BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Do we have this right? This lady actually talks to the animals? And dyes their fur magenta?
"Well, I don't exactly talk to them," says Dr. Anne Savage, conservation biologist at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Fla. "I observe them and I listen."
Dr. Savage is in town Thursday to deliver the zoo's Barrows Conservation Lecture. It's the third in a series of five this year.
Her topic -- her specialty since the '80s -- is the cotton-top tamarin, an endangered species (about 2,000 in the wild) native to the rain forests of Colombia. (The Cincinnati zoo doesn't have any, according to spokeswoman Barb Rish. But it does have a close relative, the golden-head tamarins, in Insect World.)
Cotton-top tamarins are squirrel-sized monkeys (about a pound each) with enormous shocks of white fur framing the face, giving them a sort of punk rocker look.
Dr. Savage's most famous study was a communications project in which she and colleagues identified 40 vocalizations among cotton-tops. She knows what they're talking about.
"They have one sound when they're approaching food, one when holding food, another when mildly alarmed, another when very alarmed. I've learned to distinguish."
But why did she dye their hair magenta? Or more accurately, some magenta, others yellow or green?
"To tell individuals apart," she says. "We had already fitted them with tiny transmitters so we could track them, but we needed information on individuals and it's hard to distinguish one from another. The dye made it easy. Very funky, but easy."
And how does that sit with the rest of the group when one comes home with green hair?
"Oh, they're very accepting. It didn't faze them. Humans could take a lesson from that kind of acceptance."
Dr. Savage speaks 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Rockdale Temple, 8501 Ridge Rd., Amberley Village. $8, $6 zoo members, $5 students and zoo volunteers. The slide lecture is 45 minutes followed by 15 minutes of questions and answers. Information: 559-7767.
