As most of you know, the elephant that used to live at The Alaska Zoo has moved down to sunnier weather and now resides in California with a herd of 5 others of her kind. She is, I am sure, a lot happier now – but the problem remains in Alaska of what to do with her old enclosure.
We haven’t quite figured that out yet.
Temporarily, however, half of it got turned into a holding pen for our two bear cubs this week. I got to help out for a few hours while several of the maintenance staff, along with the director and the curator of the zoo, got the place ready for them.
We put up fencing all around, about 8 feet tall with 3 feet of thick black plastic on top (to stop the cubs from climbing out). We placed several toys in strategic places, to keep them occupied. We constructed a “den” out of hay bales. We filled two big tubs of water, partially in hopes that they might get the hint and take a bath. We even gave them a nice big snow pile to roll in. Basically, we made it as cozy and inviting as we could for them.
They got moved in the very next morning. I wasn’t there to see that, so I’m not entirely sure how they did it – but I suspect they just got them crated up in portable carriers similar to what you would put a dog or cat into for transport.
The two cubs are orphans (not related to eachother) and had apparently been on their own for a while because by the time we got them, they were severely malnourished and dehydrated, requiring a lot of medical attention. They are both underweight – by this time of year they should be about 150 pounds, at least, and yet both are not much more than 50 pounds.
One good thing about that is that makes them a lot easier to crate up and transport across the zoo, from the infirmary to their new home in the old elephant house! They will live there until they are ready to go to their new permanent home in Memphis, Tennessee – probably sometime next fall.
Putting two little cubs into a new environment can be quite stressful – both on the cubs and on the zookeepers! One can never be 100% sure that all the escape routes got blocked – so a babysitter is needed for the first few days.
That’s where volunteers come in! I spent most of Tuesday in there with them, keeping an eye on their activities and making sure they didn’t get where they shouldn’t be. I also got to talk to any zoo patrons who happened to stop by, which really wasn’t that many. It was cold and snowing outside, and word of the cubs’ new exhibit hadn’t hit the news yet.
Mostly what I did was homework. I sat up in the viewing area with my Human Anatomy book and did a whole chapter! I have to say, that viewing area isn’t the most comfortable place I’ve ever done homework in: concrete floors, a hard wooden bench, and barely enough heat to keep warm with.
It’s perfect for the animals, however. They were feeling just fine; sprawling out for the occasional nap in between their inspection of the new place. They didn’t seem to be too interested in getting out – most of their time was spent destroying the cardboard boxes we’d scattered around for them. They also destroyed the den made of hay bales, and the snow pile took all of 5 minutes to destroy, after which it simply melted down the drain.
If you’ve ever had the good fortune (or bad, depending on your point of view) of running across bear cubs out in the wild, then you know the sounds they make. It’s really not describable – you have to hear it to believe that such an awful sound actually came out of that little teddy bear looking thing.
Now put that sound into a building made of concrete and bounce the echoes all over the place and you get an idea of what I heard all day. The girl cub kept trying to get closer to the boy cub – but the boy cub wanted nothing to do with the girl cub (they have girl kooties!) and would start to scream at her whenever she came into sight.
I have a feeling that by now, they are quite comfortable in their new home, and are more active and vocal – well worth a trip to the zoo to visit them!
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