I’ve been slightly remiss in my blogging duties, so I’ll try to do a brief recap here of all the goings on at the zoo lately. I had thought it would slow down since school is out and there are no more field trips to deal with, but this month seems to be just as frantic as last month - just in a different way.
Tuesday Night at The Zoo
This is one of my favorite events here at the zoo: we have lectures each Tuesday night throughout the summer months highlighting a different zoo animal, giving people a chance to meet the zookeepers and ask any questions they might have. We try to have that animal on hand – if at all possible – so they can see it up close. We sometimes even have guest speakers come from outside to give the talks: our kick-off lecture this season was by Dr. David Kenny V.M.D., the Field Veterinarian for the Conservation Biology Department of the Denver Zoological Foundation. This one was of particular interest to me since he is part of the team working on the Mongolia project I got to join in on last year. Check out our website for more information on the TNATZ program!
http://www.alaskazoo.org/tnazfnaz.htm
Guided Encounters
I’ve done several Guided Encounters this month. This is a special tour that groups or individuals actually pay for, so I always try to give them their money’s worth. I get to take them behind the scenes at the Polar Bear Exhibit, which is always fun. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, the polar bears will come over to check us out: this gives people an up-close encounter with an incredibly awesome animal.
One of the funnest groups I’ve had in a long time was a troop of Girl Scouts from Kodiak. There were about 10 little girls, age 10-12, along with their 4 chaperones and their troop leader. We had such a great time together; they even sang to me at the end of the tour! I’ve never been sung to before…
Just the other day I got to do one for a class from The Imaginarium consisting of about 8 little 5-year olds and their 2 teachers. They were a fun group too – but Oh My Gosh! What a handful 5-year olds can be. William was the cutest, and of course he was the one who got into trouble the most. I was very impressed with how his teachers dealt with him.
Other Tours
A couple years ago, I took a Nature Writing Workshop with a local author and about 12 other people. We met once a week for 12 weeks and critiqued each other’s writing, learning a lot in the process. One of the ladies I met in the class happens to volunteer at Bird TLC, a group the zoo works very closely with. She contacted me a few weeks ago wanting to take me up on my offer of a guided tour at the zoo. I was very happy to take her and her husband around: she had worked with our Stellar’s Jay in his time of convalescence, so I made sure she got to meet him again.
Last week I happened to be in the right place at the right time and got the opportunity to give a Golf Cart Tour! Our zoo sits on about 25 acres of dirt & gravel paths, so we have a (very old) golf cart that we can offer to patrons who have difficulty getting around. It has to be arranged ahead of time, and I’m thinking there might be a fee involved – but it is available if anybody really needs it. The gentleman who requested it this time was a very nice man who was recovering from lower-back surgery and had never been to the zoo before. Pat Lampi, the director of the zoo, had planned on giving him the tour – but since I happened to show up at the admittance building at just the right time, I volunteered to give it instead and let Pat get back to work. I love golf cart tours! Golf carts just so much fun to drive: it’s like riding bumper cars. Thankfully, my guests (the man and his wife) had as much fun as I did, and didn’t mind the occasional mishaps with the cart.
Animal Updates
Spring in Alaska means there are lots going on with the animals. Moose are giving birth all over town, which unfortunately means lot of orphans: Moose –vs- Car = Orphan. We have 6 of them in the infirmary right now. Baby moose are just the cutest little things but require a lot of hands-on attention when orphaned. They get bottle fed about 6 times a day and typically drink up to 3 gallons of formula each day per baby. This means hours and hours of mixing formula!
Our own musk ox gave birth just three days ago! He/She is a rambunctious little one already, testing out wobbly legs by running real fast and bumping in to things. Apparently turning corners is not as easy as one might think! Mom gets a little concerned whenever her baby gets too far away from her, but one growl sends it right back underneath her, safely tucked between her legs. We don’t know what the sex is yet: it’s a little difficult to tell right off the bat and there’s no way we’re getting in there to look. Mother is WAY too protective for us to attempt that.
The two bear cubs that came to us last fall have finally been moved into their new exhibit. The Bear Cub Den took a bit of prep work to be safe for them, but finally they’re in there and are enjoying the great outdoors. The old elephant house was the perfect place for them when they first arrived: it gave us easy access to them to monitor their health & progress (they were severely underweight and malnourished) but nothing beats clean fresh air and actual dirt to play in!
We got some sad news this past week, too, unfortunately. Sally, our female river otter, died very unexpectedly. A necropsy (an autopsy performed on an animal) revealed that she died of heart failure brought on by renal failure. Sally was brought to us about 5-6 years ago as a tiny little pup who was barely alive. She required months of tube feeding: a tube stuck down into her stomach through which food was given to her. She pulled though and turned in to a lovely young lady, just a joy to watch as she expertly maneuvered her way around the pool of water with her mate Turbo. She will be greatly missed.
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