect beautiful beings? Maybe tomorrow a flock of ideas will light on my head and carry my plot to new heights!

Why my blogging is bogged down

Photo by my friend Cynthia Cheney.

Did you EVER see a cuter puppy? Me neither. Murphy is about nine months old, a Corgi mix. I'd love to know where he got the black ear fringes and muzzle. Something small, hairy, and really busy. Any guesses? He's about 24 pounds, so I think German Shepherd is out.

We agreed to be a foster home after Thanksgiving, and of course one thing led to another, and now we would probably throw ourselves in front of a train rather than give him up. That said, let us not forget how much of your day a puppy wants to occupy. Two walks a day totaling over an hour, random episodes of sitting on the floor and petting him, endless inspections of what he is chewing on NOW. And so on.

I should have some pithy observations about dog behavior and our relationship with canine companions or perhaps the carbon footprint of pet ownership or my efforts at clicker training. But no. Just a cute picture. Maybe later... Right now, I've got to go make liver treats.

Wildlife on The Las Vegas Strip: Part 3

I'll wrap up my New Year's wildlife tour of The Strip with a just a few more observations. We visited maybe six of the major casinos, maybe a few more. They fall into a pattern: glitzy exterior with some feature to draw attention (the Bellagio's dancing fountain is wonderful), reception, restaurants, shopping, and gaming on the ground floor and hotel rooms above. The gaming areas seemed identical and interchangeable. The shopping surprised me, lots of high-end brands such as Louis Vuitton, Prada, etc. Our native guide explained that the stores inside the resorts pay rock-bottom rent. The idea is that they class up the joint. One of them had a different affect on me.



Yup. Apparently-genuine carved elephant tusks, a big pair. Nothing like picturing a huge rotting bull elephant with his face hacked off to brighten up your vacation. And that carved ship behind them looked like ivory also. I found the store clerk, an elegantly dressed young woman with a European accent, and indicated how uncool this was. She started in with the "but if we didn't kill animals, we wouldn't have meat or leather" argument. I did her no bodily harm, but did indicate that this was horse puckey and that the company she worked for was promoting an anti-conservation message. The phrase "will rot in hell" did not cross my lips, but I think she understood. She said they were legal and I'd bet that she was correct. So what? The point is glamorizing a wildlife product that has contributed to the enormous declines in elephant populations. Bah.

Somehow my companions hustled me off to the Bellagio's Christmas display. I noted that it included natural antlers on Santa's reindeer. No problemo--deer drop those annually and grow a new pair (but you knew that...).



Our time in Las Vegas was up and I didn't make it to the MGM Grand to see lions and the shark reef. If you go, drop me a note. On the flight home, the airline magazine had an ad for a guy named Rick Thomas, a magic-and-white-tiger show at the Sahara. That one blew right by me, never saw an ad for it. (He's recommended by Millionaire Magazine, so there.) And--who knew?--Las Vegas has a zoo! Here's the website of the Southern Nevada Zoological-Botanical Park.

My spouse and I now joke about keeping each other in line: "Behave yourself or our next vacation will be back in Las Vegas." It's not our kind of place, but I got some mileage out of the visit, as well as a great visit with some fine friends.

Adios, Sin City! From the Bellagio's Christmas display:


Visit my website for more animal pictures, etc.

Wildlife on the Las Vegas Strip Part 2: Feathers

One of the themes of this blog is the way people and animals interact. Las Vegas has a reputation for extreme human behavior, but over New Years I mostly saw bundled up people (it was cold) who were desperately seeking fun, entertainment, and glamor. They mostly found beer. I found flamingos.

Bugsy Siegel founded The Flamingo at the end of World War II. It opened, half finished, on December 26, 1946. The finances went poorly and the resort's backers vented their frustration by ventilating Bugsy on June 20, 1947. The resort maintains a shrine to its founder, or maybe just a historical plaque. You be the judge.



The Flamingo offers a bird collection that you might expect on an English manor--pheasants and guinea fowl loose on the grounds, waterfowl and koi. It's lovely and well kept, with good signs. I didn't see birds on the lawn or in the bushes, but did see a neat flamingo exhibit with wonderful waterfalls. I saw one sacred ibis in with the flamingos. They also had black and black-necked swans and a pair of hybrid whistling ducks with a good sign--they seemed a little embarrassed by the cross. There's a few other waterfowl as well and gi-hugeic fish in the "lake."





The waterways and grounds are free, extensive, and well worth a visit. One of the restaurants offers seating with a view of the "lake".


The last birds I saw were not in professional setting. Outside Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, a man offered the opportunity to have your picture taken with four macaws. The birds were very quiet and docile. (I'd love to know how you get macaws to do that.) I don't know macaws well enough to identify species or hybrids and I didn't see how they are housed when not "working". I suspect wire cages given the beat-up tail feathers. This life didn't seem like fun for the birds.





I'll finish this strange wildlife tour of The Strip with a posting of a few odds and ends and the opportunities I missed.

For other takes on human/wildlife interaction, see my website.