Tuesday- This week I'm on giraffe! Which is very exciting since it's my favorite to be on. I was on it with Nicole and volunteer Brittney. I started out by taking off all the diet buckets from last night, weighing them to record what was eaten for our records. After that I helped clean up the buckets and the stalls. When that was all done I helped Hope in Grevy by cleaning up the stalls. Britney and I worked on this together to get it done quickly.
After that it was time for the all staff meeting. At these meetings all of the staff (hence the name) gets together so that we can catch up on whats going on in different departments and with the zoo. In this meeting we talked about lots of different things, but two of the main topics were the corpse flower and our episode on Chronicle.
Class was canceled for the day since we were going to be outside and it was supposed to rain, so no class information to report of.
Wednesday- I was on giraffe with Nicole again today. I once again helped with food prep and cleaning, and then again headed over to help Hope in Grevy. Thankfully she was almost done so it took almost no time at all.
When that was done I went with Nicole to a giraffe feeding encounter which we do everyday now, three times a day, for $5 a person. It's a really good deal considering how close you get to Beau. The people that we were with doing the encounter was a small family of four, with two very young girls. I'd say they were no older than two or three. The older of the two wasn't too sure about feeding such a large animal, but the little one was so brave!! I was so surprised that she had no fear of feeding him!
After that we had a staff meeting just to check in with everything that's been going on in the department. It was good to heard from everyone and just catch up on stuff.
Once that meeting was done we did our delivery, and then started the close up for the day.
Thursday- To begin the day I went off with Amanda to help fix some of the mesh around the trees in the savanah exhibit that was falling off. We keep the mesh there so that the animals don't eat at the bark and kill the trees. There were three of us that went out to do this project, but it really only needed two, so I went off to rake up some old hay. Once the raking was done, there wasn't much for me to do so I decided to clean under the bed of the truck where hay often gets caught around the spare tire.
After that I headed off to giraffe to help out Andrea. I did the normal things like diets and cleaning. When that was done we headed to lunch and then went to go help weed out the giraffe path a little so that it would be easier to get to the feeding landing.
Friday- Was wet!! We started out weeding the lion exhibit so that visitors can see Chris better, but of course it started to pour rain and we were soaked by 8:30am. Which of course lasted all day because work clothes don't dry out very quickly.
After all this was done I went to go help John with giraffe which included cleaning under the mats and getting a really deep clean.
After lunch we headed off to two classes, PRIDE and EPIC. PRIDE was mostly about customer service and solving problems that customers may have in a professional manner. EPIC was about creating resumes and cover letters so that they look good. Both are helpful for when we all have permenant jobs.
After all that we went off to close up and head out for the weekend!
Monday, July 2, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Just a Note
The zoo will be featured on Chronicle at 7:30 pm this Friday (June, 29th, 2012) if any of you are interested in watching it. I'm not sure what will be shown, I know that I was not filmed, so you won't see me, but many aspects of my department are supposed to be on there.
Just figured I'd give you all a heads up since I don't usually get the chance to write until Saturday.
Just figured I'd give you all a heads up since I don't usually get the chance to write until Saturday.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Some like it Hot....
....But I don't.....
Sorry about the delay in the second half of the post. I was away for the weekend and was trying to not spend all my time writing.
Thursday- Hot again today. It was supposed to be even hotter than yesterday, almost 103. Thankfully there's a bit of a breeze so it's less brutal.
To begin the day I was on top road with Joe. He's finally earned his wings and is able to be on his own! So just me and him today. I started out in Bongo again by cleaning everything as quickly as I could. I wanted to try and finish morning chores as soon as possible so that I could be out of the hottest part of the day. By the time I was done with Bongos, Joe had finished all the birds so we focused on getting the zebras out onto exhibit. Strangely enough we were really early, so we couldn't even put them out yet. We decided to see what else we could get done, and went back to Junior. He wasn't very motivated to get out this morning so we couldn't clean his stall. After checking on him we realized that he still hadn't moved. So we putzed around for a bit until we could let the zebras and ostriches out and clean the rest of the yards.
After lunch we learned that there might be a USDA inspection today so we went out to make sure everything was in tip top shape. My job was to go and clean the grant's building, and make sure that everything looked the best it possibly could. After scrubbing things down for about 30 minutes, we were informed that it was a false alarm and that we could stop. I decided to keep cleaning because it needed to be done anyways, and soon was done and went back to the nice air conditioning. Then we went out and did the delivery, and then relaxed in the AC until it was time to close up.
Friday- Friday was a field trip day! We were off to the Stone Zoo, our other extension, to get a tour of the zoo from the interns there and see what they did. It was interesting to see what animals the other interns take care of and how they run that zoo as compared to our zoo and our department.
After the tour we went and got lunch at a Mexican restaurant, and then went back to the zoo for a class on animal training. It was interesting to hear a class on it from another person and it was a good refresher from what I had already heard. Once the class was over we went off to go see the bird show, only to find out that it had been canceled for the day. Joe was able to get us a one on one meet and greet with some of the birds though since he used to work for the company that put the show on, which was really cool.
Sorry about the delay in the second half of the post. I was away for the weekend and was trying to not spend all my time writing.
Thursday- Hot again today. It was supposed to be even hotter than yesterday, almost 103. Thankfully there's a bit of a breeze so it's less brutal.
To begin the day I was on top road with Joe. He's finally earned his wings and is able to be on his own! So just me and him today. I started out in Bongo again by cleaning everything as quickly as I could. I wanted to try and finish morning chores as soon as possible so that I could be out of the hottest part of the day. By the time I was done with Bongos, Joe had finished all the birds so we focused on getting the zebras out onto exhibit. Strangely enough we were really early, so we couldn't even put them out yet. We decided to see what else we could get done, and went back to Junior. He wasn't very motivated to get out this morning so we couldn't clean his stall. After checking on him we realized that he still hadn't moved. So we putzed around for a bit until we could let the zebras and ostriches out and clean the rest of the yards.
After lunch we learned that there might be a USDA inspection today so we went out to make sure everything was in tip top shape. My job was to go and clean the grant's building, and make sure that everything looked the best it possibly could. After scrubbing things down for about 30 minutes, we were informed that it was a false alarm and that we could stop. I decided to keep cleaning because it needed to be done anyways, and soon was done and went back to the nice air conditioning. Then we went out and did the delivery, and then relaxed in the AC until it was time to close up.
Friday- Friday was a field trip day! We were off to the Stone Zoo, our other extension, to get a tour of the zoo from the interns there and see what they did. It was interesting to see what animals the other interns take care of and how they run that zoo as compared to our zoo and our department.
After the tour we went and got lunch at a Mexican restaurant, and then went back to the zoo for a class on animal training. It was interesting to hear a class on it from another person and it was a good refresher from what I had already heard. Once the class was over we went off to go see the bird show, only to find out that it had been canceled for the day. Joe was able to get us a one on one meet and greet with some of the birds though since he used to work for the company that put the show on, which was really cool.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
It was Hot, Hot, Hot
Tues- Tuesday was pretty uneventful. I was on top road with John and Joe. Normally I wouldn't have been with Joe at all but he's pretty much done with his training, so I was helping out. I started cleaning up Bongo which included cleaning the yard, giving them hay and fresh water, and then letting them out so that I could do their stalls.
After that I helped out in Grant's and some of the other animals. That mostly included cleaning the stalls, the yard, fresh water and hay, and then scrubbing and disinfecting all the food/water/hay tubs.
After lunch we had our class for the day. Today it was on AZA accreditation, which is the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. We are an accredited facility so we have to abid by their rules and regulations on keeping the zoo in proper order. They come every once in a while to do inspections, so our class was on what they are looking for, what the jobs of AZA members are, what the jobs mean, and what happens if we don't follow the rules.
Class was over early and we had a little bit of time before we were expected to be back so we decided to take a trip and go see the butterfly garden and the budgies. The butterfly garden was pretty boring, many of the butterflies had not hatched yet and those that had were up near the top of the building trying to get out, so there really wasn't much to see. The budgies were a bit more interesting. Budgies are our Australian parakeets which you can feed for two dollars. We skipped the money and decided to just watch. It was just as much fun to watch them zoom around and zip past our faces.
After class and field trips it was delivery and getting things ready for the afternoon cleanup. I was able to work on my intern project a little bit by clearing out an area from weeds and bamboo.
Wednesday- This day was the beginning of some very long hot days. It was easily the hottest of the week. To begin I was on top road again with Joe and Andrea. This was Joe's last day of being trained so I helped out as much as I could. I once again started out in Bongo and by 8:45 I was already drenched in sweat. A sure sign of a long day.
After all of the normal morning chores, and a huge water bottle, and soaking my hair under the water of a fire hydrant, it was finally time for lunch. Thankfully we put an air conditioner in the trailer so that we could enjoy our break time in a nice cold area. Unfortunately the break time didn't last very long and we were off to our next big job: a knotweed delivery!
There was a conservation society that was getting rid of a lot of knotweeds in an area of Newburyport to replace it with native plants. They decided to donate it to us so that we could feed it out to all of the animals and that it wouldn't go to waste. It took quite some time because it was a whole truck load full and needed to be taken out and then wrapped in bundles to be frozen for later use. By the end of it we were soaked in sweat again and extremely thirsty, and we still had to still bring it all to the freezer. Thankfully that was a nice and cool place.
After that we finished up with the afternoon chores and called it a day until tomorrow....
After that I helped out in Grant's and some of the other animals. That mostly included cleaning the stalls, the yard, fresh water and hay, and then scrubbing and disinfecting all the food/water/hay tubs.
After lunch we had our class for the day. Today it was on AZA accreditation, which is the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. We are an accredited facility so we have to abid by their rules and regulations on keeping the zoo in proper order. They come every once in a while to do inspections, so our class was on what they are looking for, what the jobs of AZA members are, what the jobs mean, and what happens if we don't follow the rules.
Class was over early and we had a little bit of time before we were expected to be back so we decided to take a trip and go see the butterfly garden and the budgies. The butterfly garden was pretty boring, many of the butterflies had not hatched yet and those that had were up near the top of the building trying to get out, so there really wasn't much to see. The budgies were a bit more interesting. Budgies are our Australian parakeets which you can feed for two dollars. We skipped the money and decided to just watch. It was just as much fun to watch them zoom around and zip past our faces.
After class and field trips it was delivery and getting things ready for the afternoon cleanup. I was able to work on my intern project a little bit by clearing out an area from weeds and bamboo.
Wednesday- This day was the beginning of some very long hot days. It was easily the hottest of the week. To begin I was on top road again with Joe and Andrea. This was Joe's last day of being trained so I helped out as much as I could. I once again started out in Bongo and by 8:45 I was already drenched in sweat. A sure sign of a long day.
After all of the normal morning chores, and a huge water bottle, and soaking my hair under the water of a fire hydrant, it was finally time for lunch. Thankfully we put an air conditioner in the trailer so that we could enjoy our break time in a nice cold area. Unfortunately the break time didn't last very long and we were off to our next big job: a knotweed delivery!
There was a conservation society that was getting rid of a lot of knotweeds in an area of Newburyport to replace it with native plants. They decided to donate it to us so that we could feed it out to all of the animals and that it wouldn't go to waste. It took quite some time because it was a whole truck load full and needed to be taken out and then wrapped in bundles to be frozen for later use. By the end of it we were soaked in sweat again and extremely thirsty, and we still had to still bring it all to the freezer. Thankfully that was a nice and cool place.
After that we finished up with the afternoon chores and called it a day until tomorrow....
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Peacock Parade
Tuesday- This day was a pretty uneventful. I was on bottom road with John again. Things went as planned. Ciara (our female camel) seemed to be having a good day. I'm not sure if I told all you folks before or not, but she has some joint problems (or at least what we speculate to be joint problems...we're not really sure) so sometimes she's stiff and doesn't want to stand for long periods of time.
The Kori Bustards are doing well also. We've been doing introductions of our male and female in order to eventually (hopefully) have them on exhibit together. They've been doing well with the introductions with only minor aggression towards each other. Mostly him towards her, but it's to be expected since they only just met each other about a week ago.
When the class was over we needed to go move the peacocks to their new temporary home! They've been inside for the winter because there were rumors of a coyote loose and we didn't want to loose any of them. They've been staying with us, but today they were going off to Childrens Zoo for some temporary holding until they could be released on zoo grounds! It's all very exciting since we believe that they would really love to be out and about eating bugs.
Wednesday- I was on bottom again but this time with Nicole. It was a very wet and rainy day, so not much fun. I was soaked within about 30 minutes. That's the down side to having an outside job, you need to be prepared for all sorts of weather.
The Kori Bustards are doing well also. We've been doing introductions of our male and female in order to eventually (hopefully) have them on exhibit together. They've been doing well with the introductions with only minor aggression towards each other. Mostly him towards her, but it's to be expected since they only just met each other about a week ago.
Jazzy, the male Kori
After lunch we (being the interns) went off to our class for the day, which was pest control/management. We learned what animals/insects are considered pests and how the zoo manages them. Often times they are caught in some sort of trap, whether it be a mouse/rat trap, have-a-heart traps, or some sort of insect catcher. We also learned how to actually set the mouse/rat traps by setting one right then and there. They're much easier to set than the ones we have to set in Wildlife Techniques class for larger animals.
When the class was over we needed to go move the peacocks to their new temporary home! They've been inside for the winter because there were rumors of a coyote loose and we didn't want to loose any of them. They've been staying with us, but today they were going off to Childrens Zoo for some temporary holding until they could be released on zoo grounds! It's all very exciting since we believe that they would really love to be out and about eating bugs.
Wednesday- I was on bottom again but this time with Nicole. It was a very wet and rainy day, so not much fun. I was soaked within about 30 minutes. That's the down side to having an outside job, you need to be prepared for all sorts of weather.
Right after lunch we were able to watch the hornbills do some training. Right now we are working on getting them to do target, which is where you say target and they press their face (or bill in this case) to a certain area, and getting them to recognize colors. That is proving to be the hardest thing it seems.
Matata with a grass clump
Later on during the day the interns and I went off to work on the tiger exhibit. The day before facilities layed down some cement to cover some rat holes and it was still drying so the tigers couldn't go onto the exhibit anyways. We decided to take advantage of this and clean the pool and do some minor weeding. The cleaning of the pool was the biggest part of the project. Courtney and I were sent to do the weeding portion, while Joe was sent to clean the pool. Which I would have almost rathered because I feel like he got a tiny bit less wet, but by the time that we all were done we were all soaked for the most part.
Thursday- I was on bottom again with John today. Yesterday when I had been on bottom with Nicole I set some rat traps in the wildebeest barn. Today I found that I caught a rat! I was very impressed, the class paid off!
After that excitement we went off to work on the cat exhibits. I cleaned the windows to the lions pen and made them all nice and squeaky clean. When that was all done I helped some of the people on top road to clean bongo. This was mostly the same as cleaning the zebra stalls. A little less cleaning but mostly the same.
Then we went off to get the delivery and then on the way back they dropped off Katie and I to clean the peacock barn. We stripped everything and scrubbed everything down. It was very gratifying to just get everything super clean. Or at least as super clean as it could possibly get.
Friday- Bottom again today, this time with both John and Courtney. We got everything done rather quickly now that the peacocks are gone and their were three of us. We did a deep cleaning of the cat enclosure since we had the man power and the time, and then we did some quick weeding outside near the tiger pen.
Anala
Chris taking a nap
After lunch we had a class about PRIDE, which was all about customer service. A lot of it was information that I had heard before from working in the customer service field for so many years, but it was still a good refresher to hear it again.
So that was my week. Nothing too exciting, but it definitely kept me busy. Next week I'll hopefully be starting to work on my project, which I can inform you all about when it starts!
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Boston for Some Group Bonding
I decided to give Friday it's own post since we did so much. Friday was a field trip day so I didn't actually do any work at all! It was very nice.
I didn't actually have to be to work until 9am, but since traffic would be so bad if I tried to leave my house later than I normally do, I decided to get there at 7 like normal. Unfortunately this means two hours of nothing to do, so what does any college kid do?? I slept in my car. I felt so weird doing it, but it was almost worth it.
So we started off our day by going to the Aquarium. We were able to catch the last bit of the sea lion show, which was cool. I learned that in one square inch of a sea lions body they can have about 300,000 hairs. That's a lot!!! After the show we were able to get a behind the scenes tour and see a new baby seal that they have. The woman giving us the tour told us a lot about him, but it was hard to hear because I was in the back and there were lots of children yelling outside. From what I could hear though I learned that he was found in Monteray, CA and he was very underweight. When they found him he was 8 months old but weighed the same as a one month old pup. I also believe I heard he is blind in one eye and has some flipper problems. He's super cute though!
Once our behind the scene's tour was done, Courtney, Joe and I went off to explore the rest of the aquarium. We went straight to the touch tank to feel some rays and sharks. It was like we were kids again. Then we decided to look at the big tank in the middle because in September it's going to be redone and will no longer exist. So if you want to go see it, hurry up!! We saw some very interesting creatures there, and actually avoided a lot of the school groups.
After that we headed to Quincy Market for lunch. I got a steak and cheese sub and then a coffee milkshake for dessert. We walked around and did a little sight seeing since we had a lot of time to kill. Courtney was actually pulled into a street show!! I almost wish that we had a little bit more time to spend there.
Once we were done with lunch we hopped back on the subway and headed over to the Museum of Science. We got to see behind the scenes with their live animal department and had a self tour to look at the animals. I wish that this tour had been a little more informative, but they seemed really busy. The do have lots of cool animals there though. Many birds and reptiles, and then quite a few mammals too. My favorite was the groundhog (which I didn't take a picture of for some reason....) and their owl.
When we were done there the three of us headed off to explore the rest of the museum in a whirlwind amount of time. We were kids again, pressing all the buttons, and playing all the games. We had lots of laughs and I wish that we were there longer so that it wasn't so rushed. We found out that Joe has the lung capacity of a marathon runner, and we saw some pretty cool exhibits.
I didn't actually have to be to work until 9am, but since traffic would be so bad if I tried to leave my house later than I normally do, I decided to get there at 7 like normal. Unfortunately this means two hours of nothing to do, so what does any college kid do?? I slept in my car. I felt so weird doing it, but it was almost worth it.
So we started off our day by going to the Aquarium. We were able to catch the last bit of the sea lion show, which was cool. I learned that in one square inch of a sea lions body they can have about 300,000 hairs. That's a lot!!! After the show we were able to get a behind the scenes tour and see a new baby seal that they have. The woman giving us the tour told us a lot about him, but it was hard to hear because I was in the back and there were lots of children yelling outside. From what I could hear though I learned that he was found in Monteray, CA and he was very underweight. When they found him he was 8 months old but weighed the same as a one month old pup. I also believe I heard he is blind in one eye and has some flipper problems. He's super cute though!
Once our behind the scene's tour was done, Courtney, Joe and I went off to explore the rest of the aquarium. We went straight to the touch tank to feel some rays and sharks. It was like we were kids again. Then we decided to look at the big tank in the middle because in September it's going to be redone and will no longer exist. So if you want to go see it, hurry up!! We saw some very interesting creatures there, and actually avoided a lot of the school groups.
Sea Turtle
Underside of a flounder
After that we headed to Quincy Market for lunch. I got a steak and cheese sub and then a coffee milkshake for dessert. We walked around and did a little sight seeing since we had a lot of time to kill. Courtney was actually pulled into a street show!! I almost wish that we had a little bit more time to spend there.
Giant Mac & Cheese Noodle
Once we were done with lunch we hopped back on the subway and headed over to the Museum of Science. We got to see behind the scenes with their live animal department and had a self tour to look at the animals. I wish that this tour had been a little more informative, but they seemed really busy. The do have lots of cool animals there though. Many birds and reptiles, and then quite a few mammals too. My favorite was the groundhog (which I didn't take a picture of for some reason....) and their owl.
Owl
Red tailed Hawk
When we were done there the three of us headed off to explore the rest of the museum in a whirlwind amount of time. We were kids again, pressing all the buttons, and playing all the games. We had lots of laughs and I wish that we were there longer so that it wasn't so rushed. We found out that Joe has the lung capacity of a marathon runner, and we saw some pretty cool exhibits.
A Knitted Brain......
Giraffes and Grevys
Tuesday-
I'll admit I didn't write down exactly what I did on Tuesday, which is going to make it hard to write about....Shame on me! It started out slow, I was with John down at the Compound working with the Grevy's and giraffes. This is where I was going to be all week! I was very excited since I had only dabbled in the giraffe barn a little bit. I was also working with a volunteer that I hadn't met yet named Britney. I didn't really get to know her that well since we were very busy cleaning the Grevy stalls, but from what I can tell she's very nice.
In the morning after I helped Britney clean all the stalls we helped John with the giraffes by giving them their supplements and preparing their diets. I'm getting pretty confident with it now and can almost recite all of the ingredients off the top of my head. I still always check the diet sheets though just to be sure.
This week was so rainy that the giraffes were not going out on to exhibit. It has to be at least 65 degrees for them to be out, and with the combination of the rain and the not so warm weather they stayed inside. This allowed us to get things done fairly quickly and I got to spend lots of time getting to know Beau better. Working with them and the Grevy's also lets me get to know my favorite zebra, Kayen, better. He's such a sweetie and although he's going to be a stallion later on in life (which means he will be a bit "meaner"), he's extremely friendly right now.
After lunch we went to a trainers forum with the keepers. The trainers forum allows the trainers from all the departments to get together and troubleshoot on any problems they're having, and they all get to hear what each other are doing. During the forums one keeper does a presentation on their animals and what they are training them today. This one was about Chessie the leopard from Stone Zoo. They're teaching her to do many different things, but right now they are focusing on getting her habituated to the feel of a needle so that they can do blood draws and injections on her without stressing her out too much. They've attempted one blood draw already but she wasn't too thrilled with it and it was unsuccessful. Perhaps the next time they try it will be better.
Wednesday-
Wednesday was a lot of the same routine. I worked with the Grevy's in the morning and then after that the giraffes. Before we got a chance to put the animals out onto exhibit though, we had to go work on weeding the exhibit's moat. The moat is really just a dip in the landscape, and it's put there to prevent the animals from walking right up to the visitors. The weeds had gotten very tall though and it was partially preventing the visitors from seeing the animals, and there were some plants in there that the animals shouldn't eat and they needed to be taken out. We only had a little bit done though before we had to put them out for the zoo opening.
After lunch we went to a meeting about the new Green Team that they've initiated at the zoo. The Green Team is basically just a committee dedicated to making the zoo more environmentally friendly. It seems like they have a lot of good ideas, and now they just need to be put into place.
Once that was over Courtney (another intern) and I went off to work on weeding next to the giraffe chute. The weeds there are literally over our heads and are super thick, so it took quite some time to get it down. We only got about half way down the chute before we had to stop.
After that I went back to giraffe to help finish things up.
Thursday-
Thursday was crazy. It was mostly crazy though because we were going to be extremely short people in the afternoon. Originally it was going to be myself, Katie (an intern), Joe (the extern), John, Amanda, Andrea, and Erin. What we ended up with was everyone but Erin in the morning but then in the after noon it was just me, Katie, Joe and John. Amanda had to go pick up cranes from the airport at two and Andrea was only there for a half day. So that left the rest of us to finish up everything in the afternoons by ourselves.
Since this was the case, we got absolutely as much as we could done in the morning so there would be less to do in the afternoon. Myself and Ellie (a volunteer who works half days) went off to Grevy to clean the barn really quick so we could help out in giraffe. Once we finished that we went over to the Giraffe barn and all we could hear was clapping from the inside. This wasn't a good sign since usually we use clapping as a way to get the animals to move when they're being stubborn. We walked in and I asked Andrea what was up. She informed us that just as she was about to move the giraffes the heater near the chute (where they need to go) started making "scary grinding noises" and put the giraffes into a fit. They wouldn't budge, and you really can't force a 2,000 pound animal to do anything. So we tried relentlessly for about an hour to get the giraffes to move and finally with much coaxing they did. Once that was done we cleaned out everything, made diets, and headed up for lunch.
After lunch Katie and I headed over to the Grevy shoot to clear out some weeds that were making it hard to get to the giraffe feeding platform. It went quickly since there wasn't much weeding to do, and many of the weeds were easy to pull out. Of course in the middle it started to POUR and we had to retreat to the zebra building. After that Joe came to help us finish up, which made it go even faster. We powered through the rest of it and then headed up to collect some knotweed for the giraffes to eat later.
While we did this we were able to visit the old antelope house from the 1940s. The building is condemned now so it's not in use anymore, but it hasn't been torn down because it's such a historical building. It was really interesting to see what the animal's pens looked like back then and to see how far we've come in the zoo world. It's also really amazing that even though the building is technically condemned, it seems like the only parts of the building that show it's age are the roof and the metal pipes/cage walls. The brick and cement walls look as though they were put up yesterday! I wish that I had photos to share with you all because it is such an interesting place. I was told that there were some photos on the Boston Public Library website, but I can't seem to find any. Perhaps if we go again I'll be sure to take some quick snapshots. Currently the building is filled with junk that people have dumped there as a holding place over the years and the pigeons have taken over, but you can tell that at one point it was a fancy building. Or at least fancy for those times....
Also in other news, one of the corpse flowers has bloomed!! We were able to see it, and I have to say that it doesn't smell as horrible as I thought it would, but considering I work with poop all day, I bet I'm not the best judge for that....
I'll admit I didn't write down exactly what I did on Tuesday, which is going to make it hard to write about....Shame on me! It started out slow, I was with John down at the Compound working with the Grevy's and giraffes. This is where I was going to be all week! I was very excited since I had only dabbled in the giraffe barn a little bit. I was also working with a volunteer that I hadn't met yet named Britney. I didn't really get to know her that well since we were very busy cleaning the Grevy stalls, but from what I can tell she's very nice.
In the morning after I helped Britney clean all the stalls we helped John with the giraffes by giving them their supplements and preparing their diets. I'm getting pretty confident with it now and can almost recite all of the ingredients off the top of my head. I still always check the diet sheets though just to be sure.
This week was so rainy that the giraffes were not going out on to exhibit. It has to be at least 65 degrees for them to be out, and with the combination of the rain and the not so warm weather they stayed inside. This allowed us to get things done fairly quickly and I got to spend lots of time getting to know Beau better. Working with them and the Grevy's also lets me get to know my favorite zebra, Kayen, better. He's such a sweetie and although he's going to be a stallion later on in life (which means he will be a bit "meaner"), he's extremely friendly right now.
Wednesday-
Wednesday was a lot of the same routine. I worked with the Grevy's in the morning and then after that the giraffes. Before we got a chance to put the animals out onto exhibit though, we had to go work on weeding the exhibit's moat. The moat is really just a dip in the landscape, and it's put there to prevent the animals from walking right up to the visitors. The weeds had gotten very tall though and it was partially preventing the visitors from seeing the animals, and there were some plants in there that the animals shouldn't eat and they needed to be taken out. We only had a little bit done though before we had to put them out for the zoo opening.
After lunch we went to a meeting about the new Green Team that they've initiated at the zoo. The Green Team is basically just a committee dedicated to making the zoo more environmentally friendly. It seems like they have a lot of good ideas, and now they just need to be put into place.
Once that was over Courtney (another intern) and I went off to work on weeding next to the giraffe chute. The weeds there are literally over our heads and are super thick, so it took quite some time to get it down. We only got about half way down the chute before we had to stop.
After that I went back to giraffe to help finish things up.
Thursday-
Thursday was crazy. It was mostly crazy though because we were going to be extremely short people in the afternoon. Originally it was going to be myself, Katie (an intern), Joe (the extern), John, Amanda, Andrea, and Erin. What we ended up with was everyone but Erin in the morning but then in the after noon it was just me, Katie, Joe and John. Amanda had to go pick up cranes from the airport at two and Andrea was only there for a half day. So that left the rest of us to finish up everything in the afternoons by ourselves.
Since this was the case, we got absolutely as much as we could done in the morning so there would be less to do in the afternoon. Myself and Ellie (a volunteer who works half days) went off to Grevy to clean the barn really quick so we could help out in giraffe. Once we finished that we went over to the Giraffe barn and all we could hear was clapping from the inside. This wasn't a good sign since usually we use clapping as a way to get the animals to move when they're being stubborn. We walked in and I asked Andrea what was up. She informed us that just as she was about to move the giraffes the heater near the chute (where they need to go) started making "scary grinding noises" and put the giraffes into a fit. They wouldn't budge, and you really can't force a 2,000 pound animal to do anything. So we tried relentlessly for about an hour to get the giraffes to move and finally with much coaxing they did. Once that was done we cleaned out everything, made diets, and headed up for lunch.
After lunch Katie and I headed over to the Grevy shoot to clear out some weeds that were making it hard to get to the giraffe feeding platform. It went quickly since there wasn't much weeding to do, and many of the weeds were easy to pull out. Of course in the middle it started to POUR and we had to retreat to the zebra building. After that Joe came to help us finish up, which made it go even faster. We powered through the rest of it and then headed up to collect some knotweed for the giraffes to eat later.
While we did this we were able to visit the old antelope house from the 1940s. The building is condemned now so it's not in use anymore, but it hasn't been torn down because it's such a historical building. It was really interesting to see what the animal's pens looked like back then and to see how far we've come in the zoo world. It's also really amazing that even though the building is technically condemned, it seems like the only parts of the building that show it's age are the roof and the metal pipes/cage walls. The brick and cement walls look as though they were put up yesterday! I wish that I had photos to share with you all because it is such an interesting place. I was told that there were some photos on the Boston Public Library website, but I can't seem to find any. Perhaps if we go again I'll be sure to take some quick snapshots. Currently the building is filled with junk that people have dumped there as a holding place over the years and the pigeons have taken over, but you can tell that at one point it was a fancy building. Or at least fancy for those times....
Also in other news, one of the corpse flowers has bloomed!! We were able to see it, and I have to say that it doesn't smell as horrible as I thought it would, but considering I work with poop all day, I bet I'm not the best judge for that....
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