Even when things are going very well, and every day is interesting and rewarding, I begin to fall into a rut of monotony, and begin to lose track of each day, even working at a zoo I begin to lose track of what i should talk or blog about... I've been here since Aug. 1, more than a month now, I've had an immense amount of experience here and learned alot about zoo maintenance. Yet I've failed to document this progress on a regular basis, so I will try to change that. I will sum up basically what each day is like for me here.
Each day I get up about ten minutes before 8:00 (when work starts) scarf down a bowl of cereal, throw my clothes on and go over to the office, where we sit and talk about work, tasks for the day, drink coffee and yes, shoot the breeze a little bit, and then get to work, usually around 9:00ish, sooner if we're low on staff and have alot to do between us, daily chores at the zoo of course include cleaning out each exhibit of excrements, leftover food, and other debris such as fur or feathers, if frequent digging takes place such as with the badgers or coyotes, we fill in the holes. Cleaning the automatic waterer or bowl is also important. Then food is given out. Grain and hay are for the horses and cows, feed for the chickens and turkeys. Gophers and mice go to the eagles, hawks and owls. Raw sections of meat, such as expired donated beef and chicken from grocery stores, or chops from roadkilled deer, which we give to the wolves, coyotes, cougar, foxes, fishers, and bobcat. The bear gets 5 gallon buckets of frozen fruit, usually a mix of apples, cantaloupes, honeydews, watermelons, mangoes, pears, along with a few vegetables here and there like squashes, lettuce and eggplants (which the bear never eats, she's a picky eater, won't eat strawberries or bananas, either) Each day I try to mix in enrichments here and there, be they a spritz of perfume or some other smell in a few spots in the exhibit, (only a small amount so it doesn't stink up the whole place and overwhelm the animals' sensitive olfactory nerves) I like to change up their toys from day to day, be it just another boomer ball or spool, (types of heavy duty toys designed specifically for zoo animals) and I try to make it more interesting, say, but rubbing a smell on it or adding food to it somewhere, making it into a sort of puzzle, like an old tank that you can put marshmallows in so the bear rolls it around to try to get them out. Each exhibit is differently treated, some you don't have to worry about, domestics are of course safe for visitors to pet and to walk around in their enclosures, we can go into the enclosures with the foxes, fishers, bobcat, otters, coyotes and birds, though some you're required to carry a shovel at all times just in case they do approach you, possibly to bite you. This is advised by the staff for the otters and coyotes. the other animals usually don't approach too close or carry much risk. The large carnivores, bear, cougar, and wolves, we of course never go into the same enclosure as the one they're in.
The same is true for bobcat, we do not go into her exhibit with her. Though only a little larger than a housecat, she is no pussy you'd want to pet. She looks innocent enough watching her in her enclosure, she even looks playful sometimes, but get too close and she can quickly turn one hundred eighty degrees. One volunteer has already had this happen just by standing too close to the bars of her off-exhibit pen. She was badly scratched with deep cuts on her legs. Since then safety acrylic has been put over that side of the pen, which is close to where the door going into her exhibit is.
