Museum of Life + Science: Animal Department Blog

Rough week...it's been busy

2009-11-10T10:23:00.003-05:00

It's been busy in the animal department. Keepers have been out and extra "animal things" have been popping up. As you know, good things don't often pop up. Here's a quick review for you:

Larry posted about euthanasia recently so death is in the air. One of our corn snakes had a tumor- it was growing so quickly you could see it change daily. Surgery was attempted to remove it, but the tumor had already spread to several organs and the snake had to be euthanized last Thursday. Then, Sunday, our milk snake (named "2%") who had been battling illness was found dead.

Katy took our red tail hawk, Misha, in for x-rays yesterday, along with the spotted salamander. The salamander has a broken leg, and it seems like Misha is just old and arthritic (we'll start him on some meds).

I've been working on our alligator transfers (I'll write about this later), updating lots of permits, and contacting contractors for a variety of projects and repair work that needs to happen.

Things should settle down and you'll hear again from the Keepers soon. Thanks for being patient with our lack of posting during this busy time.

Big Word of the Month: Euthanasia

2009-11-02T20:14:00.014-05:00

The big word of the month is a hard one to talk about. Euthanasia comes from Greek and means "good death". I doubt any two people can agree on what exactly a good death is, yet it is a discussion we have to have in the Animal Department from time to time. When an animal is ill and our veterinarians have run out of treatment strategies we have to consider quality of life issues. Deciding when an animal is suffering too much is not a precise, scientific process. Ultimately, we all have to rely on our experiences and feelings.

One of the earliest posts we made on this blog was about our beloved steer Moo. At the time we discussed how to deal with difficult issues on the blog and whether it might be better to not include them. We all agreed that if we were to give our readers an accurate picture of our department we needed to not gloss over the hard things. Most recently, we lost our grumpy friend Squealer (we all called him "Pig") and once again had to report some bad news.

When we shared our difficult decision to euthanize a red wolf people asked about how they could best memorialize him. Sherry wrote a followup post with some ideas. The only thing I would add to her post is that we animal keepers would be happy to hear from you in person. You can say hello if you see us working or ask at the front desk for a member of the animal department.

More Out of the Pocket Than in the Pocket of a Keeper: Volume the Third

2009-10-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

Fall is in the air at last(ish)! I really enjoy this time of year when everything is cooling down again (although in our case it's more like colding down and then heating up and then finally, maybe, cooling down a little, for now, if we're lucky and don't jinx it. Oops.). Regardless, October is definitely one of my favorite months because it's such a transition month (my other favorite month is March for the same reason. Have you heard the phrase "in like a lion, out like a lamb"? My birthday's also in March, so maybe that's why I'm partial to it...). There's a period of time in October where summer is losing its kick and fall isn't quite on the ball yet and the effect is very spring-like. To me, anyway (I ended up getting teased for feeling this way. Apparently everyone else just thinks it feels like fall). And what a better month to have a camera in my pocket always than this beautiful transition month (see, what I'm doing here [quite sincerely] is positively reinforcing Sherry for getting the camera. This is a technique we use in the training of our animals)!

Looking over a bunch of pictures I've been taking, I saw that I have an interesting documentation of the transition at the Museum this year. Here's a picture of a beautiful farmyard morning I took at the beginning of the month. It was one of the mornings where it felt very springy to me. Notice how green the leaves are on the trees:

Here's another one a week later of some flowers in the bear yard that popped up everywhere. This day was a little warmer and rainier. Look again at how green the leaves are:

Slowly, the first signs of fall emerge. These were taken by the wetlands down in Explore the Wild:

A find! One of the last Monarchs of the season. I showed this picture to the very fabulous Ranger Greg Dodge (he carries a camera on him too, and we always share pictures when we pass each other), and he was surprised that this guy was still hanging around:

Hey! Acorns everywhere! Where did they all come from all of the sudden? We collect buckets of them for the bears:

And then, suddenly, everything's on fire (these were taken by Cassidy, but taken with my camera fresh from my pocket):

Leading us to this cool fall morning when I went to get the trailer, and it was decorated with a little fall decor (like 2 seconds after I took this picture, a volunteer dumped a big shovel of poo in it. So much for that.):

Just friends?

2009-10-30T11:32:00.001-04:00

Here's a little something that I walked in on the other day when we had one of the box turtles out on the floor for some exercise...

Help an Animal Shelter

2009-10-29T14:22:00.001-04:00

The Animal Rescue Site is having a contest. They are awarding grants to pet shelters. You vote for your favorite animal shelter and they might just have enough votes to "win" some $. You can vote for whatever you want, but if you'd like to honor PIG or MISS PIGGY, you could vote for Pig Pals of NC. (Miss Piggy came to us from Pig Pals).

Want to vote? Click here: help an animal shelter

Spotlight: Queen Wilson

2009-10-29T09:35:00.000-04:00

I had been planing to write this month's spotlight on our operant conditioning specialist who I mentioned several posts ago, or Jill Brown, the last of our animal keepers for you to learn about, but something happened today and I thought I would tell you about Queen. (The picture is purposefully not great as Queen was very upset when I said I would be posting about her on the Blog).

Queen has been working at the Museum for OVER 28 YEARS! Queen has been helping me for years. She answers the phones, sorts the mail, orders supplies, and does just about anything anyone asks of her, AS LONG AS IT IS NOT ANIMAL RELATED!

So that gets me to what happened today. I get a radio call from Queen, "Come in animal department". I respond, and she says she has a box of crickets. I think about it

and realize it is a box of superworms. I tell her I will be over soon, and then radio her again and tell her it will take me about 30 minutes. When I arrive, sitting across from her desk is the box of worms, with this paper towel over it- she couldn't even handle looking at the box!

I laughed at her, and she laughed as well. She then reminded me of a story from about 15 or 16 years ago when she went to the post office to pick up the mail and she had to call one of the animal keepers (George, who is long gone) to come get the box of mealworms.

It's amazing that we became so chummy (not Chummix) seeing as she is just not an animal person. When it comes down to it, Queen is a Museum staple, and the place just wouldn't be the same without her!

thanks

2009-10-27T12:52:00.004-04:00

Thanks everyone for all your nice thoughts about Pig. I've worked out in the farmyard twice now since last Thursday, and it's been weird without him there.

One of my favorite stories about Pig happened around this time a few years ago, when we got a huge truckload of pumpkins donated to us. We didn't have much room to store them, so kept them right behind our fence in the farmyard where we keep all of our tools. We knew they would keep outside in the cold, and this way we could give Pig a pumpkin every other day or so. Keepers go in and out of this door a lot during the course of the morning, and one morning there were several of us working in the farmyard together. Well, someone accidentally left the fence door open, and Pig, who used to wander around the farmyard before visitors arrived, found his way in there. By the time the keepers realized it, we found Pig in the middle of this vast pumpkin pile, seeds and pumpkin bits scattered everywhere! There were random single bites out of various pumpkins, and Pig laid there, entirely exhausted from his feast! Needless to say he did not get anymore pumpkins for a few days! It still makes me laugh to think about it.

Rest in Peace Pig

2009-10-22T10:31:00.005-04:00

Last night Pig was not improved and still not standing. Calls and emails were made to veterinarians, keepers, staff, and volunteers letting them know. Dr. Mozzachio came early this morning and euthanized Pig.

Days like this are hard, and hardest on the keepers, so send them your best wishes.

Pig is not well.

2009-10-20T09:48:00.004-04:00

Bad news- sorry to share, but I assume you would want to know. The Keepers found Pig Friday morning not putting any weight on his left front foot. This is not good because Pig has extensive arthritis in his back legs. Dr. Cannedy came out Saturday morning and checked Pig out and give him lots of drugs to hopefully help him feel better.

He was no better by Monday morning, so I spent much of yesterday at the Vet School with him. His x-rays showed no broken bones, and we upped his meds a bunch and are hoping that a few more days of rest and meds will help him improve. If he does not improve by Thursday, it is likely that we will euthanize Pig.

We'll keep you posted, and we'll hope for the best!

In the Pocket of a Keeper Part Deux

2009-10-16T15:26:00.002-04:00

Or: Hey! I can actually do work with this thing (kinda)!

Another week of constant camera carrying has concluded, chronicling my crazy week (I love alliteration!). This week I've learned a few things: 1) You take your camera home A LOT when you keep it in your pocket all the time 2) That's not such a bad thing because you end up running into people who ask you if you work at the Museum (because you are still wearing your purple shirt), and it's a great opportunity to show them super cute pictures of the animals, convincing them to a) visit the museum and b) visit the blog, 3) I take a lot of pictures of flowers and bugs 4) Our animals are pretty darn cute (I've always known this, but now I have proof!) and 5) I can actually do work with this thing!

For instance, here are the updated salamander identification sheet that I talked about in my last post. We got them as babies, and since they all live together in the first exhibit in Carolina Wildlife we wanted ways to tell them apart for their records and for things like seeing how much they were respectively eating. When they first came to us we took pictures of them and identified them by the spots on their heads. As they grew, it got harder and harder to tell them apart by those markings, and impossible by the other markings on their bodies. I noticed that the markings on their chins were very distinct from each other, and in fact looked a lot like facial hair. So here's what I came up with:

Beard = The Salamander Formerly Known as Left Spot

Moustache = The Salamander Formerly Known as Two Spot

Goatee = The Salamander Formerly Known as Right Spot

I put helpful facial hair examples in case my fellow keepers were not so great with their facial hair identification OR their salamander identification (now they are excellent at both).

THEN I was up in the farmyard when a visitor pointed out that Lightning's eye was swollen and weepy. Luckily I had a camera on me to take a picture of it in case the vet wanted to see what it looked like at its worst (we flushed his eye out and put some medicine in it and it was looking much better by the next day):

Buuuuuuut, mostly I just take pictures of flowers, bugs, and cute animals. Here's some pretty flowers growing all around the deadfall in the bear yard:

Here's a bee on the same type of flower in Catch the Wind:

Here's Cassandra the Ring Tailed lemur totally high-fiving me (she was grabbing my hand because I was giving her some medicine-covered raisins, but it looks like a high five!):

And here's a series of some really cute Virginia pictures that I took when I went to go feed the bears:

If you're ever at one of the 2pm Meet the Keeper programs that I'm giving (they happen every day, and you can ask the front desk where they'll be when you come in, or there's a sign at the top of the boardwalk), make sure to ask to see what pictures I have on my camera. I usually have something cute on there.

Oh no, someone's in the bear pool! Oh wait, it's just Sherry...

2009-10-15T15:20:00.003-04:00

You may have read a post recently about the bear pool getting its annual cleaning. Well, the day after we finished, one of the drain covers at the bottom of the pool was seen in the middle of the exhibit yard (no doubt having been used as a toy for our playful bears). We had to get the drain cover back on, and Sherry volunteered herself for the job. She doesn't usually get to help us with daily routines, but she sometimes seems to oddly enjoy doing the really strange tasks!

Watch the video below and check it out. You can see that Sherry actually maneuvers the drain cover back in with her feet, and then hollers," Success!" with her arms triumphantly raised in the air. But then, instead of wanting to get out like any normal person, she decides to go check the other drain cover to make sure it is still secure. This is when I got skeptical of the true motives of her endeavor (I think the pool was just too sparkly and clean to resist not taking a dip!).

Spotlight: Kim Wheeler

2009-10-13T08:18:00.002-04:00

This is Kim Wheeler on the left. (She's with Diane Hendry, the Outreach Coordinator for the Red wolf Recovery Program- I'll spotlight her a different month though). The photo of the wolves is one of the most famous red wolf photos ever taken and it is of red wolves born right here at the Museum of Life and Science!

Kim would rather not be the center of attention, but if that's what it takes to help out red wolves she'll suffer through it.

Kim does a wide variety of tasks as the director of the Red Wolf Coalition: red wolf howlings, education projects, staffing events, replying to hundreds of e-mails, works with the media, and does "special tours". She collaborates with US Fish and Wildlife Service on joint projects such as the "Far Traveler" teacher workshops. She also helps the wildlife biologists at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge by taking care of some of the red wolves in holding pens. People who work with Kim, including myself, find her to be honest, fair, and always willing to go the extra mile.
Just recently, Kim was honored with the "Who Speaks for Wolves" conservation award. She is pictured here, receiving her award with Dr. L Dave Mech, founder of the International Wolf Center and renowned wolf biologist.

We're excited that Kim will be on grounds to celebrate Wolf Awareness Week with us. You can meet Kim Tomorrow, Wednesday October 14. She'll be at the wolf exhibit from 12:00-4:00 with cool stuff and even cooler stories.

Wolf Awareness Week

2009-10-10T10:57:00.000-04:00

We're excited about the upcoming Wolf Awareness Week. The focus of this week is on wolves and their value and importance. You'll get a chance everyday to meet a keeper and talk about our wolves and wolf conservation.

We're especially excited to have Kim Wheeler, the executive director of the Red Wolf Coalition here, Wednesday afternoon. She'll be set up down at the wolf exhibit all afternoon with some neat items and great conversation.

Kim was just honored with the International Wolf Center's annual Who speaks for Wolves award. This is given each year to a person who has made exceptional contributions to wolf education, both by teaching people how the wolf lives and by placing the wolf in the broader context of humankind's relationship to nature.

So, Join us Sunday October 11-Saturday October 17. The Keepers will be at the wolf exhibit everyday at 2:00

In the Pocket of a Keeper

2009-10-08T11:39:00.001-04:00

Sherry just bought a new camera for the Animal Department (I was thinking about starting this post by saying, "I totally talked Sherry into buying a new camera for the Animal Department", because I totally did, but I won't). It's pretty fabulous and quite perfect because it's shockproof up to 5 feet and waterproof up to 10 feet. Not water resistant, but waterproof. Meaning I could hop right into the muskrat exhibit and take an underwater picture with him. One of those ones where I hold it out at arms length and we say cheese. But I haven't actually gotten up the nerve to put a digital camera underwater yet (because that would be crazy). And the 5 feet shockproof spec is perfect for the 5' 2" keeper holding it right at eye level! Boy! I haven't been this excited since the bike trailer! (It's been a very exciting month)

So, since it's so resistant to various arrays of trauma, I've taken to keeping it in my pocket all the time, with the goal to turn all of those I-wish-I-had-a-camera moments into I-wish-I-had-a-camera-hey-wait-I-do-have-a-camera moments. The first day was a failure because there was a completely perfect moment in the farmyard where Lightning the donkey was tied up outside of Max the steer's fence so they could eat breakfast together, and Ozzie the turkey was walking around and comes over to join them. It was really cute, but I tragically had left the camera in the building, AND Sherry was in the farmyard asking me why I didn't have the camera when she just got the camera so that I could have it on me and take this cute picture of the farmyard breakfast and then drop it and have it bounce into the duck pond only to be retrieved unscathed. Since then I've kept it (almost too diligently ) in my pocket and am ready to share what will hopefully be the first of many insightful tours of what exactly a keeper (or at least this keeper) takes pictures or videos of when armed with an unbreakable camera at all times. Enjoy!

First, I go to the bear house. Kristen threw a basket into the bear holding yard when the bears were locked up while we were in their exhibit yard. It's a very light weave basket. Mimi and Virginia were all about it, but Gus was quite afraid of it. In this video you can see the girls sniffing it with curiosity and Gus is the bear looking unsure and running away from it.

Then Gus mans up (um, sort of):

Then Gus feels insecure about being afraid of the basket when the girls weren't, so makes himself feel better by wrestling a full grown bear (Mimi):

Then it's off to the wolf exhibit. An unexpected visitor in the side cage (a toad):

Then I go back to the building to find a cute 'possum sleeping (Beaker):

And then since I've kept it in my pocket all day, I forgot it was in there and bring it home and take a cute picture of my dog (Cocoa):

Today I've actually used it for work purposes--while I had the exhibit salamanders out feeding them, I took new identification pictures that I'll use to make a better, more updated identification sheet. When I was taking one of them out of their water dish, its tail splashed my eye and camera with water. Not a problem for the camera (more of a problem for my eye)!

It's fall, the bears are eating more...

2009-10-07T16:01:00.000-04:00

...and I have found yet another fascinating artifact from the bear yard:

They get whole ears of corn in their diet weekly and we usually find random pieces of cob and husk around. This empty cob, however, looks like one of the bears delicately devoured it end to end, manual typewriter style.

I'm betting it was Mimi!

Wolf Physicals

2009-10-06T14:38:00.003-04:00

Our red wolves got their annual physicals yesterday, October 5. We've had our hands on the female wolf a bunch because of a few different medical issues that have come up while she's been here, but this was the first time we caught up our male.

What you see in the photos is pretty typical: Even though the wolf is sedated, we put a muzzle on. One keeper (Marilyn, with gloves on) watches the head for any signs of movement or waking.

Katy and Dr. Carter work through the physical checklist to make sure everything gets done.

We learned that our male wolf weighs about 71 pounds and had a lot of tartar build up on his teeth (down from the 78 pounds he weighed when he arrived. All the Keepers thought the male had lost a bunch of weight but I believe Kent was the closest in the unofficial office pool). Our female wolf weighs about 52 pounds. Both of the wolves will go on antibiotics: the male has a small wound on his lip, and the female had a long gash on her back above her tail. They could have got into a fight over who knows what, maybe some deer meat we put in. Both will be fine. If you come by the Museum, the female will be the one missing the hair around her bum (it was shaved to check it out and stitch it up).

If you want to learn more about these wolves, click on the following wolf posts from the past:

Red wolf surgery

Female red wolf arrival

Male red wolf arrival

Big Word of the Month: Paradigm

2009-10-05T20:18:00.010-04:00

Philosophers of science use the word paradigm (pair - uh - dime) to describe the set of ideas and practices that define a field of scientific inquiry. If you studied human anthropology and evolution in the last few decades you were exposed to the paradigm that humans evolved from an ape-like creature that resembles modern day chimpanzees. You might recall learning about Lucy, the 3 million year old hominid found in Ethiopia that belongs to the genus Australopithecus.

A fossil discovered only 50 miles away from Lucy's site in Ethiopia is radically changing the way biologists and anthropologists think about human evolution. The new fossil, named "Ardi" by the research team, is the remarkably intact skeleton of a female belonging to the new species Ardipithecus ramidus. Radiometric dating from the site indicates Ardi's remains are almost 4.5 million years old. The researchers discovered the first piece of Ardi 15 years ago and since uncovering that single tooth, they painstakingly cataloged the remains of more than 30 other individuals from the same species in the area.

The skeletons reveal that this human ancestor was able to walk upright but was also a skilled tree climber. Their teeth suggest that Ardi and her relatives were omnivores, eating a varied diet. The findings suggest that the common ancestor of modern humans and chimpanzees probably looked and behaved more like humans than chimps and gorillas. This new emerging paradigm holds that many of the traits that separate humans from the great apes are evolutionary innovations that arose after the split between the two groups around 6-7 million years ago. In the human lineage, increases in brain size and adaptations for bipedal locomotion appear to be the greatest evolutionary developments.

If these findings hold up to scientific scrutiny, they represent a true paradigm shift. Decades from now people will look back at October 2009 as a point when our understanding of primate evolution changed dramatically. One of the world's most important scientific journals, Science, devoted 11 separate articles to the discovery in the Oct. 2 issue, an unprecedented number of pages for any recent discovery.

Read more about the research:

Science Magazine website (free registration required)
Washington Post summary of the research
See slideshow and video at ScienceNOW

I Like to Ride My Bicycle

2009-10-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

Sorry if that title made you get a certain Queen song stuck in your head (fair's fair, it's stuck in mine now).

Back in December, Sherry wrote a post about water conservation and the things we were doing to cut back on our water usage during our extreme drought. I just re-read that post, and I'm happy to say that we still are doing all of those things, and even more now to decrease our water usage. For instance, we now have 2 rain barrels set up outside that we use to refill the tubs we use to wash our tools. Also, we put buckets under any drippy sinks or pipes we have and use that water to water our trees in Carolina Wildlife (but they don't stay drippy for long--we have an excellent facilities team that usually is there right away to fix them).

I'd also like to touch on some other things we do to conserve our resources here in the animal department, and as a museum as a whole. Here in the Animal Department, any note you find hanging up is almost always written on the back of something else. We have a bin of scrap paper that we throw all of our (in acceptable condition) paper in, and then use those scraps for phone messages, reminder notes, sign up sheets, lists, etc. This has been the case ever since I worked here--it used to be odd to me when I first started that all of our notes were on second hand paper, but now it's odd if they aren't.

On the water front, we've set up 2 rain barrels outside so that we can use rain water to fill up the chemical buckets we use to clean our tools. I know that we aren't the only ones with rain barrels at the museum, there are a few others scattered around that are used for watering our landscape. Also there's been a really awesome and effective compost push Museum wide, with compost buckets dispersed to every office corner of the Museum to collect everyone's daily compostables. At all of our meetings and events now we have a regular trash can and a compost bin, and the Museum is awaiting the arrival of an industrial composter. At our all staff meetings once a month, people are encouraged to bring their own cups and whoever does gets in a drawing for a prize that's handed out at the end of the meeting. That's some of what we do as a collective, but there's even more that museum employees do on there own to cut down on resources. Instead of driving, Sherry usually walks down to Explore the Wild when she needs to go down there. Cassidy goes above and beyond our normal amount of composting, and tries to save every single compostable thing she can throughout her normal cleaning day. Kristen does funny but thoughtful things like tearing napkins in half to share instead of each using one (which I laughed at her about but then read a statistic that said that if everyone used one less napkin a day, it would save a billion napkins from going in the land fill per year).

While using vehicles are a necessary part of our job most of the time, there are several people around the museum who ride their bikes to work, and some who bring their bikes in to use as transportation around the museum. I keep mine in the Animal Department shower (it's a garage AND a bike wash!), and end up using it more here than I did at home. I try use my bike on Saturdays when I'm working in Explore the Wild instead of using a vehicle. It works for Saturday because I'm the only keeper working out there and it's a simple day so there's not much stuff to haul. However, I was having to come back later in the day with a vehicle to collect all of my trash. That's until Sherry got me a bike trailer (she technically bought it for the Animal Department, but it feels like it's mine)! I was probably way too excited when it came in, but it's really been great. Here's a picture of me in it that I think really captures my excitement:

I don't exactly fit in it, as it's not exactly made for grown up people (max weight: 100 pounds), but I took the picture before it was on wheels so I didn't break it (luckily). But people hauling aside, it's worked beautifully.

Box turtles are territorial

2009-09-29T12:52:00.000-04:00

The Keepers got a call last week from someone trying to do a good deed by rescuing this turtle. It's a box turtle, and if you look closely in the area of its back right leg you can see some shell missing. It appears to be an old injury that the turtle has long recovered from.

If you find a turtle in the wild, please let it be. If you find one wandering down the road, move it to the side it is traveling towards. Box turtles are believed to be territorial, so leaving them in the area where you see them is best for them!

Opossum Trouble

2009-09-27T12:21:00.004-04:00

Katy was working in the vet room with both opossums and left to return a package to the gift shop. Cher was on the floor when Katy left, and on the counter when Katy returned. She got some photos of Cher opossum wandering around the vet room.

QuikPost: sleeping animals

2009-09-25T09:48:00.002-04:00

I was walking through the animal department yesterday and noticed lots of sleeping animals:

Red Wolf Journal: Summer Edition

2009-09-24T07:18:00.004-04:00

Last week I received the Red Wolf Journal from our friends at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. Take a look to see what's been going on with the red wolf throughout the summer.

QuikPost: Bear pool is clean!

2009-09-22T11:42:00.001-04:00

Come see the crystal clear water and spotless rocks at the bear pool.
After working Sunday 'til dark, and all day yesterday, the work is done!

Bear Pool Cleaning coming up.

2009-09-18T11:22:00.000-04:00

This coming Sunday and Monday is when we drain the bear pool and begin the big clean. It is a time intensive and physically draining project, and kind of gross too.

Kent, Katy and Marilyn will be staying into the evening hours on Sunday. All the Monday Keepers are coming in early, and Erin is coming in on her day off to help.

Click here to read about what's involved in this project and see photos from last year's bear pool cleaning.

What's Lightning dreaming about?

2009-09-16T16:03:00.007-04:00

Lightning Donkey is doing much better-- his eye has cleared up and his hoof is getting better too, thanks to Dr. Cannedy and his much hated (by Lightning) Epsom salt soaks.

So don't let the picture below startle you! Look closer and you will just see a very sleepy donkey completely konked out in the sun!

Lightning will often sleep in this bought-the-farm pose, and we get quite a few radio calls from the guest services desk letting us know a guest is worried about him. We always appreciate when visitors are looking out for the animals, and we always go check on them when we receive a concern, but we usually have to laugh when a donkey call comes in- just 'cause we know how Lightning likes to stretch it out and slumber!

Thanks to Ashlyn for the pic!