It's not happening at the zoo
It was an arranged marriage, a blind date with only one acceptable outcome.
First, there would be the (always awkward) "howdy" phase; they'd get to know each other, get comfortable. Then, they'd start the courtship with some dancing and perhaps a little affection. Finally, it would culminate in a chick.
But yesterday afternoon at the Franklin Park Zoo, Pepe and Kotze, two African wattled cranes, looked less than amorous. Actually, they looked downright uninterested. They kept their distance, avoiding each other's orange-eyed glances, focusing instead on grooming their own feathers.
Kotze, the female bird, was dancing. More than once, she threw her wings in the air, jumped, and twirled about like a love-struck prom date. But the dance was directed at - gasp! - a different male: Fred Beall, general curator for Franklin Park and its parent organization, Zoo New England.
"That's not what I want," said Beall, a quiet man with cotton-white hair, after Kotze finished her dance. "That's what they should be doing to each other."
Much rests on this hoped-for romance. Pepe and Kotze are two of an estimated 8,000 wattled cranes still in existence. There are just over 230 of them in zoos across the world, nearly 60 of which live in North America, according to Beall, who tracks the population.
Like many other types of cranes, the wattled population has faced a steep decline over the past 10 years, Beall said. The reasons are many and include habitat loss and illegal trade.
These birds, one of the largest and rarest of the African cranes, are particularly good barometers for the health of aquatic ecosystems. If they aren't doing well, chances are many other species aren't, either, Beall said. "Every living thing has a purpose, a func tion. When you start taking one thing out of the mix, it has an effect."
By putting the two cranes together in a new exhibit, which opened Memorial Day weekend, Beall is trying to resuscitate their numbers. But, by now, he says, "I would have hoped they would have really gravitated to each other more."
"Typical man and woman," said Nancy Lent, 34, a zoo visitor who had just paused at the exhibit. "They're on opposite ends of the enclosure."
The cranes stand tall - up to 6 feet. Their beaks, which look like long, pointy pieces of rotten wood, are connected to their heads by bumpy, deep-red skin. Throw in their wattle - the namesake piece of flesh hanging down right where their chin might be - and they can be quite the sight to behold.
"I think they're beautiful," Lent said. "A little funny-looking."
She wasn't the only one drawn to the exhibit.
"What's this, Daddy?" squeaked 6-year-old Caroline O'Connell.
"Boy. How beautiful, huh?" said her dad, John O'Connell, 44.
"He's gonna peck you," Mary Kate O'Connell, 4, teased her sister.
Pepe is new to the Franklin Park Zoo. He arrived in August 2007 as part of a procreation plan Beall helped create. Kotze, who has been around since April 2003, didn't seem to be hitting it off with her prior male partner, Winston, so he was shipped to San Diego in an even bird-for-bird exchange. "It was time for a change," Beall said.
The goal was again to make a connection, but there would be no candles, no Barry White music, no raw oysters to fill their bills. Rather, it was a methodical introduction, first involving separate side-by-side cages, slowly building toward cohabitation. "This species," Beall said, "seems to be a little more temperamental." Even now, they have a small wall of golden hay in their enclosure, something to duck behind when one of them needs a little personal space.
If Cupid does strike, Beall will know it. The birds will start standing closer together and begin performing intricate dances of bowing, head tossing, leaping, and squawking.
So far their story is one of opposites yet to attract: Pepe was caught in the wild. Kotze was hand-reared at birth.
"She's very people-oriented," Beall said. "She doesn't necessarily think of herself as a wattled crane." That's why she flirts with Beall and the other handlers.
Pepe, on the other hand, "is much more standoffish." He does the sorts of things a wild wattled crane would. "He's trying," Beall said. Not that Kotze has noticed much. Beall said he does not think it has anything to do with the fact that Pepe's wattle was removed in San Diego.
Still, Beall hasn't given up hope on a happily ever after. During the summer months, wattled cranes take a break from mating. Come fall, they'll be back in the mood, he says. What's more, during the past year, two crane pairs in other zoos produced one hatchling each.
"It gives us some hope that we can breed them," Beall said, "that we can replace some of the animals that are dying off."
Even if these two never hit it off, there's always artificial insemination. Of course, Beall added as he surveyed their sparse enclosure, "we would prefer they do it naturally."
