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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview with Susanna Smith
Aired March 03, 2002 - 08:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well some children, I guess you could say here at CNN, are having a wild lesson in conservation. We're having this face-to-face meeting with some animals on the Endangered Species List, and we're going to meet a few of them today, including Harry here I'm going to tell you about. And joining is us Zoo Educator, Susanna Smith from the Busch Gardens Animal Adventures Caravan. Thank you so much for being with us.
SUSANNA SMITH, BUSCH GARDENS: Thanks for having me.
PHILLIPS: I'm loving my new friend. If only my baby would be like this.
SMITH: Oh, I know and they sleep about 20 hours a day, so that makes life a little easier too.
PHILLIPS: Oh, that's perfect. Oh, if we only had that much time to sleep. Well, tell me why Busch Gardens is sort of making this tour from city to city?
SMITH: Well, we've been traveling around really to reach back out to the community. We've had a lot of guests fund this area, coming to Busch Gardens, so we're visiting schools, hospitals, a lot of local community areas to show them the animals, do what I love to do best is, you know, not only give them a close interaction with them, but teach them a little bit about where they're from. And many of these kids may never get a chance to come to Busch Gardens, so it's an excellent way to reach back out to them.
PHILLIPS: Well sure, and when you put Harry in my arms, it makes me want to learn more about the sloth. Let's talk about him. I've been learning a lot from you already in just the past few minutes. He's obviously a very calm animal, always sleeps.
SMITH: Sleeps almost 20 hours a day, hangs out in the tree. It's whole life, I mean it does everything upside down, except probably once a week or so, it comes down to the base of the tree to defecate, which ends up helping the environment.
PHILLIPS: Well that's good in the rainforest where they hang out. I'm sorry, go ahead.
SMITH: Exactly. It helps disperse many of the seeds of the plants and the fruit that they have eaten, and when the crawl back up, they just go right into a ball and hide. I mean they just hang out and that's how they hide from predators.
PHILLIPS: Wow, and you're saying he's from the anteater family, is that right?
SMITH: That's right. His closest cousins are armadillos and anteaters, even though he looks kind of like a monkey, and they share a lot of the same dental characteristics in their structure, the way that their claws are too. So if you were to see an anteater up close, you'd probably see the same things.
PHILLIPS: All right, as we bring Harry back over to his little spot over here, you're going to show me how to hang him from his tree, right?
SMITH: His tree is waiting, that's right.
PHILLIPS: That's where he's most comfortable. And he doesn't really have a character though, right? Like a dog or a cat?
SMITH: Exactly. Just reach him right towards the tree.
PHILLIPS: OK, like this.
SMITH: Put him down a little bit, exactly, and I'll take his legs like this and he'll just crawl like this, and this is how he responds to things. You can probably hear him sniffing.
PHILLIPS: Right, he was constantly sniffing in my ear.
SMITH: And that's what he recognizes are smells, and that's why he's not -- he doesn't respond to us like a dog or cat, and that's why he wouldn't make a good pet.
PHILLIPS: Right.
SMITH: Besides the fact that he keeps you up all night long, because the four hours that he is awake are at night. And so you can see now how he's eating. He loves the squash, and this is how he would use his claws, and if you can imagine once it starts raining, all of the rain just falls off of his hair, because his hair parts right along his stomach.
PHILLIPS: Well, it's definitely a loving animal. He's such a cutie pie.
SMITH: And we'll let him hang out.
PHILLIPS: OK, go to the next one.
SMITH: John's going to bring a friend.
PHILLIPS: Fantastic.
SMITH: Yes, John's going to bring Maverick over here, and I'll just reach right in front of you.
PHILLIPS: I love Maverick, pretty bird. Can he fly jets? Can he be top gun?
SMITH: Can you, well you can do your little, what's that? Oh you're looking back at John, aren't you? We'll give her a chance. Maverick is a red-fronted macaw.
PHILLIPS: What are you doing? You're all excited aren't you?
SMITH: Red-fronted macaws are very rare. They're a desert parrot and this macaw is about a third of the size of most macaws, so many people mistake them for an Amazon. But in Bolivia, and that's primarily where they're found, they have had to deal with a lot of habitat loss.
PHILLIPS: OK.
SMITH: A lot of farming and that competes with their habitat, so Maverick here, of course, doesn't have to worry about that because Maverick's always lived with people at Busch Gardens. But this is just a great example of how they bond. You saw Maverick just watching John. They really bond with people. It's a little bit different than the sloth.
PHILLIPS: OK. Does he have a favorite word?
SMITH: Yes, your favorite word is "what's up?"
MAVERICK: What's up?
PHILLIPS: OK, that was very good. Forget the Budweiser frog, we've got Maverick. All right, who are we going to move onto next?
SMITH: OK, we're going to see a cat now. You go back and see John. There you go. That's how loud they can be.
PHILLIPS: Oh, wow.
SMITH: This is a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) cat, and Erica is the woman.
PHILLIPS: OK.
SMITH: And Atlas is the cat.
PHILLIPS: Very smart.
SMITH: This is an African cat that's found throughout the Savannahs of Africa, long, long legs, in fact the longest legs in proportion to their body for the small cats. Atlas is about average size for this type of cat, about 25 pounds. But she has, or excuse me, he has a real special story. You see their incredible jumping. Well actually, he can jump about eight feet.
PHILLIPS: Should I move my script?
SMITH: Maybe, that may help a little bit.
PHILLIPS: OK, very good, so he's not so - SMITH: Atlas came to Busch Gardens as a part of a rescue story. Someone had him as a pet. He clawed them and they couldn't take care of him anymore. Someone else got the cat and they didn't even have the proper permits. Few states are different with exotic animals, and many states ban exotic animals as pets. So he was confiscated from the owner and then Atlas was brought to Busch Gardens, and now as you can see, I mean similar to John and the bird Erica, and Atlas, they work together, and this is a working relationship that just a small number of people have. And that is raw meat that she's feeding him.
PHILLPS: Wow.
SMITH: So this is, it's a full-time job and we love these animals, but it really is a full-time job to give them the care that they definitely need.
PHILLIPS: And these are all animals you can go see at Busch Gardens. I know we're going to bring up your Web site and talk about the Web site.
SMITH: Yes. All these animals, not only do we do different educational programs, but we even have an adventure camp where kids can spend a whole week, and spend a day with a different keeper so they can spend the whole day learning how to take care of a cat like this. And then another day with John and learn about all the animals. So it's an awesome way to educate people and get them so close to the animals.
PHILLIPS: Well, it's already been really special for me. I can't wait to go back to Busch Gardens. It's been a long time, since I was a kid. Susanna Smith, thank you so much.
SMITH: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Will you come back and visit us again?
SMITH: Oh, we definitely will.
PHILLIPS: All right, we're going to let all our little animals say goodbye then as we go to break.
SMITH: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
PHILLIPS: Look at this. Oh, look at you. Wow, beautiful.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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