Museum of Life + Science: Animal Department Blog

What are you talking about!?

2009-12-08T15:22:00.014-05:00

I have often thought of the types of things we (the keepers) say on a daily basis that sound completely normal to us, but would probably sound quite bizarre out of context to another person. The topics of our conversations are obviously very relevant to our jobs, but many of our random one-liner sentences are kind of funny and/or disturbing when heard by themselves! I asked the keepers to help me out by keeping a list of these one-liners as they remember them from the past or hear them in the future. I already have a list just from the brainstroming today, so I figured I would share these with you. And, apparently we talk about poop a lot! I will share more one-liners with you in the future as the keepers continue to add to the list. Erin also suggested that I take some of the great quotes from our weekly meeting notes (thanks Erin!). I will put the actual context/reference of the sentences in parenthesis after each quote.

"My favorite is when she falls asleep on the potty." (talking about Wendy woodchuck falling asleep in weird positions while she's hibernating)

"Did you check Nimbus butt?" (Nimbus the bunny gets her butt checked for loose stool)

"I need a fecal." (says one keeper to another to get a poop sample of an animal)

"Is this poop or papaya?" (bunny poop and papaya seeds look very similar. Sometimes we put papaya seeds in Kristen's chair to make her ask... haha)

"Maybe it was just a loaded diaper." (actually said by one of the facilities guys when Katy and I were trying to figure out the source of a bad smell in Carolina Wildlife the other day)

"Owls either love foam or hate foam." (said by Cassidy in a meeting when we were talking about how the owls are shredding their new foam perches)

"We could just put the poop behind the dinosaur butt!!!" (says Kristen during a meeting when we are discussing scooping the bear cliff and how difficult it is to haul the heavy bags away)

"Wait, the bear's built like a bucket?" (said by Katy in a meeting, but she has no idea why)

"My glasses fell in bear poo." (No explanation needed... that's just disgusting)

"To get a woodchuck off the side of the road, roll down your window and say,"Get out of the way, you're too close!" (via Larry's friend, who has a degree from Woodchuck School.... and was in response to Katy's original question of, "What do you do if a woodchuck is on the side of the road and you're afraid it's going to run out in front of a car?")

"Peek poo season." (Said in a meeting during the Fall when we had to scoop the bear yard more often)

And, last but not least...

"I still have my poo Bugsy sign." (says Katy to Sherry in reference to a chart she had made so that we could record the consistency of Bugsy's poop)... see the picture of the poo sign below!

QuikPost: Ready for the Dark

2009-12-07T08:37:00.007-05:00

They're looking pretty cheery for a dark cold morning in the building. The Keepers from left to right: Kristen, Larry, Katy, Marilyn.

At 6 PM last night the power to the building was turned off as expected for the upgrade. Everything went well and the generators were refilled with gas at 9 PM and 2 Am so they were still running this AM when the day started. Our freezers are cold and our reptiles are warm so we're in pretty good shape.

If things continue to run smoothly we'll have power back tonight!

Power Outage: What To Do.

2009-12-05T08:25:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the comments and thoughts about what needs to get done when the power goes out at the Museum. From reading your comments on the last post, I think you got the picture of what's needed. While it's true in the real world wild animals don't need power, it's not the same for the captive critters, or critter care-takers. Many animals do just fine, and many exhibits do just fine too, but there's still a lot to take care of.

There's a sheet in the Keeper Manual that can help: The Four Fs of power outages. Fish, fridges, freezers, and fences. These are the main things we think about:

1. Fish: moving water provides oxygen for them. Without power running the pumps, the fish don't get what the need to breath. We have battery powered aerators that we use when the power goes out.

2. Fences: There are electric fences for the bears, wolves, and lemurs in Explore the Wild. Power won't be out there on Monday, but it's something we have to deal with if the electric wires on the fences are down.

3. Freezers: We keep food that needs storing- thousands of dollars in in mice, rats, bird of prey diet, and more. When power goes out for short periods, we just don't open the doors (also, we make sure we completely fill the freezers ahead of time so they hold in the cold better). We'll make sure to run our freezers off a generator.

4. Fridges: Besides food, we keep some medicines in our refrigerators. (Katy knows that when the lemur TB tests come in we want to make sure we "save the meds" in case of a power outage because it is expensive and difficult to get). We need to make sure we open our doors as little as possible, but we'll run what's needed off a generators too.

(These aren't enough extension cords...I have to keep gathering more from around the Museum).

These Four Fs are not everything. (I think I'll change the sheet to 6 Fs...)

The fifth F should be Freezing: Temperature in general is a big deal for some animals. Our reptiles need heat to stay healthy, and live! I'm hoping that the temperature in the building will hold, but if it is going to be super cold on Sunday/Monday, we'll run some heaters off the generator as well. The power won't be out at lemurs, but they are another group of animals that we have to make sure stay warm enough.

The sixth fifth F should be Flashlights, or Fbatteries, as we use them a lot when the power goes out. We always keep a lot of batteries on grounds for the aerators, but I'll make sure we have extras as the Keepers will have to take care of the indoor animals in the dark.

There's also a difference between the power going out for one hour, or one day, or one week. I'll tell you some other time about what we did in the 2002 December Ice Storm or after Hurricane Fran when power was out for five days!

Preparing for Power Outage

2009-12-02T15:17:00.004-05:00

Usually we prepare for the power going out due to weather. Not this time.
A big panel (yes, that's the technical term) needs to be upgraded and we're going to be without power for a day+ in the animal department.
There's lots to think about.
Can you add your ideas to the comment section please.

WHAT WOULD YOU BE THINKING ABOUT IF YOU WERE ME?

(I'll share what were doing a few days from now, but I am curious to see what our readers are thinking about).

new baby alligator

2009-11-25T20:46:00.000-05:00

This is our new alligator to be used for education programs. He/she lives behind the scenes, so I thought I would give you a sneak peak. This little one hatched in September 2008.
You can see he/she fits in my hand quite easily and is not much bigger than a dollar bill.
You can see our new exhibit alligators in Carolina Wildlife. These three 'gators were hatched in September 2007 and are much bigger than this little one.
The four of them arrived this past Monday after our last four alligators grew to big for us and were returned home to Florida this past Saturday by Larry.

Creature Feature: 1 3/4 wing barred owl

2009-11-24T15:00:00.002-05:00

This is 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl. She came to the museum in August of 1989, and was already an adult, so she is over 20 years old! When she arrived, she already had part of her left wing missing because it was fractured and had to be removed. The rest of the fractured wing healed incorrectly, and is kind of twisted. With this type of injury, she would obviously never be able to fly properly or live in the wild, so she came to live with us instead. She used to live outside in an exhibit enclosure, but she now lives on exhibit in Carolina Wildlife inside the museum.

When the museum acquired her, she also had signs of cornea degeneration and cataracts present in her left eye. This was something that, as long as she was not showing signs of pain, it was best for us to leave alone. Previously, I did a Creature Feature on our screech owl, who also had a bad eye. We finally had to remove the screech owl's eye because of pain, but surgery is the last option when it comes to birds of prey. They tend to get stressed out very easily, and the chances of a bad outcome from surgery increases when anesthesia is added to the equation. So, we had her eye checked (along with several of our other animals with eye problems) once a year by Dr. English, an eye specialist (read the spotlight post on Dr. English here). Although the eye worsened over the years, she never showed signs of pain (which we monitor through appetite, stable weight, and overall behavior) to warrant a risky surgery. In December of 2006, her left eye ruptured and has not been an issue since.

We have four barred owls in our Carolina Wildlife exhibit (all of which have wing or eye injuries), but many people don't even tend to notice the other three barred owls perching high in the exhibit. 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl always perches very low to the ground, so she is typically the first barred owl that the visitors see. Sometimes they get so interested in her that they never think to look up and see the three barred owls that are staring at them!

The picture above is of Keeper Jill sitting with 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl (that's about as high as she ever perches). All of the keepers have different animals or species that they do operant conditioning with . You've already seen me training Chummix the goat, but Jill is working on de-sensitization (or "de-sens" for short) with the barred owls. Even though the barred owls have been here for several years, they are still not comfortable with our presence in their exhibit, or us handling them. So everyday occurances, such as cleaning their exhibit, make them stressed out. So Jill's job is to literally get the barred owls accustomed to her presence... which means sitting in the doorway and doing nothing! We like to give Jill a hard time about this form of operant conditioning, since she gets out of working by sitting in a doorway for hours.

But I'm sure that will be discussed more in a later spotlight post about Jill! Meanwhile, 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl is really the only bird that Jill has had success with thus far. She has even started eating her mice in front of Jill, which is a pretty good accomplishment! Eventually, Jill will work up to getting 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl to take mice directly from tongs as Jill holds them. Once she get's there, she may actually be able start the training process!

Pumpkins!

2009-11-23T17:24:00.001-05:00

Around the Animal Department, October's arrival meant only 1 thing: extra candy on the free table! It meant good things for the animals too, although we definitely don't give them candy. They get a share in the post-Halloween jackpot in the form of pumpkins. Every year we get generous donations from people who give us their uncarved, unpainted pumpkins so we can give them to the animals. This year we got a very very generous donation and found ourselves overly plump with pumpkins. Some of our animals eat them, some of our animals try to eat them, some of our animals play with them, while some of our animals actively ignore them. It's a fun time for everyone, and if not good nutrition for those who don't eat them, then definitely great enrichment! Thank you to all who donated pumpkins this year or in years past, but we definitely no longer need any more this year (have I mentioned that we got a ton?!).

I put together a video of the various pumpkins shenanigans that occured. I really hope you enjoy it as much as everyone enjoyed their pumpkins!

QuikPost

2009-11-21T16:01:00.002-05:00

Our guys just joined a big crowd of fellow gators. Ed turned out to be
an Edwina. See more pics of the St. Augustine Alligator farm.

QuikPost from the road

2009-11-21T13:44:00.002-05:00

The gators are approaching home.

Alligators on their way

2009-11-21T05:55:00.011-05:00

Larry should be on his way to Florida right now with the 'gators. They should reach home (they were on loan to us) around 3:00 this afternoon. That's them stacked on top of each other in four under-bed storage containers. We label each container, secure them with additional duct tape and wedge them in the van so they won't move too much, When Kent and I were packing them up this morning, around 5:00, one of them actually "chirped". We were both shocked, as these alligators should have grown out of this as it is something only babies do - they chirp for their mom (crocodilians are the only reptiles that exhibit what humans would call some sort of parental care. It's really interesting, but that's another post).

I made sure I put my camera in my pocket last night so I would have a photo to show you. Someone commented in my post "I'm home sick" that they wanted to see a photo. I can only assume that you meant of my cat throwing up hairballs (rather than me lying sick in bed) so here he is. You'll have to wait to see a photo of my other cat- this one's big brother (my 20 pounder).

QuickPost: baby photos

2009-11-19T09:55:00.001-05:00

I went to grab the waterproof camera- the one that Erin refers to as hers or the one she suckered me in to buying- so I could take some photos that people had been asking for. I couldn't find it. I bet Erin went away on vacation and left it in her pocket. So, instead of showing you the photos of my hair-balled cat who I was home sick with, or our new pig shelter, or the keepers hard at work, I am stuck showing you baby photos. Auggie baby photos. Enjoy.

Meet Auggie

2009-11-17T09:48:00.005-05:00

This is Auggie, a three month old pot bellied pig. He arrived Saturday weighing a hefty 20 pounds. He'll spend 30 days in quarantine, and then we'll introduce him to Miss Piggy. We'll continue to post photos on the Blog so you can keep up with him prior to his arrival in the Farmyard in mid December.

Alligators heading out.

2009-11-16T10:35:00.001-05:00

Our alligators have gotten too big for our housing and it's time for them to go home. They are on loan to us from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm in Florida.

Larry is going to begin his Thanksgiving vacation on November 21 by driving our four alligators to Florida. (It's always interesting to mix work and family: The last driving trip I made I stayed at my parents house while I picked up a wolf!)

It's taken a bit of maneuvering, and lots of phone calls and emails to get the appropriate permits and schedules to get our current 'gators back to FL and get our new gators in from SC.

I'll be heading to SC on Monday November 23 to pick up our new alligators from Alligator Adventure. They will be smaller, and when they get too big, we'll swap them for smaller ones.

Come say goodbye to our 'gators and look forward to welcoming our new ones in!

A new look

2009-11-14T15:48:00.001-05:00

Well, I know it's been a while since I have done a blog post. But, I am finally back from my long hiatus, and wanted to update you on the improvements we have made to our farmyard. One of the last posts I did was about remodeling our education holding room, but we were also improving the outside areas at the same time.

Although it's not completed yet, all of the farmyard barns are being re-painted (in the same color as before, but a fresh coat of paint can make a lot of difference!). We also put signs at all of the exhibits to give our visitors information about the animals. Along with signs at the exhibits, we added two "Notes From The Keepers" chalk boards that are hung up on the walls of the donkey and steer barn. These chalk boards allow the keepers to leave notes for the visitors about what is going on with the animals on any given day. We put new information on these boards regularly to keep everyone informed about a sick animal or other interesting facts.

Next, we extended our sheep and donkey exhibit yards to give them more space, along with natural shade by including some trees in the extensions. Finally, we did new landscaping around the visitor areas of the farmyard. This is probably the biggest and most noticeable change. The new landscaping definitely adds more color to the farmyard, and gives it a "softer" look. I have heard good things from the visitors about the landscaping in particular! Lastly, we installed some hand sanitizers on a couple of barn walls.

This is the view of the farmyard when you first walk in. As you can see, there's a lot of greenery to greet you!

This is a photo of the side of the donkey barn. Notice the chalk board on the wall, along with the hand sanitizer hanging to the left of the chalk board. (Take a look at the barn in the last photo and compare it to the donkey barn. The barn in the last photo has already been painted, so it's a little darker than the donkey barn.)

This is a look at the new extension in the sheep yard from inside their exhibit yard.

And this is a photo of one of the new signs.

Come take a look at all of the improvements the next time you're here and tell us what you think. They look even better in person!

QuikPost: Stormy weather

2009-11-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

I came in from the wet, cold weather to find that Mudsy was having a tropical day in his exhibit. He is basking under the heat/UV lamp at a balmy 85 degrees. I'm a little jealous.

From the Wet Pocket of the Keeper

2009-11-11T15:22:00.004-05:00

Or: Rain

Or: It's still raining

Or: It's STILL RAINING!

Have you been outside today?!? Don't go if you haven't. Seriously, stay inside with some pie and coffee. You can trust me because I've pretty much spent the whole day in the great outdoors and the slosh of my shoe speaks for itself. I'm not completely complaining: it could be colder. And there's something melancholy about a day like today that I kind of like. I'm also not complaining because misery loves company, and today I just have to say something about my miserable company! Wait, I said that wrong...

Sherry has talked about Donald before, and today I want to second everything she said in that post. He was the guy braving the relentless rain with me today in the farmyard, with wet shoes, a failing poncho, and a cheery outlook. It was much appreciated, and I made him take a few extra seconds in the rain to take a picture with me with my waterproof camera! Thanks Donald!

I'm home sick

2009-11-11T09:38:00.002-05:00

I know you don't really care that I am home sick, but I am lying in bed and I found it amusing that I am coughing up stuff you don't want to know about, my daughter is lying next to me doing the same, and one of my cats is busy gagging from hairballs.
I have to go clean it up now.

I'm back: On the list today, once I can stand:

call the electrician for some work at the bear house
call the contractor(s) to get bids on building the new owl cage
flesh out the details on the alligator transfers (and tell you about it)
clean up whatever other hairballs my cat needs to get rid of
sleep

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.