The Cameron Park Zoo is conducting two one-day workshops as part of the Orangutan Cardio Care program.
Discussions and demonstrations will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 18th, 2016 and Wednesday, Oct. 19th, 2016.
Participants of the workshop include primate keepers representing 20 different institutions across the country.
The Orangutan Cardio Health Workshop’s goal is to discuss productive training methods, standardize record keeping, and offer you an opportunity to learn how to conduct an echocardiogram and understand what you are seeing.
The Cameron Park Zoo has developed a training program for cardio-health monitoring with orangutans. The zoo has also succeeded in training male orangutans to provide voluntary blood pressure readings using a device called a tuff cuff.
This year Cameron Park Zoo worked with a local company, Alpha Tech Hydraulics, to develop the first female tough cuff to measure a female orangutan’s blood pressure. Cameron Park Zoo’s females, Mei and Kutai are the only female orangutans in the US trained for voluntary blood pressure readings using the female tuff cuff.
By developing a female tuff cuff and working to standardize training protocols Cameron Park Zoo hopes to help zoos around the country improve orangutan cardio health programs and gain more information for the Great Ape Heart Project.
Copyright 2016 KXXV. All rights reserved.
