Hormones, increased daylight and anticipation — it’s amore, or plain old courtship and reproduction.
With Valentine’s Day and the promise of spring, some animals and birds at the Pittsburgh Zoo and National Aviary and their wild cousins have a love story to tell — sort of.
Animals and humans actually feature some commonalities when it comes to picking a mate, said Henry Kacprzyk, a retired curator with the zoo and an educator who will speak at the zoo’s sold-out “Animal Instincts and Valentine’s Dinner” on Friday.
“In spring even humans have thoughts of romance. The same in the animal world,” he said, noting increased daylight and changes in hormone levels as cues inherent to the season.
For example, the zoo’s non-breeding pair of bald eagles, Liberty and Justice, are receiving regular visits from two wild eagles that perch in a tree above the eagle exhibit “talking to them,” Kacprzyk said.
“Are these interactions with wild eagles territorial in nature? Or breeding interest? Or to snatch some food from them?”
“There is no display of aggression,” he said. “Eagles are breeding and doing their aerial displays this time of year.”
Gifts of pebbles
Other zoo animals will soon display additional breeding behaviors similar to that of humans. The zoo’s penguins in particular, employ a familiar courting process.
“Like humans, if a guy is interested in a woman, he presents her with a diamond. Penguins present a pebble,” Kacprzyk said. “Both courtships can result in offspring.”
Kacprzyk notes numerous similar courtship behaviors between humans and some animals “whether it’s gift-giving or being gentle with a female.”
Among the animals he has visited frequently, a particularly friendly female orangutan caught his attention.
“I think she was sweet on me,” he said.
“She would come to the glass and give a kiss. She would hand me fruit. I took this as a very human kind of behavior. I would talk to her. She was generally a nice animal, like nice people.”
Kacprzyk admits he talks to the zoo animals frequently.
“I say their names and ask ‘How are you guys doing today?’
“They make a connection. They know I’m not a threat and I talk to them in a kind, gentle voice.”
The animals respond by looking at him and generally seem content, he said.
Animal instincts for breeding can be triggered by increasing daylight and abundance of food.
“In African savannas, most animals give birth after the rainy season,” Kacprzyk said.
Giraffes are capable of giving birth year-round; they don’t go through estrus, a female mammal’s cyclical state of sexual receptivity.
There are subtle ways female giraffes can show interest in a mate, such as allowing him to get close to her. She will stand for him and allow him to sample her urine for signals of fertility.
Giraffes stand most of the time because of potential predator attacks. Their breeding is acrobatic and subtle.
“Males want to breed, but it’s the female’s choice,” Kacprzyk said.
Since male giraffes have modestly sized reproductive appendages, the females have lots of wiggle room.
“If she is not receptive, she can take the tiniest of steps so a male can’t breed with her,” Kacprzyk said.
Her actions say, “I will let you know.”
In the past, Kacprzyk hand-delivered giraffe calves of unsedated females.
“They gave birth standing up and dropped their baby 6 feet to the ground.
“In the African savanna, if you are not moving, you can be preyed upon.
Breeding by committee
An Association of Zoos & Aquariums committee determines whether or not the Pittsburgh Zoo will breed certain animals according to the AZA’s individualized species survival plans.
“We’re not creating a baby boomer generation in the zoo,” he said.
But surprises do happen.
Kacprzyk recalled a 3-year-old male sea lion siring young years ago. He was the only male at that time with a wide-open opportunity with the females.
In the wild, size dominance dictates breeding for large male sea lions and, according to studies, 3-year-olds aren’t large enough to win that battle and breed.
“Well, our sea lion didn’t read that book,” Kacprzyk said.
The African elephant breeding program at the zoo’s International Conservation Center in Somerset County features a prolific male, Jackson, who is responsible for nearly 50% of the births over the past decade. His semen has also been used to impregnate females at other zoos, according to Kacprzyk.
The zoo has also collected semen from wild African elephants that produced offspring at European sites.
“Instead of taking animals from the wild, we use semen to artificially inseminate,” Kacprzyk noted.
Yes, there is natural breeding at the zoo’s Somerset center as well. But it can be quite the process.
With their trunks, elephant males analyze females for signs she is in estrus. Male elephants go into musth, a testosterone rage prompted by high levels of testosterone and increased aggression.
“Those elephants, when the female is in estrus, they go in demanding to mate,” Kacprzyk said.
“Females in the group have been known to play a role in driving off dangerous males, sometimes herding the offspring. Females are formidable in a group in driving off a male.”
When love takes a dive
As relentless as the birds themselves, some of the creatures’ most sordid and intricate courtships are documented by webcams.
The National Aviary’s peregrine FalconCam focuses on the falcons nesting atop the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning in Oakland. There are lots of field observations made by volunteer watchers, too.
A male suitor shows off his soaring abilities, agile flight capability and hunting prowess, offering multiple meals to the object of his desire.
The fastest animal on earth, reaching up to 200 mph, peregrine couples will swoop, dive and race together with an aim to impress at top speeds, said Kate St. John, the region’s peregrine chronicler and author of the blog Outside my Window.
“They will fly upside down sometimes — ‘Look what we can do.’
“It’s breathtaking. It’s not something I see often,” said St. John, an Oakland resident who has been documenting falcons in the region for about 24 years.
It was the birds’ spectacular aerial courtship flights at the Cathedral of Learning that caught her attention while stopped at a traffic light on her way to work.
February is a good month to witness the flights as falcons here lay eggs in mid-March and April.
There’s been a camera and later a more advanced webcam placed at the Cathedral of Learning since 2003.
It continues to capture the “bowing” courtship St. John had read about but hadn’t seen until this webcam caught the action.
The male will show his lady-love prospective nest sites on cliffs or its urban alternative, ledges near the tops of tall buildings.
The birds don’t build traditional nests. They scrape the gravel and other materials on a hard surface to make a nest bowl.
“His typical ritual is zooming into the nest site and walking — a swagger with a high step,” she said.
“He calls to her and makes scraping motions, ‘Hey, Sweetie, I’m making you a nest.’”
While scraping and working on the site, the birds bow to one another and chatter.
“Sometimes they make these sounds that get softer and the birds get closer and, sometimes, they will touch beaks.”
In 2020, St. John noticed that the male at Pitt, Terzo, didn’t do a lot of bowing and would not get very close to a new female.
“We didn’t know why he was like this. He wasn’t always around.”
The female laid two eggs, but Terzo and a new male, Ecco, didn’t help much and the nest failed.
Around the same time, St. John and other watchers knew that the Downtown peregrines fledged three young.
The next year, someone snapped a photo of the Downtown male and identified his bands (many peregrines were outfitted with identification bands by the Pennsylvania Game Commission and other agencies to track the birds when they were endangered).
The photo revealed the mystery male was Terzo.
“Terzo was making up his mind between the nests,” St. John said.
Other male peregrines have been documented two-timing with two nests and two families simultaneously, she added.
“With cameras, you can find out stuff by reading a bird’s band. My gosh, it can be total drama.”