has taken on ever-increasing importance over the last decade. The results have been brighter bird plumages, and after a long period of sterility in at least one pair of parrots, the onset of breeding.

James Conyers, the head zoo-keeper at the Bermuda Aquarium and Zoo, explained that his job is managing the the zoo-animal collection, and developing long and short term support for the Aquarium's master theme, `Island Species' which is its focus, chosen because Bermuda is itself an oceanic island. But a major part of his job is ensuring that the animals and birds are properly fed.

The Aquarium had already begun to improve the nutrition standards when Mr.

Conyers took on the job of head zoo-keeper, and he and his staff have continued to fine-tune the animal's diets through research and their own observations, which they note on daily written reports. "It changes as we go along,'' he said.

"We have three full-time zoo-keepers and four part-time keepers over the weekend, and we have about half a dozen volunteers who we train. The work is basically preparing diets. In an average afternoon, we would prepare as many as 40 to 50 trays of food, and it's different for every cage and pan.

"We have three feeding periods, at 8.30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4.45 p.m. Not all the animals are fed three times a day. Some are fed once, others twice or three times. There are animals which are fed once every two days.

"Then, they have to be collected and washed. We scrape, wash and put the dishes through a sterilising rinse every time.'' Many of the creatures which become exhibits at the Aquarium are endangered species. Because they are rare, often little is known about their diet. "So we have to look at comparable continental animals, and at what their diet should be,'' said Mr. Conyers. He explained that in the wild, an animal's diet will often change with the seasons, as different foods become available. "We try and vary it seasonally, too,'' he said.

The Aquarium, which houses several endangered species which are not required for breeding programmes, does run diet trials as a part of the endangered species programme. "Our otters have been found to have calcium problems in the bladder and kidneys, which are related to captive diets. We are trying a number of different diets, and monitoring them,'' said Mr. Conyers.

"They came in on one diet, and we kept them on that for two years, and then we X-rayed them. We changed the diet, and we X-rayed them again. Because we are a small zoo, we know the animals and we can keep a good track of them,'' he said.

"You can feed them the same thing every day, but these are wild animals.

Nutrition can affect the whole breeding cycle. A bird's plumage stems from its natural feeding seasons. And in the rainy season, there may an abundance of fly lava, a protein source, which a bird will use to feed its chicks.

Mr. Conyers explained each animal is fed individually, according to their dietary needs. "If we have 15 different kinds of parrots, all from different areas, the seeds will vary and the seasons will vary. We have Northern hemisphere birds and Southern hemisphere birds, and they are on totally different diets.'' The Aquarium staff try to give the birds exactly the right amount of food, to eliminate as much wastage as possible. "With cost cutting, we try and be as cost-conscious as possible.

"Periodically we will weigh and measure the food each birds gets. After we have fed the birds, we bring the food dishes back with all the left-overs and all the bits that have been dropped, and we weigh it, and figure out how much they have been eating. We want to balance it out.

"We do make a daily salad mix which is made by recipe, and the animals need varying amounts, which we work out with the help of tables.

"When new animals come in from other zoos, and they have had a diet with an item we can't provide, we will have to come up with a replacement item. We may try a few things, and eventually something will work. We also check with other zoos to see what they are feeding the species, and why.'' The Aquarium runs a rehabilitation programme, and currently a Merlin Falcon with an injured wing is in the care of the zoo section of the Aquarium. "The question for us was: `How do you get it to eat?' In fact, we have been tube feeding it.'' Obesity has become a problem in the zoo world, and the Aquarium has not escaped from it, Mr. Conyers explained. At one point he noticed the lemurs were getting plump. "I realised we had basket-ball shaped animals!'' he said.

Lemurs, he explained, are supposed to be fairly lean.

The reason for the weight problem was that these little animals particularly like to eat bananas and grapes, and they were being fed these foods as treats at all their feedings. "We put them on a crash diet -lots of shredded carrot - and they got very upset with us! "We try and provide the animals with exhibits which are behaviourally enhancing and enriching. Now, we are moving the lemurs towards foraging. We're putting their food into bamboo tubes, which means they have to put a bit more effort into getting at it. The tubes are wide enough for the animals to put their hands into, and to pull the food out. One or two of the tubes are too small for that, which forces the lemurs to bang them on the ground to get the food out. And sometimes we will give them a whole apple - not one which has been chopped and diced.'' There are foods which are toxic to particular animals. "Apple seeds, for example, are poison to juvenile Galapagos tortoises, so we have to be very careful.'' The sloth has an idiosyncrasy - he does not drink. "He eats a lot of leaves, so we run his lettuce under a tap, so it is wet. He doesn't like a soggy diet, so he has lettuce first, and his prepared diet afterwards.

The staff are not above going out and collecting insects and other small animals as food sources. "We collect live cockroaches for our Cuban tree frog, which we have because it stowed away in a container a couple of years ago.

"One of our exhibits is a predator/prey exhibit, where we have the otter and the squirrel existing together, without eating each other - although with day light saving time the otter did begin to eye the squirrel! We have to bring in the time change gradually.'' "Our aviary collection used to have a central feeding station in each cage.

But a lot of the birds would dunk their food into the water and it became very slimy. We separated the food and water trays, but some of the birds still wanted their food wet, so they fly their food over to the water and dunk it in! "The flamingos - we have 54 birds - get a commercial feed called Flamingo Fare, and we use a high protein dog kibble and chicken feed to bulk it out, and for extra protein we give them fresh fry. In the wild they eat living things, which contain living enzymes, which must do something for them nutritionally.'' The Aquarium imports a number of specialised diets for their animals, including Turtle Chow, specifically for marine turtles, and Reptile Fare, which is specifically for small reptiles.

"These prepared meals have everything in them that an animal will ever need, but a dish of it does not look like a mouse! "We try and provide as varied a diet as possible in as natural a state as possible. We import fresh produce weekly, and we use local produce, whatever is seasonally available, which provides us with variety. We also give the animals vitamin supplements.'' Mr. Conyers said the research into exotic animal nutrition is on-going, and it is important to keep up with it. "You have to teach yourself, and keep abreast by reading the journals. We get a number of excellent journals here, probably more than in other zoos, and we encourage the staff to read them.

In fact, as a zoo-keeper's work becomes increasingly scientific, nutrition and medicine for exotic animals are beginning to be offered as undergraduate programmes towards a degree.

"We also make up our own formulas -- in-house designed and proven.

Zoo-keepers have their own recipes by which they swear blind,'' he said.

Nourishing meals make for healthy and happy animals From Page 25 from zoo folk lore also help with designing diets. "For example, with terrapins, we know they need calcium, but we don't know how much, so that's guess work.'' While variety is important, so is routine. "A big change can create a case of the runs,'' said Mr. Conyers, who recalled that during his days in an American zoo, he had to clean up after an elephant on boxing day, after a misguided well-wisher had given it a Christmas box of fruit! "We are looking at an on-site concession stand, but it does pose some problems. Our site is small, so it is difficult to locate it away from the exhibits, but we don't want people to feed the animals. We are pretty certain that we can educate people not to feed the animals.'' The parrots should not even be fed peanuts, said Mr. Conyers. "The calcium/phosphorous balance is bad for them,'' he explained.

Fibre is important to all the animals, whether it's the sloth or the alligator. How they get that fibre varies. "We give whole banana trees, without the roots, to the tortoises.'' He explained that these creatures weigh in at between 400 and 500 pounds each and have appetites to match, so it was important to be creative about food sources.

Alligators, on the other hand, will eat whole chickens or whole ducks, including the feathers, bones and internal organs. The feathers and bones provide the roughage, while the internal organs give the alligator important minerals and trace elements. "If we just gave him roast beef, he would be missing a few bits and pieces,'' Mr. Conyers explained.

The alligator is not fed at all during the winter months. "In the cooler weather - at night it can get down to 40 degrees with the wind chill factor - the first thing that shuts down is the digestive system. He may actually swallow the food, but he does not digest it, so it starts to rot, and a bone may burst his stomach wall.

"We stop feeding him in October or November, and begin again in March. We were concerned about weight loss, so we bulk feed him in the summer months to get his weight up.

"But alligators can actually go for as long as two years without eating,'' he said.

"Our barn owl gets mice to eat. We import our mice fresh killed and frozen, from a supplier to medical laboratories, so we know they are disease and poison free. We also import frozen, day-old chicks.'' Mr. Conyers said there is no live feeding at the Aquarium. "There are two schools of thought. One is that the animals should be fed live prey, which is what they do naturally. But if the prey get loose, we'll have chickens and mice running all over the place.'' There is also a view that animals are more aggressive if they are fed live prey, and so, as a safety precaution, it's best not to feed them in this way.

"They may equate movement with food, and the keepers have to work with them every day,'' he said.

A PICTURE OF HEALTH -- Just like humans, animals and birds look and feel better when they eat nutritious food.