Today I got to go to a nearby zoo & wildlife center with a friend from vet nursing (for transport) and spend 8 hours there to fulfil course requirements for my study. It. Was. AMAZING.
We started off at 6.30am, and drove down, getting lost on the way and ending up 20 minutes past where we needed to be - luckily we'd left in such good time that we weren't that late in the end. Filled out some forms, then went around on the morning monkey feeds, which included cotton top tamarins, lemurs, capuchin monkeys, a lone spider monkey, Barda, (who lived next to the main capuchin monkey cage), and others. One of the lemurs was feeling poorly, so we got quite a good look at her because she was comparatively still, and we also got to have quite a lot of time with Barda, as he was very attached to his keeper (who was showing us round) and would come right up to the bars to say hello. After that was some veggie chopping for the emus.
After that, we had morning tea, and went on the monkey/elephant talk, which involved a little more about the monkeys, then we went to see Mila, who is the ex-circus elephant that they rescued, and have been since rehabilitating with tremendous success. Mila's an African elephant who was wild-caught and then kept in zoos and circuses for thirty years, so it was amazing to see how far she'd come. She was genuinely caring with her main keeper, and they obviously had a very special relationship. Positive reinforcement really has done wonders for her - it's so cool to see her showing natural behaviours when she used to rock stereotypically for nearly 20 hours a day.
Then we got to go around all the red-eared slider (turtle) cages, and check all the turtles. They're hibernating over winter so they don't get fed, but we did pick them all up and checked their shells for scratches, chips, or other damage. Most of them only had a few bashed-up bits, but one did have a small sore on it leg. We iodined up any damage, and had a lot of fun with the turtles, as turning them on to their backs basically stopped them from attempting to leave, not that they were having much luck!
After cleaning up the turtles it was time for lunch, and one of the zoo cats made sure to get in all the cuddle time/food stealing he wanted, which was cute. There are three cats that roam around the zoo (which is somewhat bad in terms of healthcare, but the main keeper is a fully qualified vet with a second degree in nutrition, so she tests their feces regularly for things like toxoplasma gondii, which can reproduce inside any mammals or birds.
After lunch, we did an otter talk, then got to see Mila in her outside enclosure - there were a few more people, so this one wasn't held in the barn - and then got to see Ruby, the lioness, fed, as well as the bobcats. That was really neat, even if it did start raining quite heavily at times. Ruby was very friendly towards her keeper as well, rubbing up against the cage for (careful) scratches, and following her around - although that was probably just for the food benefit! We also got to hear Ruby roaring quite a bit as we were running slightly late, which was pretty cool, too.
After the talks, we helped the main keeper do a soak of a sick chicken's badly infected feet, which was kind of gross but necessary, and also got to see a fledgling woodpigeon which was being cared for. Then we stopped by Mila again to give her some browse, although we were quite preoccupied by the two zebras, which were shamelessly cadging food (we were given bags of duck/chicken/emu/zebra/deer/peacock/pigeon/sparrow food, which we scattered around with us through the day, more or less tripping over the animals in the process) and then sorted out some kea enrichment, which was us stuffing muesli bars, unbuttered popcorn, and sunflower seeds into a roll-along treat ball, and a length of bamboo with the divider portion in the middle of a ten-inch tube, which we then put in with the keas, and got to watch them having a go at getting the food out. They were actually really clever about it too - the male kea was dunking his muesli bar in the water bowl to soften it up, and he would pick the stick up and drop it a few times if he thought he could dislodge some more muesli from the inside. We didn't get to see them finding the treat ball though, because it was time to sort out some more monkey food.
One thing that really surprised me (although it makes sense looking back) is how much food that zoos go through in a day. The elephant would eat 110kg of leaves, branches (thick as my wrist branches too, not twigs) and fruits and veggies, the lion went through 3-5kg of meat per meal, the bobcats were a kilo between them, the monkey cages would have been about four large buckets stuffed with fruits, and the emus went through another bucket of carrots and muesli bars and the like, and that was just the feeds we saw - maybe half the diets. It was pretty cute though, because one of the other zoo cats (domestic ones) was meandering around the kitchen chasing the fledgling pigeons that have adopted the place, which was a spotted bengal named Spots, who was "not very clever". She was really talkative though, and friendly, and stood on my shoulders for a while when I picked her up.
We gave the capuchins and Barda some more fruit, and tried to have another look at the cut that Barda had on his hand. There were two main groups of capuchins - a big group of twelve that had two cages connected by a wire walkway over the path (Barda's cage had a walkway that mirrored theirs, and a second enclosure down the bottom) which were quite stable and harmonious, and a smaller group of three (two girls and a boy) who were the misfits of the capuchin world, with a low-rank female, a low-rank female with no monkey social skills, and a large but low-rank male. By putting them separately, it stopped them getting bullied by the other group members, and they're apparently really shining for it. They certainly seemed very content when we went to feed them, with Jungle coming right up to the front of the cage (she was raised mostly by humans though, so her behaviour isn't typical of capuchins).
Next was probably one of the most awesome parts of the day - we got to hand-feed mealworms to some cotton-top tamarins. That was singularly awesome, because they're so much more delicate up close. It was the coolest feeling ever to feel them grabbing stuff off my hand, and I don't think I'll forget how solemn and gray their faces were - a little incongruous with the wild hairdos though!
After feeding the tamarins, we also got to feed the center's ageing one-eyed otter, who was also a bit of an oddball, in that he was mostly blind, old, and small for his species, so it was very difficult to get him into a group. However, it does mean that he can be hand fed as well, which meant scooping up bits of mince, and holding them out for him to delicately grab with his mouth (doing very well for someone not able to see much).
The center really did have a bit of an odds-and-sods animal collection, but that's mostly because they don't really aim to be a popular zoo because they've got amazing animals, but because the animals they do have are all there on other reasons, and the education benefit comes second to the welfare of the animals. A lot of them are animals that didn't get along with others, they had a lot of ex-circus animals that needed extensive rehabilitation, or they're animals that just aren't wanted anywhere else. The fact that they put so much effort into keeping everything running, and that they still had constant improvements they were making, and wanting to make, and plans for future years - it's just stunning, the amount of work they put in for the animals. I have nothing but the highest esteem for the main keeper, because she obviously knew her stuff, but every action showed how much she cared about her animals. Not only that, but the fact that she lives on site, and wakes up whenever Mila needs a friend, no matter how little sleep she's had...it makes me feel very small, when I think about her dedication. What's more, on a day where she was short staffed, and had four other young students in for captive wildlife courses (either current or planned) she still made as much of an effort as possible to make our day interesting and fun, going out of her way to make sure that we got to do things like feed the cotton tops, and things like that.
One day just wasn't enough time there, which makes me really glad that we may be going back for another day there.
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