What is the Science of Animal Nutrition?

Ever wonder how a zookeeper knows what to feed a tuatara, a splendid sunbird or a red panda? In this episode, Dr. Andrea Fidget shares her expertise in comparative and conservation animal nutrition, exploring how understanding species-specific diets and natural history informs better animal care and conservation efforts. Discover the science behind animal diets, the importance of nutritional wisdom, and the future of wildlife nutrition research.

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AZA Nutrition Advisory Group
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National Animal Nutrition Program
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Podcast Music: Positive Carefree Folk Pop
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

A really, really stripped down way of thinking about it is what do we know about this animal? What do we know more specifically about the type of food that it's going to eat? And a great way to think about it, that is that continuum from herbivory to carnivory. And then in the middle you have omnivary. And then from those ingredients that they would be consuming and seeking out in the wild, how can we best replicate that? What do we know about the nutrient composition of those items?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

I'm Rick Schwartz, educator, public speaker, and all-around curious guy. Over the years, my curiosity and experiences, along with the many people I have worked with, revealed to me we all have a desire to feel connected to the natural world. You're listening to Animals, Nature and You, a podcast that explores a connection between animals, nature, and humans. A podcast that celebrates learning more, following our curiosity, and reconnecting with the natural world. Welcome to another episode of Animals, Nature and You. Of course, I'm your host, Rick Schwartz, and I am very glad you're here. Today's conversation. Well, let me let me put it to you this way. Have you ever wondered, and I know a lot of the audience that listens and watches are already in the animal care world or conservation side of things or work for a zoo, so you probably already know the answer to this. But for those of you that aren't or are looking to get into it or just enjoy nature or coming out from the other side of the conversation where we talk about nature, this particular episode, we're going to be talking about animal nutrition with someone who knows a lot about it. But it's funny, having come from the zoo side of things, I often would hear people say, Well, where, you know, how do you know what to feed a gorilla? How do you know what to feed a zebra? Well, they're like a horse, so you feed them like a horse, probably, right? How do you know what to feed a hyrax? And there's a lot of science and studies and understanding that goes into animal nutrition. So when I first met today's guest, I was working at the San Diego Zoo and I'd already had conversations with veterinarians and nutritionists just about the animals I cared for. And when I met today's guest, the depth of knowledge that I gained was really amazing. And to think about the diversity of species she had to know about, stepping into the role that she had, it was just fascinating. And part of my conversation today, I really hope we can dive into how, even on a nutritional level, talking about wildlife, whether it's birds, mammals, or reptiles, that it, or even our pets, honestly, that the interconnectivity from a nutritional standpoint is as obvious and clear as the interconnectivity when I talk about the fact that we aren't separate from nature, that going out and being in nature is important because, and identifying the plants and knowing the species that live in your area is important because it's all this connectivity. So we will get into that. And I'm going to welcome her into the studio here in just a second, but to give you a bit of an idea of who we're talking about, Dr. Andrea Fidget is a comparative and conservation nutritionist with almost three decades of experience creating animal feeding programs for zoos in Europe and the United States. Andrea earned her bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Glasgow and her master's degree in animal nutrition from the University of Aberdeen. She returned to the University of Glasgow for her doctorate in avian nutrition ecology, starting with asking, what makes a good egg? And that's that's funny to me because it's it's kind of a saying, good egg, bad egg, but also then nutritionally speaking, and then also you talk about the health of an animal to create a good egg. So many layers to that. Dr. Andrea Fidget was the first full-time animal nutritionist employed at a zoo in the United Kingdom. Then she served as the director of wildlife nutrition for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. She has provided expert training and consulting internationally and has conducted targeted collaborative research on multiple taxa with the goal of ensuring that wildlife receives the nutrition they need to thrive. Currently, she is a professor at the Western University of Health Sciences College of Veterinary Medicine in Pomona, California. In this role, she advocates for a one-health perspective of food production, safety, and quality that contributes to the overall well-being of all living things on the planet. So, all of that said, I cannot wait to get into this conversation with you. Dr. Andrea Fidget, thank you so much for taking the time to be a guest here on Animals Nature and You.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Well, Rick, it's a delight to be talking with you today. So I'm I'm actually really flattered that you're you invited me. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yes, of course. And and for those who don't know in the audience, we actually met and and crossed paths several times in the past when we both worked for San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. And we were talking prior to uh recording here that when I started as a zookeeper almost 30 years ago, the idea of a nutritionist for animals just wasn't even on the radar. It was if it's a fruit eater, you feed it fruit. If it's closely related to a horse, you feed it like you would a horse. But in the intro, we went over, I've read through your bio, and it's a comparative and conservation nutritionist. What is that exactly? Before we jump into why it's important and how it all developed, what is a comparative and conservation nutritionist?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Great question. And maybe it's a it's a little grand, but I like to put both of those words in there because for me, I'm an animal nutritionist by training, but my initial degree was in zoology. Um, and when you do animal nutrition in you're typically in an agricultural setting and you're learning about food animals and companion animals. And um, you mentioned we both met at the San Diego Zoo, and and so I broadened that scope. Um, and I consider myself a comparative nutritionist because I'm not only looking at one species. I didn't specialize in one species, and and indeed I've gone on to work with very many uh species, hundreds, in fact. It's kind of a little staggering. But um the conservation component is because that's been uh driving my interest. I've always I've had this long history of working in zoos, both in the States but uh before that in the UK. And so I always saw nutrition as just another facet of animal care. And so most of the time when we're working with species and we're uh working with them in a zoo setting, we're doing so because there's a conservation driver behind that. So that's the the comparative piece is a horse is different to a primate, is different to a frog. Uh so they're all going to have different requirements, but but the reason why we're caring for them and thinking about their nutrition is because of the conservation threats that they face.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

I want to jump in real quick with trying to look at this concept from the everyday person's perspective. Often I would hear when working at the zoo that, you know, from the general public, oh, do you feed them turtle food? Do you feed them dog food? Do you feel them cat food? You know, people make an association with perhaps what they've seen in pet stores, that there's a container labeled rabbit food, turtle food, dog food. And I would like to think that nutritionally those prepackaged items are an attempt to give the animal what it needs. But I do know also that just in my time in animal care, the science and knowledge that came available across the decades is to like, oh no, that's not what you do. That's not why you should do it or that way, or this is what you should feed them instead. Walk me through the process of how you would approach understanding what per, let's say a particular bird, I don't, I don't know, I'm not pull species out, but just in general, like, how do you look at a species and then start breaking down what they need, not just to sustain life, but for a healthy life? And you mentioned the conservation aspect. Is there something within their normal native range that you need to make sure you duplicate that mineral or that carbohydrate or whatever it might be in their zoo settings? How do you go about recognizing, no, you don't just go to the store and buy a can of food for them?

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Oh gosh, a lot to unpack there. But um, I think uh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, um, I think it's kind of this um, it's almost like a trafector of of things that you have to pay attention to. So you picked, let's let's pick a species of bird, or you can pick any species, you're gonna want to know um as much as you can or is known about the natural history of that species. Where is it found? How widely is it found, how variable is the environment that it lives in, what are its foraging habits, um, so many different aspects of its day-to-day life. And then that's day-to-day, but clearly you would also, in the conservation setting, you'd want to know sort of life history. So start to expand into what it might need to breed, or or um what it might need when it's aging in that environment. Then you're going to want to know a little bit about the foods that it's consuming, but recognizing that most of those foods were not replicating an African forest in a North American setting. And we quite simply couldn't reproduce all of those food items on a sustainable basis and feed them out exactly at the same time as these animals might. But you're trying to understand what are those food types, and what is it in terms of the third sort of part of that puzzle is what are the specific nutrients within those foods that the animal's craving? Because we tend to just bring it back to ourselves, um you don't go to the store and think, uh, well, increasingly we do think about protein um because it seems to be in all sorts of different types of foods now, and we're being told to eat more of it. But that's kind of the unusual thing. You definitely don't go to the store and think, hmm, I've got to satisfy my magnesium drive today. Right. So um, I shouldn't say never because inevitably there'll be somebody who says, Well, I do think about that. Well, great. Um but for the most part, what you're doing is you're you're purchasing ingredients, and those ingredients could be individual ingredients, or they could be mixed together to make an apple pie. Um, so it's already that that work has already been done for you. But your body is going to take that in those ingredients, whether it's the apple or the apple pie, and it's going to break them down into the constituent parts again, because that's what your body's using for energy and for um health, day-to-day health. But then, as you say, we really want to take it to the next level wherever possible and be thinking about um what's it going to take for this animal not just to exist and satisfy its energy requirements, because um fruit and vegetables can do that. They're really good forms of of carbohydrate which can be converted into energy and and that's gonna satisfy you, but it they aren't necessarily going to be the best sources of protein or maybe some essential fatty acids or all provide all the minerals and vitamins that you need. So I really um I think the the really, really stripped down way of thinking about it is what do we know about this animal? What do we know more specifically about the type of food that it's going to eat? And and a great way to think about it that is that continuum from herbivary to carnivory, and then in the middle you have omnivory, where you can eat a bit of both. Um, and then from those ingredients that they would be consuming and seeking out in the wild, how can we best replicate that? What do we know about the nutrient composition of those items? And so, what does that look like in our zoo store cupboard um or store? And I think just going back to that idea of a turtle food, um, there are complete diets for animals, just as there are for pets. I kind of whenever I'm talking about this to our guests or to students, I always kind of like to challenge the idea about it being a complete food, because for so many species, how do we know? We know a ton about companion animals, and when I'm talking about companion animals, I'm thinking about cats and dogs and rabbits, um, small mammals. Um uh we know a lot about animals which we raise for food and then performance animals, so I would put horses in that category. We've researched them extensively, but we're still learning. And it would be unusual to talk about having complete diets. It happens, um, but we wouldn't say that the diet is complete for them. And then we expect to sort of be able to say um that a diet for I don't know, a snapping turtle is complete. And we're like, I'm I'm not sure. You know, I I I think there's I always want to leave the door open for further knowledge and further research and and exploration. And usually actually um this maybe sort of goes on to the next question is how do we know? Well, the animals tell us because they they don't do the things that we expect them to do. They maybe aren't 100% healthy, or they don't thrive, or they don't grow appropriately, or in worst case scenario, they don't uh they don't actually then um reproduce.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Right. And and with that, too, what comes to mind for me is there was a shift that occurred, I would say probably 20 years ago, maybe yeah, probably about 20 years ago, if I remember correctly. And but a lot of times reptiles, amphibians, even some bird species are getting fed some sort of mealworm or version thereof of a larvae. And about 20 years ago, give or take, all of a sudden it became very important to make sure that they are getting these worms that are in these bins for weeks on end as you feed them out and they're alive, were getting a diversity of vegetables fed to them, along with some mineral powder put on them and in their food, because of the fact that a standard mealworm eating only potatoes while it was waiting to be fed out was not transferring a proper nutrition then to the animal eating it. And so when you talk about what you just mentioned, you made me think of it, was the snapping turtle is at a complete diet. And so my thought goes to, well, they eat a wide variety of things. And seasonally, too, what is available is different throughout the year. And then also, if you think about that, they're eating fish. Well, the fish seasonally have different foods they're eating, different insects, bugs, or aquatic materials. And so that changes their nutritional value that the turtle's eating. So, how can a container be nutritionally complete? And and I love the way you present that. You leave the door open because you know, do we know for sure? And I think that allows for that scientific perspective of we only know what we know right now, but we're open to learning more and having more knowledge come our way, which of course in the animal world we see all the time. Uh, I do want to ask you too. You had mentioned really knowing the individual or knowing the species, I should say, and knowing their environment, knowing where they're from, obviously seasonal things as well. Are there also then, if I remember correctly, too, it depends on the stage of life for certain species, which can influence then what their nutritional needs are. Is that knowledge come from, like you mentioned, time of just experiencing what's working, what's not working, or is there are there also studies as to what plants or food items serve that species in the wild? Or is it a combination of all the above?

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Um, probably a combination of all the above. And this is where uh having that scientific approach has become more important, the scientific approach to assessing nutrition. And I think of this quite a lot because I'm now in a role where uh I I'm involved in teaching vet students, and I think about this in the sense of um we're now in the realm of maybe clinical nutrition versus day-to-day nutrition. So you're trying to troubleshoot a specific issue, which is um your animal appears healthy, appears disease-free, and isn't reproducing. So what might be going wrong? What might be going on rather than going wrong? Um, you're kind of initially wanting to just confirm, is it is it growing appropriately? Does it have the right body condition score? Um, so we we don't all we can't always put our hands on animals to or put them on a scale easily, um, thinking about hummingbirds. Um it might be more stressful to catch them up to weigh them than just to let them go about their business. Equally, you need pretty robust scales to weigh elephants on a regular basis, and it's a it's a headache when they don't work if you're relying on that. So there's other ways in which you can assess that the growth is happening normally. But what can often happen is that there might be something happening subclinically, so it's not severe enough in terms of uh nutrition um deficiency, I'll say, or nutrition no nutrition kind of mismatch, because it may not always be a deficiency, but it may not be severe enough to be generating a true clinical sign, and you're just in this kind of um slightly difficult zone of of it's there, you're just everything's static, everything should be happening, but it's not. And sometimes it can be what do we know about this species? And and again, often when I'm talking to students and I pose this question and say exactly like you said to me, how would we go about it? They're going, well, we'll go to the literature, and really getting very detailed studies of exactly what is being consumed, whether it's prey items, large prey items if you're a cheetah, smaller prey items if you're the snapping turtle or a frog, um, or plant material if you're some kind of herbivore. Getting that longitudinal data, often there's some beautiful studies that do that, but they'll do it in one location, maybe over successive years. But that represents a tiny part of their range. And often those are botanical or or um zoological lists of those items, and then in food analysis is quite a destructive process. Um, so you're taking up those samples, you're removing them from the environment, you have to process them a particular way and then chemically digest them to get the data that turns it into percentages, protein, carbohydrate, fat, etc. So it's quite an involved process, expensive and just cumbersome. So there can often be, again, a data gap, and you're trying to make that comparison between, okay, I know that this is green leafy material. Is it more like lettuce, green leafy material, like a romaine lettuce? Is it darker green material like kale? Or is it uh green leafy material like chewing on an acacia branch? And each of those is all green leafy material, but they're very different in their nutrient provision for an animal and the digestibility for an animal. And we there's just huge gaps in our knowledge. So we're offering we're often making one of my colleagues used to call it um highly informed guesswork. Um, but it is really that ability to do the extrapolation of if it's romaine lettuce, then it's going to very have a higher water content. That water content's going down when you're when you get into kale. But those specific types of greens, a dark leafy green veg that we have in our diet, are often good sources of minerals. And then when you get to the acacia, then the the composition of fiber is increasing. So you're no longer maybe it's you're no longer selecting for the for the mineral content. You might be A, it might be the only thing that you have in your diet, um, but B is also a good source of fiber. And then just to sort of elaborate on that a little better, um I love talking about herbivores because once you start to think about them, you're actually not feeding the herbivore in terms of when we get into true herbivory, whether it's um uh something like a ruminant, which has multi-chambers, stomachs, or even if they they have that uh ability to ferment food further along their digestive tract, which a lot of mammals and birds can do, all you're doing is you're actually feeding the microbes that are in the gut anatomy. So that's the other part when I'm talking about natural history of animals that we haven't even talked about, is understanding the apparatus to get the food into the animal. So are they using their trunk or a prehensile tail or a thumb or a beak? How do they mechanically process that food? All of this is we're thinking about all of these things, and then what is what is distinct about their digestive anatomy that's going to allow them to utilize those items? And a great example of that is that um I think you'll agree that the use of sugary fruity items has dramatically changed in zoo diets over the time that we've both been working. And a lot of that's because we recognize that those items are high-ticket, they're animals are highly motivated for them. Um, but too much of them is like candy for us. Um, but also not only in the way that they're quite, you know, flavorsome and might be you choosing them over some other things that are good for you, um, but also because when you're putting those into a digestive system that's adapted to eat something that's a bit more like straw, um, then the gut microbes get they have a party. Um, but the wrong microbes might be having the best time. And so again, that's the sort of sub-clinical effect that could be happening. You're getting the energy from that item, but you're not necessarily your your GI health is just subpar. And so you just, you know, if if there's another individual in your space that you should be interested in from a reproductive perspective, you're just kind of going, no thanks. I've got a bit of an upset tummy, you know. So those are the sm that's a very silly way of explaining it, but it it kind of makes the point.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Well, yeah, I and I think, you know, it is it is sort of perhaps sillier, simplistic way, but it also goes into then a lot of humans are becoming more aware that when the gut microbes are upset, it can upset and change hormones, it can upset and change other chemistry in the body and how you can present energetically throughout the day. And while you're still eating and still going to the bathroom, but everything internally is a little topsy-turvy, and so it it then changes the outward lifestyle as well. Uh so I think that's that's that's fascinating. Because in my head, too, I was thinking about how we've seen a shift to whole prey for carnivores because of the need for the chunks of calcium for chewing up the bone and the multi-multiple parts of the body that are consumed by carnivores, not just the meat and all of that. But yeah, the the gut microbe then for the herbivores. You covered so much. I want to jump back into what you said about midway through about the chemical digestion of, let's say, acacia or let's say eucalyptus or something like that, uh, or even bamboo, to have a better understanding. Because again, across our careers, we've seen things like pelleted foods becoming available because someone has taken the time to do a chemical analysis to create a biscuit or a pellet or a kibble that is going to be a really solid baseline nutritional food that you would then supplement with fresh items as well, here and there. I just I want to make sure that the audience understands. Essentially, what you're saying is going out and harvesting, for lack of a better term, and that's why it's it's challenging to do this, depending upon what parts of the world the species is found. But harvesting their native food and then bringing it back to a lab to literally break it down and analyze every nutritional component. So you're talking about carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, vitamins, all of that. And again, we're talking about getting this information in a laboratory after going out and finding a way to harvest it as fresh as possible. So you're understanding that when the animal's chewing on this, this is what is going into its system. Is that kind of a simple way of saying it?

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Yes. Or is there more to it? Well, there is more to it, because that's exactly right. And and it's not going to be one single assay that can do all of that. There's some more technology coming on stream, but but um in order to sort of um what's the word? Um calibrate that the new technology is giving you the same results as the old, what we call wet chemistry. Uh, we need a better library of wet chemistry data. And so you could imagine there's there's good data for mountain gorillas. Well, mountain gorillas don't live exactly the same as Western lowland gorillas, and western lowland gorillas are the ones that most zoos have. So even just within a uh, you know, a comparison between those two species, um, which you should yes, they are far more comparable than they're than comparing between other types of primates. But the the piece there is when we go to the store and we look at the nutrition label on the back of anything that you pick up, because even produce, unless it's loose, is going to have a little nutrition label on it. And that applies in the US, and there'll be different labels anywhere that you go. It's kind of a government standard around the world. Remember, pretty much exclusively, that is those foods in a grocery store are designed for humans. So there's one species eating that. So it's telling you the nutritional profile as consumed by a human. The one thing that when you do that wet chemistry on a food type is that just because you get a particular fiber level or protein level doesn't mean um that all the primate species that your facility has are going to be able to utilize that protein level to the same degree. So you get something called digestibility. Um and to do digestibility, we actually need animals, and that's what's happened with cats and dogs and and animals raised as food and horses to an extent. And those experiments, they are experiments, they're pretty invasive, they're a lot um a lot more involved, shall we say? So we again we're we're doing a lot of inference work and and utilizing this is where those model species of cat, dog, and all the others that I just mentioned, rodents are another um example, and primates have been studied. And whatever your thoughts about primate research, the fact that we can feed um, I don't know, a res the fact that we can feed a chimpanzee the way that we can, and even gorillas the way that we can, and know that we're doing a pretty good job is because we can draw from those studies um and draw some knowledge from that and utilize that because that type of work just doesn't happen with animals in the wild.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Right. And when and I mean, how would you? I mean, it's just like, yeah, it's so interesting too, because as you're explaining this and saying, you know, digestibility, it's like, well, yeah, because the the gut compounds and the way the stomach works of a capuchin is gonna be different than a mandrel, which is different than a gorilla, and yet they're all might be getting fed the same leafy green materials um as part of their diet, but the way their body processes it, then it's gonna be different. Or can extract and utilize these things will be different. So, yeah, that's there's so much to think about with this. And that's this is exactly why I wanted you on the show, because I think it is one of those fascinating parts to the animal care world, to zoos, to conservation, to even your pets that we sometimes just don't think about. I think a lot of people don't think about their own nutrition sometimes and making sure they diversify their fruit. They go for their favorites. I like blueberries and bananas, so that's what I buy all every single time I go to the store. But I should think about getting other things too, because having a wider uh diversity or plane of nutrition is important for all living creatures. So this is so, so fascinating. I have to ask, because you did mention you have a zoology background. What drew you into this? This just seems so specific and niche part of the animal side and zoology side of things. And I can say in my career, I have met one, I so I taught college for a little bit, and I had one student out of the four four years that I taught that she's like, I want to get into nutrition. I was like, I have never had a student say that's their that's their specific thing. So did you know going into zoology studies that was of interest, or it happened because of the zoology studies?

SPEAKER_01 31:30

I love that question because um I think it's so important to just offer that sometimes these very niche roles uh come about by by recognizing opportunity, I think, and just being open to doing different things than maybe your you can your initial instincts are. Um and so I studied zoology at the University of Glasgow, but actually what I registered for was biochemistry. I just was actually pretty poor at chemistry, which is ironic given all that we've just been describing. But there were aspects of chemistry, first-year chemistry that just didn't, you know, inorganic chemistry did not agree with me. And I think I don't think I'm alone on that. Um uh so I ended up doing zoology, and from there I I just happened to have um a mentor at the university who had a background in in in working with the zoos, and and so uh one of the first jobs that I got as a graduate was to work as a research assistant at a a small but quite important zoo in the UK that um was um founded by Gerald Doddle, who was a contemporary of David Attenborough, he just didn't live as long. But he's very famous in in um European circles for some of his philosophies about caring for wildlife, and particularly he used to describe this sort of less charismatic species, so waldrop ibis, you know, which are those ibis with a completely naked head that maybe don't look as pretty as the sacred ibis. Well, I consider myself a kind of equal opportunity zoologist. I'm just fascinated by the diversity of the natural world. But when I was there, I was really interested in in animal behavior. That was my zoology degree, was animal behavior, neurobiology of behavior, um, behavioral ecology. Those were all sort of threads through my zoology degree. And they said, Oh, but we've got this project on um we just need to understand the diet of these parrots, and they're the only parrots outside of St. Lucia, is sorry, the only population of this species outside the island of St. Lucia. Um, and this isn't uncommon. I think you would know this, that there can often be these uh hot spots of endemic species that just are never found anywhere else. And then St. Lucia being part of the Caribbean means that those island populations are very vulnerable to extreme weather events. So the populations, you know, can boom or bust. Um, and so there's a lot of attention on them, which kind of, you know, again, thinking about that conservation part where we started. And they said, um, it's exactly the question you were asking. There was they said we we actually brought over birds from St. Lucia, that they were the founding population. They bred, and now we've got the F1 generation are not breeding, and some of the founding population are showing some particular disease processes, and both of those seem to be pointing to some kind of dietary imbalance. And I went, why are you talking to me about this? I don't know anything about nutrition. They went, Well, actually, really, we just need to do some very basic stuff, which is let's measure everything that we're offering, and then everything that's left over, and by difference, that will be what the birds are consuming. And let's look at the nutritional profile of what we're offering, which we think is balanced, and compare it with the nutritional profile of what we've calculated to be what they're consuming. And let's just see if that matches these clinical signs that we're seeing. And that was, and it was they connected me with the nutritionist here in the US who sort of said, Oh, this is amazing. And this is back when before email was just art. I'm aging myself here, dating myself uh entirely. Um, but I'd write a letter, it would take seven days to get to the east coast of the States, and then that person would reply immediately and write me back. And if we really were in a hurry, we'd fax each other. I mean, it was really low-tech um or high-tech, it felt at the time.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

At the time, it was high-tech.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

It felt high-tech, you know. Um, and we had this software program that would help with the analysis because we were using grocery store type foods, fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and there was a pirate pellet or a couple of different options. Um, and so a lot of that data for what we were offering, uh, the quantities we were offering, and then by difference what the animals were consuming was we could generate the numbers using uh this, this will also be funny. Um it's a software program that was DOS-based. The entire program and all my data still fits on one single floppy disk. And if folks don't know what one of those are, you can go to a museum, I'm sure. I still have mine. Um, but what was really important was I was actually paired up with um a visiting pathologist who was also at this zoo. And so she was looking at uh the two different disease patterns and and was sort of saying, I think we're looking at something to do with the protein levels and the fat levels, and the younger birds were affected by protein levels, and the older birds, something about them was was impacted by potentially fat levels uh due to the different disease processes. And sure enough, it we were offering a balanced diet, but there was this thing which I think again you'll recognize of of kind of cafeteria style feeding. Animals have nutritional wisdom. If we give them um uh almost like a breakfast buffet of all the right things that they would naturally find in their diet, now we can't replicate the exact fruits, but we're gonna give them the things that we can get. We can't replicate all the seeds, but we're gonna give them a selection. They will have wisdom to select what they need. And again, I go back to us going to a grocery store. And if you're hungry, you buy the thing that's gonna satisfy that hunger. And if you go in when you've had a good meal, you might make more sensible choices. I think cats can be more selective, but dogs don't tend to show a lot of wisdom in terms of their food choices. No shame. Um, but you know, there's this concept, there's this uh notion that animals will inherently know from the items that we can purchase what is going to be balanced. And also, it turned out we were offering pretty much this each bird's body weight and food. So their ability to pick and choose through those items, this sort of if there was one thing to take away, they could completely satiate their energy requirements only from the fruit portion of the diet. If they chose anything else, if they chose pellets, if they chose seeds, those were because they ate the seeds because they were fatty, and if they chose the pellets, it was maybe because if they were in that group setting, those that's what was left. And I said, Oh my gosh, this people should be studying this. I can't believe this is the such a rare bird, and we don't know more about this, their nutrition. And I went, Yeah, do you want to do this? And so um, you know, um that sort of set me on the path. I went, well, actually, I don't know enough about this, so I went back to university to do a master's in nutrition, um, which was in an agriculture department. Everybody else was studying food animals. Um, so it was quite the novelty there, but it was a great foundation for understanding what I was explaining about nutritional analysis of feeds and what those nutrients, how they're used by different digestive systems and different um organisms. Most of the time you're working with mammals. Um, the the other species that we know a lot about is chickens, but we and so we use chickens as a model for all birds. But um then I thought, well, I'd love to do that nutrition role in the UK, but then I actually almost did a PhD to just get the credibility that was going to be required to get that kind of role in a UK zoo and be considered a scientist, along with increasingly endocrinologists, welfare specialists, and veterinary professionals. Um, and so I don't recommend this for everybody, but I I set out to do a PhD to become a zoo nutritionist, and and sure enough, I maybe I manifested it, but the job was there at the end of of my degree. Um uh and and yeah, that's that's uh a very abridged version of how I came to be doing what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Well, I think it's I think it's wonderful. I've had other guests on here with the landing point wasn't the original starting point in the sense of it wasn't like I want that as I sign up for college, and then they straightlined it. It is they got into this, someone said this, they were invited to do that, they got exposure to something. Your story is in that same realm of being open to opportunities, being curious, asking questions, finding the route then to get you your answers in your case. And and I know with with a lot of animal care, it starts with or historically started with the agriculture side of things. It's that's where animals under human care really started and has been studied the most. So now we fast forward to today and what you're doing as a professor is is where you're focusing now your teachings, is that more towards the diversity of wildlife, or is it still within the umbrella of the agricultural side of nutrition for animals?

SPEAKER_01 41:46

It's more on the latter side of just thinking about um, I guess the distinction is clinical nutrition. There's another colleague um who teaches nutrition here, and and that's the interesting part for me is that um they're thinking about food as medicine. So treating keeping food animals healthy, of course, and and also knowing when food or the ingredients that those animals are eating could be compromising their health, and therefore compromising food sources for lots of people. Um, so you know, we're part of a food chain. We we kind of didn't we haven't used those words out loud, but would you know that's that's what we're talking about is good webs and food chains here. But there's a very strong interest in all species, not only uh food animals, companion animals make up a big uh percentage of where our graduates here um will end up working in in companion animal vet medicine. But then I think where increasingly I was drawn to uh over the past few years is thinking about where does all this food come from? How is it produced, and how how you know we we said we can't just wholesale harvest from habitats and bring those plants or prey items here to feed our animals, but but actually that's what we do with fish. You know, we we go out and fish in the ocean and bring those fish back to to feed our our fish-eating animals, and increasingly that's a topic that zoos are trying to understand to make sure that their practices are sustainable. And really, when you sort of think about all those concepts, what you're really talking about is one health, but you're talking about it through the lens of how how do we get nutrients and and who's getting the nutrients, which one, which animals are providing nutrition to others, and and is that being is that happening in a In a way that ensures that everything gets to thrive. So that's I I'm still sort of exploring that, but it's I can tell that the students that we're getting in we have quite a a diverse uh background. Um our students come from from quite a wide demographic. Um and it's something that everybody's thinking about. Um so yeah, that's that's kind of maybe not a a direct answer, but it's kind of where my th my thoughts are because my head goes off in like five different directions, I think you could say that would.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

You know, it's I I don't think it's something uh I don't think it's a topic that you could give a direct answer to because the concept of this one health, the concept of giving everything the opportunity to thrive, it is not a simple straight line. It's just not. And that and that plays into the fact that diversity of wildlife and diversity of life is not a single straight line either. It's it's not there's it's not simplistic. It is angles and turns and twists and everything else. And we're still learning so much, not only, and I love that you brought in human nutrition too. It's not just we're learning about animal nutrition, we're we're learning about our nutrition, we're learning about our food sources. I mean, we I remember no one really thought about what exactly is in the soil where we grow our food. It was, is there enough fertilizer, water, and dirt? And now it's like, well, wait a minute, where was this grain grown versus this grain? Well, this grass-fed cow, what where was the grass? And you know, it's just there's so much now that we're understanding about this connectivity. And one of the goals I've had with Animals, Nature, and you is to explore that connectivity we have with nature and with animals because I don't believe we are separate from them. And it's funny as you're talking, I'm like, nutrition plays right into that same concept. I, you know, it's just it's all it's all interconnected. And I just, it's it's so fascinating to me. And I I think the work you're doing is amazing. And I do appreciate you taking the time. I know we are coordinating things and everything else, and figure out how and when we can do this conversation. Is there anything we haven't tapped into yet that you would love the audience to know about before we wrap this up?

SPEAKER_01 46:10

No, I've really enjoyed the the conversation. Um, as you can tell, I I get quite passionate about this. And I think I think maybe then maybe I want to leave everybody with some resources. Um because um they're you're welcome to follow me on LinkedIn. Um, that's probably the best platform to find me. And I try and post about a lot of these topics. I try and amplify uh papers, and uh I've got a decent network now. I think that's one of my strengths is just being you have to be connected to other other people who are in your industry and beyond. That's definitely the way that I've been able to create the the career path that I have. Um, and then um in Europe, EANSA has uh the page, a group dedicated to nutrition, and and they have a page on their website that is freely available. And in the US AZA, there's a nutrition advisory group, uh the NAG, unfortunate acronym. Um, but the NAG Online um again has a treasure trove of resources, and then one final project that um I uh shared a link for is the National Animal Nutrition Program, which really is dialing down into what the feeds are and what the nutritional profile of those are, and there's some exciting things to come specifically. That's very much driven by the food animal science side of things, but we've got a little wildlife nutrition um portion of that site coming soon, so that's something to watch out for. I think the only thing to sort of leave you with is that um I think when you dabble in something like nutrition, I often describe my knowledge like if you're looking out into a field, you know, field with soil and plants growing in it. I think of my knowledge, and and this will be true for other nutritionists as well, is that it's kind of a mile wide and an inch deep because I know a little about a lot. But then what's been beautiful is that when I have a particular problem to solve, it's so fun finding somebody who's expert in that area, and then together you can drill down into the literal field or the scientific field, however you want to think about that metaphor, and you drill down together to answer questions which are ultimately going to address practical questions that are facing how you care for that animal in the here and now, and and get it to the point where you're you're doing something applicable and and useful to the conservation of that species.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Love it, love it. And and all those things you mentioned, I'll make sure if anyone's watching on YouTube or listening on their podcast player, I will have all those links down below in the show notes for anybody interested in connecting with you on LinkedIn or following up with those links you mentioned. So with that, I I cannot thank you enough, Dr. Andrea Fidget, for taking the time to be a guest on Animals, Nature, and You.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much, Rick.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

And of course, thank you, dear listeners and viewers. I appreciate you being here and joining me on this curious odyssey we call Animals Nature and You. And I do hope you got as much out of this conversation today that I did. I knew a lot of these things going into this conversation or had some idea of it. And yet, speaking with Dr. Andrea Fidget, I learned so much more. And I just I mean, nutrition in general fascinates me uh from a human standpoint, what we put in our bodies and and how frequently and how diverse is the nutrition and all of that. But then you start looking at, well, the example she gave. You could look at a leafy green material that you're feeding a capuchin, uh a mandrel, or a gorilla, and everyone's going to have different nutritional value taken from that into their system because of their digestive system. So there's just so much to think about in the realm of nutrition when it comes to wildlife and animals, and how we wrap that conversation up with just being about the connectivity and understanding the health of the food or the health of the plant or the animal that's being consumed as food and how that affects everything else and how it's all connected. And again, just another way to highlight how everything, animals, nutrition, animals, nature, and humans are all connected. With that, I do want to make sure, you know, I did mention as we wrapped up the conversation, all the links will be down below. My information, Animals Nature News on Instagram. That link will be down there, my website, zoologyrick.com, along with my social media. And also, if you haven't already, please make sure you hit subscribe or follow. We have new 10 minute Tuesdays eventually starting back up again. And of course, then every Thursday we have our awesome interviews with awesome people doing amazing work. So please don't miss out on any of that. And if you're new to Animals Nature New, I recommend go back and listen to some of the episodes. Right now, there's a little bit of a pause on the 10 Minute Tuesdays. This is the last interview in this space. I am moving and my little studio is gonna go with me. A lot of familiar stuff will be in the background, but there'll also be some changes too once I land at the new space. Either way, I I welcome you if you're a new listener, and thanks for sticking around if you've been here for a while. So, with that, we're gonna wrap this up. Have a good one, everybody.