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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens (Credit Yelp)On a perfect spring day at the zoo, it’s busy on the boardwalk over the zoo’s giraffe enclosure, with parents and children jammed together at giraffe-neck level as they feed the animals delicious leaves and twigs, bought for $2 a pop. So Fatima Ramis, a University of North Florida grad student, picks her way through some underbrush to a shady spot beneath the boardwalk. That’s the quieter place where she’s spent long hours observing the giraffes at ground level as they come up to feed what the zoo visitors offer. Terry Maple, a zoo consultant, was director of Zoo Atlanta for 18 years and is a professor emeritus in the Georgia Tech School of Psychology. He said zoos in recent decades have tried hard to transform into places where animals can live in more natural settings. That’s a benefit to the animals and also a benefit to the increasing research that’s taking place in zoos. “It’s like a field station for wild animals,” Maple said.
