Second Mouse Musings

Fiji Time All The Time!

2010-02-18T00:06:00.000-08:00

Well, folks....I am back from two weeks of bliss in Fiji. If you haven't been I highly recommend it. I basically went from pool to bar to ocean to hammock. Ahhhhh, all it was missing was a few good carnivores. I totally would have stayed and married a BEAUTIFUL Fijian man but they have no land mammals let alone any carnivores... I need predators to survive. The only native mammal is a fruit bat...... a frugivore...not even a vegetarian for pete's sake! Helen (a co-worker fro mthe Safari) and I mapped out a plan....all we need is a financial backer to buy us our own island then we can hire native Fijians for labour to build and operate our own zoo... brilliant! Sooo, any takers? HaHa!

I went scuba diving for the first time ever..... pretty adventurous of me since I don't really like the ocean. Don't get me wrong...I love the ocean, it's beautiful, the sounds are sooo soothing, I love boating, and I LOVE marine mammals..... but I don't want to be IN it. A couple of feet in is usually ok ...... until a barracuda came sneaking up on us while in only like 2 feet of water..... barracudas are nasty not-so-little buggars. But the good thing about Fiji ocean waters...they are crystal clear so you can see what's coming after you. *shudder* I know exactly what lies beneath thank you very much and I prefer not to interact with most of it. Anyways.... the dive was great actually (even though we did almost get attacked by a big trigger fish at one point...thankfully I was pretty oblivious until later). I had some trouble adjusting to the whole mouth only breathing thing in the practice session in the pool. I am a nose breather so when we practiced our masks filling up and learned how to empty them while still under water..... you lean back with your finger pressed to the top of your mask and blow out through your nose while still breathing in through your mouth..... I kept inhaling water through my nose after I blew out. argh! I was harder than I thought. I had to sit down there at the bottom of the pool for like 10 min and re-train myself to breath only through my mouth. I got it down, of course, and did excellent on my open water dive. Not looking forward to certification in oregon's very cold very murky water but i need it for work. It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it ;-)

We did the zipline through the rain forest...wananavu!! (awesome) I usually don't like to take too many risks outside of work....I figure I'm already taking so many chances on a daily basis why increase my odds of serious harm by doing wild things like bungee jumping and skydiving outside of work? Especially since those are things I don't have much control over. The zipline I was able to keep in control since you are responsible for your own speed and direction. I prefer things where I have control...like driving and I want to learn to fly helicopters too! ;-)

There was an ecopark near our resort (Kula EcoPark)..... Fiji's version of a zoo I guess. It was all of their native species so lots of iguanas, parrots, sea turtles, fish, and bats. It was a beautiful park and I would highly suggest a visit when in Fiji. We got to feed the baby sea turtles in their breeding/reintroduction program and walked through dozens of aviaries full of the most beautiful, colorful birds. There were some bats to see up close as well which was nice since the bats out and about didn't come out until dusk and were really hard to photograph. The only wild bat shot I got was by accident while trying to get the sunset, lol.

All in all it was an amazing, breathtaking, unforgettable trip and I am already planning my return next year...wish I could go back sooner. I have tons of photos and video on my facebook page but here's a treat for those of you that aren't facebook friendlies......

"I'm covered in iguanas!!" (think Eddie Izzard's "I'm covered in bees!!")

30 is flirty!

2010-01-14T21:56:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been quite some time since i've had the inclination to blog...... ALOT has happened.I am back in Portland as of October '09 and am working at the Oregon Zoo!!!!!! eeeeeeeeeee! (squeal of happiness) One step closer to my life's goal. I am not a full time permanent keeper however. I am a temp keeper which means that i only get a certain number of hours per year and no benefits buuuuuut it's well over double what i was making down south and i tell them my availability. What that means is on a week by week basis i tell them what days i'm available to work... doesn't mean i'll get scheduled but it gives me flexibility to have a part time job on the side until a permanent position becomes available. So i have to be available atleast three days a week for the zoo and one of those has to be a sat or a sun. I also get trained in atleast three areas at the zoo so i can essentially be "on call".

First I worked marine life again, which felt like being home since that is where i started there what.... over 5 years ago? wow! As a temp i do what regular keepers do on a daily basis except for training behaviors (depends on the dept and how established the behavior is) so in Marine life i work the cat/fish routine (tigers, leopards, fish, and invertebrates) or the bear routine (polar bears/sun bears). I love it... all the keepers have such great attitudes and make it so fun to work with them. We just mesh well.... you don't know how important that is.. Well maybe you do. It makes work SOOOO much nicer when you all get along and have fun together!

I heart those guys!

I also got trained in the Africa Predators of the Serengeti dept. Which is the newest exhibit at the zoo... it has lions, cheetah (two of my boys from the Safari...well, only one now but that's another story), wild dogs, caracal, as well as various other "lesser" predators like reptiles and ugh...spiders (shudder). I had hoped desperately to get to work in the Africa section but had NO idea i'd get trained in the Predator area only because they had seemed like it was kind of off limits... not even all of the Africa keepers had been trained to do it yet. But i got lucky..... three of the four keepers trained to do the predator routine were going to be off for a couple weeks and since i had predator experience i got trained in two days and then took over the whole area for like two and a half weeks!!!! It was SO awesome! ! Seriously... I would so loooove to have that area as my own, I would have os much fun with those animals. Predators are my thing, what can I say?

I've always loved lions ever since i read the Narnia books as a little and wanted to meet Aslan. ;-) They have three at the zoo, a male and two females. Zawadi, the male, is my special. He is sooo sensitive and really does not seem to like men. Someone said they thought his previous keepers were all female so it may take him some time. He seemed to get used to me pretty quickly, I'm used to special males... between Ariyeh, Keeno, and Oso at Safari I've had lots of practice soothing sensitive male egos ;-) The girls Neka and Kya are rambunctious saucy little wenches who would be SO great to work with and get them calmed down... oh man I would love the opportunity to build relationships with those cats.... I fell in love with them so fast and so hard. (I miss them SO much!)

Cheetahs...well, I've had a thing for cheetahs forever... I wish i had made a copy of the letter i wrote to Bush Sr. when he was the Pres asking him to help Africa save the cheetahs...I would so love to read what I wrote in it, how freaking cute would that be?! And now I've grown up and worked with one of the top 5 cheetah breeding programs in the US.... how great is that?! The cheetahs at the zoo came from the Safari... Scooter and Suseli (brothers from the May '07 litter) were shipped up to Portland when I was still working with them at the Safari. We have since lost Scooter to what appears to be a very aggressive pancreatic cancer but we are still waiting for the pathology reports to come back (can take atleast a month). It was VERY sad and it happened after I was done working that area (i had been done in that dept for about a week/week and a half). So sudden and so tragic since they were only two years old. And now my other sensitive, delicate boy Susel is all alone. I did go check up on Sus last week and he seems pretty chill but his keepers are keeping a close eye on him.

The Wild Dogs are such amazing animals..... I learn more cool things about them everyday..the fact that wild dogs are one of the top predators alongside lions and yet are complete opposites of them and their social structure in so many ways. I love the animal kingdom in all its horrific glory. It seems so random at times but everything fits together perfectly and one without the other and it all starts to unravel, everyone and everything has it's place in the web and it all works (without human interference anyways).

The caracal (Peggy) is out of control... I fell in love with her in an instant. I call her Pegsy or Peggy-Sue or The Pegster and she grumbles ALL the time, she makes little snarfy noises while she pees and she snorts when she eats... oh man, her superbness is more than I can handle. I miss her little guts! She was a sensitive thing too. All these animals were new to their exhibits and still adjusting to new people which can be hard. Animals are very sensitive to changes in their environment and a move is a pretty drastic change. The little Pegster adjusted to me pretty quickly though and it was really great to see her enjoying her new home. After my stint in the Predator section they started training me to do the hippo/rhino routine which was very cool (Pete the rhino is soooo freaking sweet, we clicked right away, he loves back rubs and butt massages but then who doesn't). However... I would gladly take a simple carnivore poo to the walls/floors/every conceivable surface covered in hippo splatter. They eat ALOT and poo ALOT and it all smells very different. I am still very allergic to hay dust as well, lol. It was a great learning experience though and i'd work it any day they scheduled me there no problemo but i def missed my carnivores. ;-)

I have since begun training up at the hospital since they have a full time keeper that works up there to take care of any animals that have to stay at the hospital for an extended amount of time like an injury that needs to be monitored or quarantine of new arrivals. It is constantly changing and I have learned a lot of new things.

Basically I love LOVE my job and wish I could be there full time... someday... les sigh!

Let's see..... what else.... I am living with my brother and his family (wife and three boys ages 1, 9, and 12) until i can afford a place of my own. I entered the new year as a fabulous 30 year old woman but won't feel like it until i get out on my own again. I need my own space VERY much. Haven't been able to really start looking for an apt or a part time job to supplement my income because of a big vacation i have coming up next week. I am going to FIJI!!!! For two weeks!!! I am so excited i could tinkle!! It has been planned for some time and everything is paid for and i wouldn't miss this opportunity for the world. I never thought I'd get to go on a trip like this, are you kidding me?! I still can't believe it's actually happening..... it feels very unreal. I cannot wait! i leave the 23rd of Jan and spend the first week on the coral coast of Viti Levu at a fab resort where we will be exploring caves, taking a zipline tour of the rainforest, checking out some local archeological sites, and just chilling on the beach then we go north to catch a 70 person yacht to island hop the Yasawas (where they filmed the movies Blue Lagoon and Castaway) for a week. Man, I am not gonna want to come home. But they have no land mammals so will def be coming home ;-)

So when I return the job hunt begins and once i have enough saved for a deposit I will be out on my own again.... i cannot wait to have a permanent residence to call HOME! I won't be moving again unless it floods/falls into the earth/asteroid lands on it/ or i get married.... nothing less drastic will be cause for me to move again for a VERY long time.

R.I.P. Michael

2009-06-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

6.01.09 Michael Bear...... How can we go on without you big guy? We love you and will miss you!

Michael hibernating...

Michael chillin like a villain...
Michael with his ladies...

New chick in town

2009-05-22T17:32:00.001-07:00

Our 3 y.o. female white tiger arrived today!

Meet Cloe:

She arrived this morning and is VERY stressed out, poor little!

Christmas in tiger-land!

2009-05-16T16:09:00.001-07:00

We've gotten a lot of new toys for the tigers lately:

Phil made a fire hose ball on a spring (which Saigon snapped...twice... and now hangs on a log over his pond until he finally unravels it)...

We got some new spools which we painted...

I don't know what this toy is called but Saigon obviously likes the taste...

He got a new shiny red ball...

and a weeble that didn't wobble right...

We have since gotten a new weeble and it wobbles perfectly...it's one of his favorite water toys.

And through all the new toys and enrichment this is pretty much always Leah's level of interest:

She's pretty!

Celess' eye view

2009-05-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

As promised, some pics of my critters in the cheetah dept:

Saigon

and Scooter

I adore the candid shots I get with my phone...so great lol!

Rooowr baby, rowr!

2009-05-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

This is our new lioness, Sarabi. She's a California girl through and through:

She is an approved breeding cat so we are just waiting for our new male to arrive from Virginia and then once they are both "of age" we will be able to breed lions again, yay!

Kitty Updates

2009-05-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

Mia just turned one!!! Can you believe it?!! I freaking cannot. She is still my little. Madison just turned 5 too which is even harder to believe. Still a miracle that she is alive and she continues to improve. I didn't know when she would just reach a point where she stopped improving but she keeps getting better. She looks really good. This is from January, I will have to get some more current photos:

This is my Mi-Mi chasing birds on the cat-sitter DVD. She loves it...is entertained for HOURS, kid you not:

She is sooo grow'd up!

Zoo Adventures

2009-05-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

Sooo, I have a lot to catch up on.

I've made quite a few trips up to the Oregon Zoo in the last few months. I went up for a lecture on African Lions, a lecture on African Painted dogs, a lecture on Spotted Hyenas, I took my nephews on a tour of the areas I used to work:

Where we were almost attacked by the Babyimus nephewinicus:

then I went back up with a bunch of our vet students from the Caribbean. That was pretty awesome. We got to spend the whole day with Dr. Mitch who is an awesome vet, I think. We spent the whole first half of the day wrestling 12 African Pygmy Goats. We had to do their full physical exams which includes ear exam, eye exam, body size evaluation, teeth/gum exam, hoof trimming, 3 vaccs, and listen to their heart, lungs, and rumination. The goats weren't too thrilled about this so they were struggling and screaming their guts out pretty much the whole time. Unfortunately I did not get any pics of this very entertaining episode. Maybe Andrew did, I'll have to check. Then we moved on to the cat building and then the elephant barn to do an elephant foot x-ray. We got to see Chendra training for the elephant olympics:

Then we spent some time out on the back porch watching little Sam get frisky with the locks on the gates...so freaking A cute!

I want to smooch his little trunk right off!

All in all, it was a really fun day. I miss you Oregon Zoo!

The bears are having a picnic!

2009-05-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

Well today was the Teddy Bear Picnic at the Safari. The culmination of our week long celebration of bears called Bear Awareness Week, go figure! It was a GORGEOUS day, at last! It has been so unseasonably wet lately that everything is still lush and super green so The Burg is absolutely gorgeous right now, it reminds me of Boring/Gresham/Sandy. So lush and green, I lurve it! Makes me want to go camping. Anyways, so I had today off but we do face painting at all the children's events to raise money for our AAZK (American Association of Zoo Keepers) chapter. So I spent a couple of hours painting bear faces on the little smunchums. SOO freaking cute. The littles bring in their teddy bears and get health check-ups and get any repairs made like if their teddy's ear ripped off or something. So potion. There are tons of other activities too like hand painting your hand print on top of Michael's (our big Alaskan Coastal brown bear) paw print.

He's a big boy! I made one with my hand, hee hee. I love kid activities. It wasn't nearly as busy as last year but we made over $60 face painting.... at $2 a face that's not too shabby. Only bummer was smokey the bear didn't show up....lame! Smokey has been slacking off the last few years. ;-) They used my art boards that I made for last year:

Aren't they purdy? It makes me want to get back into scrap booking... I know, I'm a dork.

Bears are fun! Peace out.

Curious, Veeeeery Curious!

2009-05-10T10:03:00.001-07:00

Where have I been? I'm sure you all have been asking yourself that very question.
Well, no internet access at home has hindered my web surfing just a smidge.
Life has been busy. Since December 1st '08 I have been back in the cheetah dept. and LOVING it! I do soooo miss my bears and lions but my true love ever since I was a didder is the cheetah.
I wrote a letter when I was a nugget to then president, Bush Sr., asking him to make a deal with Africa to save the cheetahs. GR! I was passionate even then. Too bad all I got in response was a photo of Bush looking smug and dapper in a nice sweater and a stamped cookie-cutter letter saying what a good concerned citizen I was. lol! I felt pretty important though.
So, now I look after 20 cheetahs and two mutt tigers. (I'll add photos later as I am at me mum's house right now). I just helped my Uncle create a blog of his own so he could rant and rave online instead of to me. heh heh. He can't wait for his first hate mail, he's like a little kid at Christmas waiting in bed to hear Santa on the rooftop knowing there will be presents in the morning. lol!
I'll try to add blogs as interesting things happen again... which is pretty much a daily basis but it all depends on my time and internet availability..... try to be patient my little baby birds..I'll feed you again soon. ;-)
Well.... off to church. (shh, I don't want to alert the media yet...I may get struck by lightning, we'll see)... It's my Mom's Mother's Day present. The things I do for her, I tell ya ;-) Love You Mamma!

R.I.P. Freddie

2008-11-21T21:44:00.000-08:00

I'm so sorry to lose you buddy. He was a good boy and had a rough couple of years. His keepers fought really hard to keep him around. I'm sure it was really hard to let him go. We'll miss you big guy!

November 18 , 2008
CRITICALLY ILL AMUR LEOPARD EUTHANIZED
Rare leopard had terminal cancer

PORTLAND, Ore. - This morning, Oregon Zoo veterinarians euthanized Fred, a 17-year-old, geriatric Amur leopard, who had been suffering from an aggressive form of terminal cancer. Veterinarians and zookeepers were by his side when he died. The staff is deeply saddened by his passing.

"We had a lot of people involved in managing Fred's care," said Chris Pfefferkorn, general curator. "It became apparent that his quality of life was not improving, despite the best efforts of all involved. Zoo veterinarians and staff determined that the only humane thing to do was to euthanize him."

In September, zoo veterinarians performed surgery on Fred and discovered a tumor, which they immediately removed. Chemotherapy was begun to try to eradicate the cancer. However, during his third dose, veterinarians discovered the tumors had reappeared.

Pfefferkorn reflected on the loss: "Losing Fred is extremely difficult for everyone involved in his care. He was a very special cat and a wonderful ambassador for his critically endangered species. He will be sorely missed."

Noon-o'clock Celess News Update From the Front Lines of Life

2008-11-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile, I had intended to do short weekly or even daily blogs so that all my devoted readers ;-) wouldn't have to read too much at one time. But you all know how life gets in the way of itself. What with craziness at work and spotty internet at home its been hard. Priorities, you know. So here goes, lots of news my friends:

Madison is doing fantastical. Her recovery has been miraculous, truly... the vets are amazed. She continues to improve on a daily basis too. She can crawl up onto the couch and has found a way to get down with out falling off by hopping over to the armchair which is lower to the ground. She can't jump up onto stuff because her equillibrium is off (permanently I think) so as soon as she releases her front claws to try and jump up she falls straight backwards. She has found a way to pull her self up onto my bed too which I am still trying to catch her in the act of so I can see how exactly she does it. So far I've just awaken to her being next to me on the bed mysteriously. She has woken me up falling off the bed however, I'm actually considering getting her a little "special" kitty helmet...... seriously. My poor crooked kitty ;-)

She plays now which is very good. She get a bit of spunk in her step and flip out with her mouse toy or start hitting a ball around. She chases and wrestles with Mia now too.... SO freaking great to see, you have no idea.

Dana, my favorite spunkified cheetah ranger at the Safari quit and moved back home (traitor!) so I applied for her position. It was a hard decision for me to make because i love my critters (bears and lions) and there are going to be soooo many exciting changes happening in that dept in the near and far future BUT cheetahs are my dream, I've always wanted to work with cheetahs and thats the reason I came to Roseburg, thats where this whole thing started so I had to apply, I just had to. Well, I found out last week that I got the position!!!!! eeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (squeal of excitement) So as of Dec 1st I will be a cheetah keeper!!!!! I think about it and do a happy dance, I'm so excited. I'll be working with my neighbor, Lacey, my current supervisor, Sarah, and our new keeper, Phil, who just spent three years working at CCF (Cheetah Conservation Fund) in Namibia, Africa.

I'll miss you Dana and I heart your guts, but THANK YOU!

My newest nephew, Colten Hunter Zinda, was born on October 25th. Welcome to the world smunchy-face!

Insert dark cloud: the little had to be rushed to the hospital a couple weeks ago and spent three days under observation and being submitted to tests to find out why he had stopped breathing. The doctors couldn't figure it out so they sent him back home. gr. My sister in law had to call 911 the other day and now they have sent the wee lad to a specialist even further south. I wish I could go down there and be with my familia SO bad but I can't afford the unpaid time off or the gas, sigh. My mom was down there for a week and now my uncle is flying down to help out with the older boys. My poor rei-rei (the cuddle monster in the photo above) ADORES his new little brother and is devastated at the thought that Colten might die... that's what he told my mom. SAD! So if any of you out there believe in miracles please pray for one so the bloody specialists can find out what is wrong. All the tests and xrays and probes and tubes have found nothing out of the ordinary so far.

I have a new goal - I want to feel better about myself physically so I have set myself up to get back in shape. Motivation is my biggest problem, it's really easy to get home after work and just crash on the couch so I made a playlist of songs that get me pumped..... most of them ones that I used to run to back in the day so as soon as I hear them it makes me want to work it. So I am gonna start small and try to just either do one tape or take a walk every night after work. I think along with all the exercise I'll be getting in the cheetah dept (most of every day is spent hiking up and down hills) it shouldn't take too long to get back into the groove. I want to look good, dammit! And its not gonna happen by just thinking about it and remembering how good it felt to be a hottie. So wish me luck. Working out used to be a huge part of my life so I know I can do it I just need to make myself get started. The first step is the hardest.

Speaking of first times.... I made my first kill finally. Or I guess I should say my first big kill. I've dispatched plenty of chickens and bunnies in my day but this was my first horse and the first time I've killed anything with a gun (for the faint of heart and gut this may not be pleasant for you but remember the circle of life and that vegetarian or not we are a part of the food chain... it's the reality of life. Some animals can't physiologically choose to eat plants only, they would die). This was huge for me. It's a required, very unpleasant, part of our job at the Safari. Our carnivores have to eat and being a non-profit park we can't afford to buy pre-packaged ground up mystery meat... we use animals donated to us. It's actually a very good recycling system. When the local ranchers and farmers have animals that have gone lame or so old that quality of life has gone down they bring the animals to us (usually horses and cows but sometimes donkeys, goats, etc. we also get roadkill deer and poached/confiscated elk). Its cheaper for the farmers/ranchers since they have to pay hundreds of dollars to have a large animal humanely euthanized by the vet and then buried or cremated whereas with us they donate it for free, we dispatch it, and they get a tax write off. Its better for us too because then our critters get the freshest meat possible and we don't go broke trying to feed them all. We don't accept animals that are perfectly healthy... we hand out numbers for horse-rescue facilities for people who call with "problem" animals so the ones we do use are usually being put out of their misery which makes it a bit easier on our souls. The horse I put down on wednesday was in pretty bad shape, could hardly stand on its own let alone walk around so it was easier than I thought. One shot (I'm a natural I guess) and it was done. I'm glad I finally did it... the build up and anxiety over having to do it for the first time was worse than the act itself. I don't hope to have to do it again any time soon though, I'm just glad the first time is over. Atleast I know I can do it if its required.

My mama took a step towards the technology age.... she created a myspace account! So potion. I helped her.... so freaking adorable. I set all her privacy settings and uploaded a bunch of pictures for her and found a cute layout for her profile. She's so cute. She just wanted to be able to see my cousins pictures and my sister-in-laws... and mine of course. I had to go online and mom-proof my profile ;-) I can just imagine her expression as she peruses through my photos. "Oh dear!" lol! She's not that innocent but she likes to pretend sometimes.

Well, back to real life. I'll try to update my blog more often. Ciao!

No More Drugs!

2008-09-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

Madison is off her meds, YAY!!!

We went to see the kitty doctor again and she is doing so much better that he decided to take her off her two meds and fluids. Freakin sweet!

She is drinking water on her own now and she's gained weight, her appetite has increased (she LOVES the duck flavored Natural Balance). She loves it so much that now she won't eat any other flavor.... she's such a diva, I don't know how I end up with "special" animals. She's chasing and attacking Mia now too. This is good news.

Sadly, I will no longer have to force pills down her throat or crush them up and sneak them in her food or clean up the mess after she vomits up her liquid meds or stick her with needles twice a day... bummer, I really enjoyed all those things.

Ah, technology

2008-09-05T10:23:00.001-07:00

I finally have my laptop up and running again. I have felt so lost without it!

Alot has happened since I last had the convenience of sitting at home in my pjs farting around on the interweb.

Madison is doing very well considering the condition I found her in. Her and Mia are very entertaining to watch. Mad is seeing better but still has issues.... she still hates Mia's guts but Mia adores her, follows her everywhere and now has to eat by her. Mia stopped eating from her food bowl in the kitchen and kept trying to pull scraps through Mad's cage to eat so I moved her bowls next to Mad's and now she eats just fine. So silly.

I caught them sleeping together:

Mia is now 5.0 lbs of cuteness!

I heart kittens.

R.I.P. Yugyan

2008-09-05T10:14:00.000-07:00

Yugs was finally "let go" last tuesday. She'd been in renal failure for about a year. I'm just glad the last I saw of her were good days. The Marilyn of Polar Bears, I'll miss you Yugapants!! She was a saucy wench and quite devious.... my favorite type of critter ;-)

R.I.P. Etosha

2008-08-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

DEFINITELY should not have happened.

She was a stunning creature and very much in good health.

We will miss you dearly beautiful Etosha.

R.I.P. Mugadi

2008-08-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

It happened unexpectedly which almost makes it harder.

We'll miss you pretty lady!

Prodigal Cat Returns.....

2008-08-12T21:25:00.001-07:00

Atleast she is in one piece.

My neighbor found Madison in their vacant house.... right next door!

She was gone for TWO MONTHS.

She is not in good shape.

She is very skinny (8lbs.), her eyes were completely dialated, and her limbs were stiff, her liver values were way high which could either mean she ingested something toxic or the lack of food led to high ammonia levels damaging the liver. I took her to the vet and she had a seizure while in their care so we took her an hour north giving her IV fluids to an emergency clinic where they wanted to charge me $900 to keep her over night and do tests.

Yeah. Fuckin. Right.

So I had them give her anitbiotics for her liver and I took her home. I brought her to my work vet for more blood tests the next morning... the important part here is that she survived the night with no more seizures. Her liver values improved so I didn't have to put her down thank god. Next I took her back to the Roseburg vet where they ended up giving me Amoxi and A/D and charged me $317. Freaking leeches.

This all happened last friday. She's much improved.

I feed her every 8 hours, medicate every twelve and when she wakes me up every 20 minutes I give her 3-6 mL of water to keep her hydrated since she can't do anything herself.

She poops and pees fine but then needs a bath since she still can't stand fully...she is getting really good at holding her head up enough to eat out of the dish herself.

So we're taking it day by day.

I am just glad to have my kitten back. I honestly never thought I'd see her again.

R.I.P. Lexus

2008-08-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

We'll miss your seductive ways, Sexy Lexy.

Always the ladies man.....

We'll never forget you buddy.

The Car That Makes Me Purrrrrr

2008-08-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

True love....

The new Aston Martin One-77 to be released from production in 2009 for one million pounds... which is approximately $1,897,937.42 US dollars. Yeah. I'll be picking one of those bad boys up in my dreams. Jeebus the US dollar is crap!

Cheeseburgers?

2008-08-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

Baby bear can haz cheezburger too!

Welcome Colten a.k.a. Nugget

2008-08-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

These are for my newest, soon to be hatched, nephew... Colten Hunter:

I so love little-man clothes.... freaking adorable... how much cuter could frogs get? seriously.

I cannot wait to squeeze the little nugget!

Finally!

2008-08-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

A judge with brains and a working conscience!

I posted something a while ago about how wolf hunting was ok'd again now that their numbers are finally up... freaking irritating. Well, now..... finally! a judge restored the gray wolves endangered species protections! I don't know why on earth people would think that since we finally protected the wolves enough that they have stable populations that it would be ok for stupid asses to go out and hunt them again. I just don't understand how shooting and killing such a beautiful amazing animal can make you feel anything but shitty. I don't understand big game hunters. And I don't like them.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOQKt2UnQaG0qMUvVfoe5t1AfKxwD920N0E80

gattina birra

2008-08-01T18:48:00.000-07:00

Mia had her last set of vaccs on wednesday. She's now 3.9 lbs. of beer-drinking, macadamia nut eating, fruit-loving, toe biting cuteness!

Passed out after her binge-drinking:

Drink up and pay up!

2008-07-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

Me and the girls set up a raffle at the Safari's Wine Stroll after-hours event to raise money for our AAZK chapter tonight.

The wine stroll event is after the park has closed. Tables are set up through out the village area. Some tables are appetizers and others are wine tasting. Each of the local vineyards of the Umpqua Valley have a table for tasting and purchasing. Guests come in and get to stroll through the village, drink wine, eat good food, and enjoy the village critters and musical guests.

We ended up with a wine bottle filled with grapes. People had to pay for a ticket ($2 donation towards animal conservation) and then guess how many grapes were in the bottle. The guess closest to the correct number won a lovely wine rack put together by Lacey and a family day pass to the safari... a gift value of $100, not a bad deal if I do say so myself.

It went swimmingly! Our table was very popular and we took home a nice sum. Guess who ended up winning the prize... our vet. So sad.

All in all a success, I think we'll definitely to something like this again.

I can't control my heart rate ... there's a cougar on me!

2008-07-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

So, I helped cheetahs close on saturday night and we were prepping for a cheetah/tiger feed around 4:30 and we have a visitor flag us down and say that they saw a cougar in one of our cheetah pens above the Asia section of the park. Well, of course, we doubt it so we get as much info as we can. The lady swears it was a cat with no spots and that she has seen many cougars in her day and that it was definitely not a cheetah that they has seen. So they show us where they'd seen it and.... of course that is where our ambassador cat, Taini, had been housed all day to give her a break from her village pen. So we thank the guest and go to the fence to call Taini over and make sure she's ok. We call.... and call..... and call..... and no Taini. Hmmm. Not good.

We go around to the DT side and go into the pen to find her.

We call her until we finally see her up in the top right corner of the pen up on a hill. She doesn't respond but she does finally start coming down to us. Normally this cat loves attention. She'll normally come right up and start purring. So she slowly comes down the hill sits in front of her water bucket and drinks for like five minutes, not purring, acting VERY nervous, and when we touch her she acts irritated and huffs at us.

We're wondering at this point what the heck happened and obviously getting nervous ourselves .... is there a cougar in this pen with us right now?

As we're trying to calm Taini and comfort her I'm attempting to groom her and pluck at a small tuft of matted fur on her lower back. She huffs at me while she's drinking her water so I back off. Dana looks a bit closer and spots an inch long gash on her right "knee". Fantastic.

We have vet staff come up to check her out and are even more aware of our surroundings especially since Taini is so jumpy and keeps glancing nervously up to the corner she had been hiding in. Vets decide it's worth stitching so we move her back down to the village and dart her. Once we get her on the table in the clinic we see a puncture wound canine width from the tear we had spotted initially.

Curius...... veerrrrry curious.

So we clean her, stitch her, and put her back home to recover then hike back up to the corridor pen with noisemakers, pepper spray, and a rifle and do a sweep of the pen to make sure no cougar was still in there. The last thing we need is a less feisty cheetah encountering this cougar and getting more seriously injured. By the time we were done checking the pen I was covered from head to toe in poison oak. Yep, since I'm one of the only ones who has no reaction to it (so far) I got to crawl through thickets of poison oak... go me!

Just another day in the wilds of Roseburg.

Good taste, kid.

2008-07-21T21:33:00.000-07:00

The little's tastes are maturing.

She likes fruit and Anthony Bordain.

That's my girl!

She is so obsessed with everything I do.... she's in the sponge stage .... I think I could get her to play and/or try to eat anything right now.

I was eating a nectarine last night and she was in my face trying to gnaw on it and tonight she frantically tried to claw an orange out of my hands. Then I turn around and see her sitting on the couch hind feet sprawled, belly exposed, just staring, entranced at the TV... and what was on the TV? Anthony Bordain in Peru...... eating.

I'm telling you this cat loves food.

I learned something new today. A staple of Andean cuisine is ...... (drumroll) ...... guinea pig!!! I hear they're tasty... finally, I have found a use for guinea pigs, food!

I'm sure Mia would like them too.

Another one bites the dust!

2008-07-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

White-handed gibbon now extinct in China:

“This loss is particularly tragic”, says anthropologist Thomas Geissmann, “because the extinct Chinese population was described as a distinct subspecies, the so-called Yunnan white-handed gibbon.” This subspecies (Hylobates lar yunnanensis) is not known from any other place. Geissmann now hopes that the subspecies may have survived in neighbouring Myanmar, but so far, he has no evidence for this.

Big Step Today!

2008-07-18T22:33:00.001-07:00

Little came out of her safety zone and said hi to a stranger... even played a little bit!

Big Step!!!

Soooo good!

Back in Spots

2008-07-16T19:18:00.000-07:00

I worked cheetahs today. The early shift.... 6am.

It was a nice change of pace... and kicked my chubby butt's ass! I was hiking up and down cheetah pens for about 5 of the 8 hours today. Literally.

We start the day by checking all the pens to clean up remains of last nights meal, find each of the cats, and get poo samples from the girls for a project we're cooperating with, give any morning meds required, etc.

We walk ALOT. There are 25 cheetah in 19 different pens and the pens are quite large, lots of hiking up and down hills involved. We moved cats around in breeding too. We needed to get bpA empty so we could build a new squeeze chute in it so we moved 4 to 6 cats, it's a blur now, we shuffled a bunch around. We gave Sexy Lexy (Lexus) access to two girls' pens to see how he reacted... a great way to see if a female is ready to breed.

We cleaned the tiger pond before we let them out, we try to keep it clean since Leah has a healing spot where they operated on her recently. We drained the cheetah pond too, it was pretty mucky.

Then we let the June bugs out into the drive-thru.... yay!!! My favorite kids! They're the youngest litter from last year's cubs. We start at 6 so we can give the cats a chance to explore the whole drive-thru before guests start arriving at the area. All the carnivore DT's are slowly becoming drive-by's for safety reasons so we no longer let cats roam around in the DT while guests are in there.

So, we'd let the cats out into the DT, were in the middle of moving cats around in breeding and we get a call on the radio from our cheetah watch docent (volunteer) saying that a truck just drove into the area and left the gate open..... !!!! wtf!? We had the docent drive down and close the gate and made sure the guy did not get out of his truck. And we leave the breeding cats where they are and book over there Turns out it was the fencing contractor who was working in the lion area and decided to come over and get started on cheetah fencing without announcing himself. Dur!

Catastrophe narrowly averted. Thank GOD Yanna was paying attention!!

After the tiger pond was clean, we let the tiggers out to play. Le-Le was her usual feisty self. I love that cat.

We also had to move Taini from lover's lane down to the cheetah spot in the village before the village opened to guests at 9am. We loaded her into her kennel, loaded the kennel into the truck, and drove her down to the village, let her loose in her display pen, and away we went.

We had a keeper talk with Taini later that day. She's such a love!

We also fed and played with our cheetah-dog, Smellie Ellie. We let her and her cheetah, Sanurra, have a play session. Fed all the breeding area cats, picked up some more poo that we couldn't find earlier, picked up some fencing materials and did some 4-wheeling into bpA to drop off the supplies and by then had pretty much run out of time for the day.

It was a good day. We got a crap-ton done.

It was nice to be in cheetahs again.

King of Beasts dethroned?

2008-07-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

The park is putting together a "guide book" for visitors with stats on each species and pics of our critters, way cool idea.

So I am working on putting together blurbs for our lions and bears.

Looked up estimated number of African Lions left in the wild..... yeah. Only 23,000. !!!

Just two decades ago it was 200,000.

So sad.

How much is a little cuteness?

2008-07-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

1 lb. 3 oz. of cuteness:

2 lbs. 7 oz. of cuteness:

It's been one month now....

2008-07-11T21:03:00.001-07:00

Mio Piccolo!

2008-07-11T18:56:00.000-07:00

The little is now 2 lbs 7 oz.!

She was 1 lb. 3 oz. when I got her. She is getting so big! (for a little) ;-)

Little went to the vet for her 2nd set of vaccs.

Soooo stressful for a little. She got all her shots and did really well until the de-wormer. The vets used pill form so they have to shove it down her throat. Yeah, she did not like that at all. Took them like 4-5 tries. Glad it wasn't me. I like to let the vets be the bad guys. ;-)

She was very brave though considering there was a black-buck before us in line.

Humans are Despicable: reason # 5,780,600,450.

2008-07-10T17:37:00.000-07:00

This article makes me so angry and frustrated for so many reasons:

Malawi's killer lion shot dead

By Raphael Tenthani
BBC, Lilongwe

Four game hunters have killed a marauding lion some two
months after it broke free from a game park, killing up to
seven people.

The carcass of the bullet-riddled lion is currently on
display at the nature sanctuary here in the capital,
Lilongwe, and has been the centre of attraction the
whole weekend.

Harrison Phula, one of the four hunters that successfully stalked the

ageing and hungry lion, told journalists on Monday it was not an easy

task to overpower the lion.

He said it took a total of four bullets to kill the animal but even after

stopping the first two bullets in its belly, the beast still charged at the

hunters, injuring two of them.

"With intestines coming out of its belly the lion lunged at two

of us injuring one in the leg and crashing an arm of the other,"

he said.

The two injured hunters are currently in hospital in the northern

central district of Kasungu, where the lion was shot.

Loose pride

Scratches still showing on his arms, face and legs, Mr Phula

said when the two remaining hunters saw their friends were in

danger, they pumped two more bullets into the lion and physically

struggled with it until it died.

"We fought with it until it died," he said.

"Maybe we succeeded because of the intestines that were
coming
out. The good thing is that we fought with it and that our
friends
did not die."

The hunter said the fully grown lion, which is guessed

to be between eight and 10 years old, was so heavy that

eight people could not manage to lift it into a truck.

However, if the beleaguered people of Kasungu, Nkhota

Kota and Mzimba thought life was now back to normal with

the death of the notorious beast, they may have another

thing coming.

Assistant Director of Parks and Wildlife Hackswell Jamusana said a

pride of three more lions has also broken free from Kasungu

National Park and are lurking somewhere in the bushes around the

three districts.

Mr Jamusana, however, said the people living around the

national park have unwittingly brought the lion menace onto

their own doorsteps.

"People vandalised the entire 110 kilometres of electric fence

along the eastern boundary of the park which used to prevent

animals from getting out of the park to human settlement," he

said.

Over the years, heavy poaching has led to a decline in the

numbers of small game such as deer and impalas, which the

lions normally eat, he said.

Holy Hot

2008-07-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

It is 9:20 pm and it is 88 deg. outside and 91 deg. inside my apt. How does that happen?

It was 99 deg. at 4pm this afternoon so I don't know if it got any hotter than that but this is ridiculous.

ri. dic. u. lous.

I want 75 back.

Baby Bear Update

2008-07-07T20:57:00.001-07:00

Baby bear on his first day with us, notice how comfortably he sits inside his kennel:

Baby bear 2 days ago, notice how he is about the same size as the kennel now and barely fits inside of it:

From just under 10lbs to 36lbs... he is growing SO fast.

Construction begins!

2008-07-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

The fencing contractors arrived today and began work on the lion fences. Finally! The poles were up and maybe half of them were already concreted in when we left for the day. Yay!

I think we're gonna need bigger mothballs....

2008-07-07T20:52:00.000-07:00

This giant moth was on the door to our office at work yesterday. Freaking cool!

Day in the Life cont.

2008-07-05T21:29:00.000-07:00

Where was I......

After lunch breaks we had to go switch the brown bears. You see, the juvenile bears don't get along with the adult bears so the young bears go out first thing in the morning then we bring them inside in the afternoon and let the adult bears outside for the rest of the day.

hggkkl';;;tyyyyyyygyuuuuuuuuuuuuuaqqq;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;',,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,m,;

(the above was my kitten running back and forth across my keyboard... out of control cuteness!!)

While I had spent the morning doing the lion stuff Becky, my co-worker extraordinaire, was doing the morning bear routine. So me and intern #4 a.k.a. Ramsie gathered up the enrichment and the boys' diets, went to bear huts, brought the boys into one room, put their food and toys into another, then let them in to wreak havoc on all our perfectly set up enrichment. They tear through that stuff like a hurricane! Then, once the bear jeep ranger spreads out the big bears' enrichment in the DT then we let the adults outside to play. Then we get to the fun business of cleaning. The bears poo .... a lot. So first we scoop up the poo, rake up the debris from their dinner and enrichment, then we hose out all the rooms, scrub them with a special cleaner and brush, rinse, then use a broom to sweep put as much water as we can (squeegees don't work on this floor cuz its rocky cement that has lots of pits and rough spots).

Just as we were about to finish up and take off a Code 2 was called on the radio. A code 2 is a non-dangerous animal outside of it's enclosure. In this instance it was Hidari (our giraffe escapee-specialist who should have been named Houdini) in the Americas. He is very good at crossing cattleguards and travels the world. He used to just visit America but then figured out the Asia one so now he's been to three different continents.

M+_BNNNNNNNNNNN (another kitten leap, she's frisky)

So we responded to that to help get him back into Africa then finished at bears and headed back to QB to get the last diets for the day.

We grabbed baby bear's pm diet, made up the lion diets, grabbed the adult bear diets, prep'd Mugi's diet and chunks for tomorrow am, headed out to black bears, and went in to feed baby. That goes pretty quick as we do not go in with him anymore we just slide his food in the door and head out again. We did see Donna-bear and Little Boy showing some breeding behavior (ooh la la!)

Now we're off to our office to start all the daily reports. We have 3 paper logs and one electronic report. One is to track baby bear's input and output, one is to track the location & diets of all the other critters, and the third is to track all of the enrichment given. The electronic report is everything that has happened over the day: health issues, diet changes, location changes, our chores, any misc events like codes or donations etc.

We had a lion/bear feed encounter this evening as well which usually starts around 4:45 since we can't feed the lions until we bring them inside and we can't bring them inside until the last car has driven through the lion area. The DT closes at 5 so the last car can enter up until then.

I'm exhausted so this is going to be short and sweet. We feed the lions and close them up for the night, drive through the park closing gates, feed the bears and close them up for the night, finish closing up the park, follow the last car out of the park, close up the cheetah DT, lock up the park, email our daily report to the curator, registrar, vet staff, and carnivore staff, then go home. Voila! That was my day and now I am going to bed. Kitty loves the sound of the tapping keys cuz she keeps attacking me while I'm typing.

A day in the life of moi.

Day in the Life

2008-07-05T19:44:00.000-07:00

My morning started with produce. I had to go pick up produce donated from a local farm for our bears. We have not been getting very much from Fred Meyer lately so we have had to start looking elsewhere for fresh produce. Bears got to eat ya know!

Once i get to work (8:30am) we decide who is going to start the bear shift and who is going to start the lion shift. I did lions today. So I headed to QB (our food prep building in the middle of the park) to find a nice treat for Etosha (our youngest lioness). Since today is Saturday that means we have a Feast of Kings event at 11:30am. A Feast of Kings consists of a ribcage on the sundeck and guests sitting on the bleachers watching the lions eat it. We use Keeno and Natasha on saturdays which means I have to leave them in the huts until we are ready to bring them out onto the sundeck for the event. So that means Ariyeh and Mugadi would have to be out in the drive-thru for people to see, thus Etosha would have to be in one of the breeder pens. Since Mugadi's incident the other day we decided that we would not give her and Ariyeh any food enrichment anymore. Why? Because Ariyeh always starts fights over food and we want Mugi to have the least amount of stress as possible. So Mugadi and Ariyeh got elephant poo and perfume for enrichment.... now, what to give Etosha? How about a nice juicy horse leg? yummy!

I get to the lion huts and get Mugi's meds ready just in time to let Ariyeh out into the DT (drive-thru). I have to let Ariyeh out first in order to go into his room to feed Mugi her meds. She gets three antibiotics pills (SMZ) twice daily so we have to give her the am dose before we let her out. We just put each pill into a chunk of meat and she gobbles them right up. Such a good girl! Then I let her out into the DT with Ariyeh. The jeep and tower rangers will keep an eye on them all day.

Next I have to walk the fence-lines of both "breeder" pens before i can let Etosha out. So I walk the perimeter of each pen, clean up any old enrichment lying around and then hide her horse leg up in one of the trees on a lower branch. Etosha is watching me the whole time and is so excited that she is literally bouncing off the walls. She can see right where I put it too (all those cats are such cheaters). As soon as the areas are clear I go inside the huts to let her out and she is soooo excited! As soon as I open her guillotine she is off like a shot leaps through the air into the tree and knocks the leg out of the tree then leaps on top of it, picks it up in her mouth and runs off. I can hear her chomping away on it for the rest of the morning.

Since Keeno & Natasha are still in the huts I have to clean around them so that means I have a lot of shifting to do. Cleaning the lion huts consists of hosing each room, changing the waters, and then using the squeegee to get as much water off the floors as possible. Sounds easy but there are 7 rooms and two hallways and the floors are slanted weird ways and there are no drains so it can be tricky. Meat leaves greasy spots that can be a bitch to get off and lion fur snags on everything! It takes a bit longer with two cats still inside but I get them all cleaned except for Natasha's room. She won't move over to the next room. So I give up for now and head back to QB to get the rib cage for the event.

I bring the ribcage back with me, even the small ones are heavy suckers and I have to load and unload it by myself, it's a messy job. I cleaned the sundeck first since all the junk from two of the dens drains out there then I chained the ribcage to the fence closest to the bleachers. We chain it there because if we didn't the lions would drag it inside the huts which kind of defeats the purpose of having guests come to watch if they can't see the cats.

Next I go back inside the huts and by then Natasha is ready to move over so I then clean her room and voila, lions is ready for our event. Once the guests are ready, we give the lion spiel, Keeno comes out and does his thing and then we go have lunch.

After lunch we have to give breaks to our lion tower and lion jeep rangers. Sitting out in the lion jeep in the hot sun for an hour while the lions just sleep the whole time can be very hard... very hard to stay awake, that is. But today was quite the adventure. We had our new male ostrich that kept crossing the road in front of our gates so I had to keep driving back and forth to open the gates. Anytime an animal gets too close to the lion area we have to close our gates to prevent that animal from coming in and/or to prevent our cats from running out to get said animal. So this bloody bird kept us hoppin. Also... I don't know why but there are SOOOO many people that think it's a good idea to roll their windows down in front of the lions. Even though they are told at the entrance booth and there are signs that say to keep your windows closed at all times while in the lion and bear areas. So every time someone rolls down their window I have to get on the loud speaker and ask them to "Please keep all windows closed while in the lion area, thank you." Grrrr! I said it, I kid you not, like every 5 cars. And we had over 50 cars come through in an hour. Utterly ridiculous.

to be continued after I shower and go pick up more produce for the bears from Freddy's (hopefully) ..........

Business as usual

2008-07-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Today was my day off but the cheetah girls had a special event in Bend with Taini, our ambassador cheetah. Since they were going to be away all day and I am the only Carnivore staff fully trained to work cheetahs alone, I was going to go in tonight and put the tigers up (i.e. feed them and close them up in their dens).

Well I got a call around noon from Lacey saying that we had to do an emergency knockdown on one of the easter bunnies (cubs born on easter last year), Tumai, and so she was going to stay behind but needed my help for the procedure. I said no problem and so went in at 1pm.

The poor lamb (actually a cheetah) couldn't even walk on his left foot at all. We don't know what he did to it, he and his cublings were in a pen that has a big ravine down the middle so he probably did something while running through the pen chasing each other for food.

So we had to move 8 cats around in order to get the bunnies into the pen that has the squeeze chute (a narrow hallway that gets smaller and smaller until it ends at a guillotine where we have their crate set up to load them up into it). We then had to wait for the vets to arrive. We waited, and waited, and waited. To kill the time we cleaned tiger huts, got the crate ready, got some meat chunks ready and then waited some more. It was weird cleaning tiger huts again, it took me a little while to remember where everything was but then it was like butta. I miss this department.

We finally had vet staff so we separated Tumai from his brother and sisters by guiding them into the squeeze chute and leaving Tumai in the bigger pen so the vets could dart him. These kids are pretty good at moving where we want them to.... you just have to know when to push and how hard to push. We never actually touch them, just our presence is enough to make them want to move away from us and if we open a gate or a door then they know that is where we want them to go and so they usually just go towards the open gate. Once you understand how cheetah think then you get it down in no time.

Once Tumai was isolated we escorted vet staff in to get a closer look at his foot, they agreed we would definitely need to get xrays so we had to knock him down. Out came the dart gun, once he nodded off we loaded him onto the stretcher and into the back of the truck then we were off to the clinic. We took blood, groomed him, checked his ears & teeth, checked his microchip, took xrays of his front legs... nothing was broken, no fractures or anything abnormal so we gave him meds and put him in the crate, gave him the reversal and watched him recover. I cannot believe how much quicker the cheetah are to wake up than the tigers or the lions. It took Mugadi about 5 hours to even attempt to sit up and Tumai was standing in about 2 minutes! Amazing how different drugs work. So we figured it was just a bad sprain and he should be back to normal in no time. So now he's a happy kid, back with his cubbers, and chirping away (cheetah made bird noises).

All in a days work. I love my job.

Then we went out for margaritas ;-) So nice!

R.I.P. BW

2008-07-03T11:57:00.000-07:00

We have a crusty old barn cat that lived at our diet prep building in the middle of the park. He came to us as a kitten 13 years ago who had been hit by a car. He stole the hearts of the Safari employees and stayed to be the luckiest most loved cat in the world. He got fed treats daily, his favorite being avocado. And in return for catching mice he got chunks of fresh horse meat. He was a lover and a fighter. He would greet us every morning with his creaky old meow and get rubs and every once in a while submit to a hug and a cuddle in the arms of a few select keepers. We pulled fox-tails from his fur and shaved his clumpy mats in the summertime. He was the most loved cat and one of the luckiest alive, getting loves and treats from the whole staff.

One of my co-workers found him this morning listless with a large nasty cut on one of his legs. I don't know what happened or how long he was like that but it kills me that he made it back home hoping that someone would find him and take care of him. We are going to have a special burial for him at the park.

Dubbers..... I am going to miss you so!

Heart of a Lioness

2008-07-02T20:55:00.001-07:00

Our oldest lioness, Mugadi:

We had to do a knock-down on her yesterday, poor lamb, she hasn't been eating. As of yesterday morning it had been three days since she had eaten and we were justifiably worried. She's 19 and the average lifespan for captive lions is 20 so she's getting up there.

So we anesthetized her. She was darted at 9:40am, we drove her to the clinic and began our inspection. We took blood samples, thorough xrays, and a full body exam. Her lower canines are stumps, she lost them a while ago but they appear to have become infected. They had puss and smelled pretty bad. Her kidney levels were pretty normal, she had no cancer or anything weird on her xrays, but her blood sample did show a slight infection most likely from her teeth.

She was pretty dehydrated too so we pumped her full of fluids, tried to remove as much of the worst rotted tooth as we could and then gave her pain meds and anitbiotics.

She was back in the huts around 12:15pm. Around 5:15pm she finally showed signs of trying to sit up and by midnight when I went in to check on her she was fully sternal and was looking around and there was no vomit or anything weird.

I had today off but I checked up on her and when they came in this morning she was standing up and though still wobbly on the back end, walking around a bit. I guess she also FINALLY ate this evening, took her meds really well, and drank like half a trough of water.... soooo good!

That's my girl! She's a fighter.

Holy cow of all cows!!!!

2008-07-02T11:35:00.001-07:00

I have my DEGREE!!!!!!!!

Got it in the mail today. It is a GD MIRACLE!!!!

Praise Oprah!

Little Update

2008-06-30T21:05:00.001-07:00

The little has finally ventured out into the living room. She is so flippin cute doing her sideways puffed up "big kitty" walk. She's getting so brave!

Oy vey!

2008-06-30T20:43:00.000-07:00

The painters covered my bedroom window with brown paper so I took a sharpie and wrote on the paper, "Windows painted shut. Please fix. Thank you."

Guess what! When I got home tonight, the windows were unstuck!!!

It's a bloody miracle!

Sooo big!

2008-06-28T21:52:00.000-07:00

Little bear, Takoda, got weighed and is 35.7 pounds!!!!

He is getting sooo big!

His paws are freaking huge.

I'll have to take some pictures tomorrow.

Claustrophobia

2008-06-28T21:47:00.001-07:00

I'm having a serious case of it. I can't open any windows or doors and its freaking 90 degrees in here. It's cooler outside!

My house is getting painted so they've painted all the windows shut.... I can't open any I even tried taking a box knife to them to cut away the paint and pry them open, no success.

And they took off my screen doors so if I want air to flow through I also have to deal with the two neighbor cats coming in to my house and the kitten possibly getting out. Because she's been closed up in my room it's like a freaking furnace in there and I can't put my fan in the window.

ARGH!

I seriously considered calling the landlord to bitch but went outside for a breath of air instead and watched the lightning storm for a little bit.

I feel better now. Still hot, but better.

No cheese for the weary

2008-06-28T20:37:00.000-07:00

I had to kill two mice today.

Sticky traps are horrible and cruel, don't use them!

Mice get stuck in the extremely sticky goo and can't move. Their feet get stuck then they get tired and lay down, then the rest of their body is stuck then they can't keep their head up any longer and then their lower jaw or whatever part of their head that touches it gets stuck.

When I found them they were still alive and squeaking in terror.

So I drowned them.

I can now say that I have held a living creature under water and felt it drown. I held it under until it stopped kicking and twitching.

yup.... all in a days work.

I highly suggest that if you have a mouse problem, you use the spring traps. They're quick and when you check the traps you don't have to watch a critter suffer, you just have to dump the corpse in the trash.

Oh yeah!

2008-06-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

AND my washing machine broke today. again.

It's brand new and was working juuuust fine two days ago.

Now for whatever reason, though nothing has been altered in the last two days, it won't fill. The water just keeps running and keeps draining at the same time.

I called in service since I have a warranty. The technician can't make it until thursday July 3rd.

Oh, and he'll be here sometime between 8 am and noon. Fantastic. Good thing I have that day off.

Back to the laundromat.

It's a BS degree, all right.

2008-06-27T12:45:00.000-07:00

I know what the BS really stands for.

I finally got a letter from PSU saying my degree would be mailed the week of June 23rd but wait... it's never that simple.

The letter said to go online and fill out a "Diploma Mail Authorization" form. Holy fucking flying pigs... they need a form to mail a $30,000 piece of paper?!

It gets better... it's not an electronic form. You can only print it out online then you have to either mail it, fax it, or bring it in. Great!

So I'm faxing the stupid thing tomorrow at work then wait another 2 weeks for them to actually put a stamp on it then another week for it to get here from Portland. So even though I finished college JULY 2007 it probably won't be in my hands until AUGUST 2008.

One whole year. Ridiculous.

My transcript shows that my degree was not actually awarded until March 22, 2008. Oh man, once I get that degree in my hand I am sooooo done with PSU.

SO done.

But, atleast I now have a Bachelors degree and I made it through with a 3.21 GPA. Suck it PSU.

In the gutter looking up

2008-06-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

I can still remember when I realized I finally made it.

I'd finally been trained to clean the cat dens at the Oregon Zoo, got home after a regular day there, took off my shoes at the bottom of the stairs to my apartment (this was before they required clothing changes before you entered or exited the zoo) and saw a clump of tiger fur stuck to the bottom of my shoe....... who comes home with TIGER FUR on their shoes!!!!!! Seriously! I was so ecstatic that I did a happy dance, called my mom, and gushed!

I'd finally made a dream come true. I'd made it! Me!

To this day I don't mind coming home dirty and covered in animal debris. I relish it. It reminds me of where I am and what I've accomplished. It makes me proud of myself.

wow.

2008-06-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

My cousin Angie died in her sleep last night.

She was way too young to die. She is younger than me! She has four beautiful kids and had her whole life ahead of her.

I feel bad because we were never that close. Her family was always the cluster that lived far away and only showed up for Christmas every other year.

I have a very large family. My father is the 4th oldest of 15 kids. I have a hard time keeping track of how many cousins I have.... atleast 20 ..... 24 of us inlcuding me and my brothers... then there's our generation's kids ...... atleast 34 by now ..... the Zindas have always been good breeders (except me of course). This is just my father's side of the family, I'm not even counting my mom's side of the family.

Family dynamics are always complicated, that's normal. I've always had mixed feelings about family. The relationship between me and my father's family has always been strained because of my father. I got the short end of the stick as far as fathers go. He's not a good man. His relationship with all of his brothers and sisters has never been good and then when my mom finally left him and I refused to visit him all of our ties were severed. I regret that our parents' crap kept me from my cousins. I have more good than bad memories of our times together. In the last 4 years I've gotten back in touch with that side of the family and have not regretted it. A lot of my traits and qualities make alot more sense to me now and I value them more. I really regret all the years I missed getting to know my cousins. They will always share a closeness that I will never be a part of because they grew up together. I missed out on quite a bit. Even my brother's and I will never be as close as we should be because of our father. It really is a shame but I've taken steps in the last couple of years to build better relationships with the ones that matter.

I've not always believed that you build your own family. People have always tried to tell me that blood is what matters. I disagree. "Blood" is what brought you to life and in some cases, what can also make your life hell. Having sex and creating a child is not hard. Obviously, anyone can do it. Making a real family is much harder and takes constant effort and care. I now firmly believe that family does not consist solely of blood relatives.... it is often those people that hurt you the most. That is what I love about friendship.... you get to choose your friends and they are what makes up YOUR family. Sometimes, if you're lucky your friends consist of blood relatives.

The friends I've had the longest and hold the dearest happen to all be blood.

I wish I had known Angie better but her presence will still be missed. I feel for her mother, my aunt, who is completely devastated right now. I cannot even begin to imagine what Aunt Betty is going through this very moment. They were very close and this came as a total shock. We still do not know why she died. All we know right now is that she had bronchitis, went to bed last night, and didn't wake up this morning. SO amazingly, shockingly sad.

What I do know is that her family is there for her. Some of this Zinda family cares about the rest and does what they can to take care of eachother. Even when I was separated from the family there were a few who kept in touch, knew where I was in my life's journey and I would get a phone call, or a card in the mail, or a surprise visit at my graduation. I never knew at those moments what that contact meant but now I know that simply meant that they cared.

It's a family... it has its good and bad parts but this particular family actually believes that blood counts. I guess I'm lucky that they think differently than I do.

Death is a time for reflection. It's a time to re-evaluate what you believe and to look at what you're doing, maybe re-adjust your compass. Everyone handles death differently.

I think it's sad to lose someone you love, someone you weren't ready to lose but death is expected. The timing is a surprise but not death itself. Everyone dies. I try to think of what that person gave to us and evaluate whether their life deserves to be celebrated or whether their death should be celebrated. Both of my grandmothers are gone, I celebrated their lives and miss them dearly even though one of them I never even met. Both of my grandfathers are gone and I celebrated their deaths because they were terrible examples of humanity and their only worthy contributions were the result of their sperm. When I die some day I hope that my life is celebrated, not my death.

I'm sorry you died before I knew you better, Angie. From what I do know, your life will be celebrated.

I'm sad...

2008-06-25T22:08:00.001-07:00

My dearest friend for the last five years has been gone for two weeks today.

:-(

I miss her.

Lil Bits

2008-06-23T18:36:00.000-07:00

The little is doing very well, more and more of her personality comes out every day.

She has decided that she prefers my bedroom now instead of the bathroom. She has made various caves a.k.a. safety zones under the nightstand, in my box spring, under the rocking chair, in a still unpacked box of scarves and hats.

She started out meowing non-stop anytime I was not in the room and overnight. Since my bed is so high I guess she thought I wasn't in there cuz as soon as I hopped into bed she would meow ALL night, literally. So I tried sleeping on the floor and she was fine. I have hard wood floors so that sucked. Yeah, i have not been getting much sleep lately. She's gradually been getting more cuddly too, like actually sleeping curled under my chin or tucked into my arm which totally made up for the floor-sleeping until last night... I couldn't take the hard floor anymore. I was so done that I didn't even care if she cried all night.

I actually tuckered her out playing with this feather toy that she loves so she actually fell asleep with me up on my bed. I woke up briefly when she jumped down and then woke up again some time later when I rolled over and felt a warm little furball next to me... she figured out how to climb up on the bed!!!

She's a smart little!

I slept the rest of the night now only worrying about squishing her when I rolled over ;-)

She's 100% kitten now, playing with everything and anything. It's been five years since I had a kitten and I'd forgotten how much fun they are. She goes non-stop then just crashes, then eats, goes potty, and then she's running again.... so freaking cute!

It's either THAT entertaining or I'm very easily amused.... ok, maybe both.

Skunked!

2008-06-21T20:10:00.001-07:00

The live trap that we set up to try and catch momma cat with has not quite been successful.

No momma cat and no kittens yet... skunk, however, we now have.

It's a little skunk but still packs quite a punch to the nose.

I was walking up to the trap to put some fresh bait in it and I noticed something was in it.... I was like, oh kitty! But then I notice the white stripe and backed off pretty quick, luckily before the little buggar noticed me. The cage is in an awkward position underneath a cattleguard so it was kind of tricky to get him out of the trap.

We ended up throwing a tarp over the whole cattleguard to keep us from getting squirted then had to use three long wooden sticks to open the trap door and then prop it open so he could come out at his leisure... there's no way I'm gonna try to force a loaded skunk butt out of a trap!

He was squirting like crazy which burned all my nose hairs but luckily did not saturate me due to the tarp... oh beloved tarp, how I love thee!

Poor little skunky poo was proabably scared to death! Hopefully he'll be gone by morning.

I seriously doubt that momma cat will be trying to enter the skunked trap anytime soon no matter how many tasty treats we put in there.

We'll have to come up with something else I guess.

Skunked again!

Drum roll please........

2008-06-21T10:29:00.001-07:00

The winner of the name contest is Takoda!

(I'm bummed cuz I really liked Douglas but the public has spoken)

As usual public opinion is not my own ;-)

But it's still a good name.

Baby bear is "no name" no longer. Yay!

The dinner event last night went very well.

We shuttled people into the back bear yard in vans. Us keepers had to escort the vans back there so that the adult bears in the front yard wouldn't mess with the van. It was like 92 degrees and the safari shirts we have to wear for special events do not breathe well at all so we were roasting!

The dinner event area in the back looked lovely though, the caterers did a fantastic job and all guests behaved themselves very well.

There was a buffet dinner, raffle prizes, donation stations where people could sign up to donate a bear and help feed them for the next year, 2 grand prizes (a large stuffed black bear & a wine basket), an enrichment keeper talk and then an opportunity for guests to toss enrichment over the fence to the big bears, and the naming event for the baby bear.

It turned out great, we raised about $10K for the baby bear and additions to hit hut as well as adoptions of the other bears.

The best part by far though was after we had shuttled all of the people out, it was getting dark, clouds rolled in, about 10 of us staff we still sitting in the back yard eating some dinner from the buffet and then the thunder and lightning started. It was amazing!!! We were all alone in the middle of the safari at night with a thunder storm going on around us and eating the most wonderful food.

So freaking-A cool!

All in all, a good night.

A whole new world!

2008-06-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

Baby bear "no name" is a big bear now!

Last thursday he weighed in at 28lbs. so I'm sure he is well over 30lbs. by now.... sooo big!

We moved him into the big bear enclosure on Monday where he'll be living in a large hut so he can see all the other bears but be safe from them until he's bigger. Unfortunately he had to learn about hot wire..... sooo sad!

It's for his own good, something he had to learn but so hard to watch because he's now like our own little baby. Anyways, so there are 3 lines of hotwire inside of the hut: a top wire, middle wire, and bottom wire. This is important because black bears climb very well and we don't want him climbing the fence once he's out in the roof-less enclosure. So this hotwire conditioning is very important.

He's a smart boy, he figured it out right away. He got zapped really good only once when he first tried to climb the fence... after that he just got his ears zapped a couple times cuz the bottom wire is just high enough that he can walk under it but if he raises his head just a little bit his ears touch the wire.

Poor baby bear. He a tough little nook though and smart as heck!

Tonight we have a benefit dinner in the black bear area where we will be announcing his official name!!! I soooo hope it's Douglas!

We have been having a naming contest for the last couple of weeks. The four of us keepers came up with three possible names for him that we liked then we opened it up to the public to vote on. The options we came up with are:

Douglas - for the fir tree and the county we live in.

Takoda - native american for "a friend to all"

Yuma - native american for "son of a ..... chief" ;-)

Douglas was the name I came up with and we have all been calling him that already so I hope it's the one that got the most votes.

Anyways, I will let you know what name he ends up with... I'll find out in a couple of hours.... eeeeeee! (squeal of excitement).

Hello bathroom floor!

2008-06-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

So 2nd night with the little. She meows a lot.

I don't blame her really, she's had quite the culture shock recently.

Poor little.

I'm sure she misses her momma.

She seems to feel safer in the bathroom so I started her out in there. Sad little meows kill me! So then I tried letting her sleep with me but she just kept jumping off the bed, hiding underneath it, and then meowing non-stop.... and I do mean non-stop, literally. So I put her back into the security of the bathroom where she continued to meow. I just had to sleep through it which was very hard. I didn't get much sleep that night.

We bonded throughout the day and she is definitely more secure in the bathroom where she is playful and cuddly and acts like a normal kitten. I spent most of the day sitting in the bathroom with her where she routinely ate, pooed, and fell asleep cuddled in my arms purring contentedly.

So last night (the second night) I figured I'd just leave her in the bathroom and not stress her out by taking her into my bedroom. She was meowing desperately the whole time and I tried to tell myself that she just needs to get used to it and that she'd be fine. But then I was like, it's only her 2nd night away from everything she knew to be safe.... well that made me give in. I'm a total sucker. I grabbed my pillow and crashed on the bathroom floor. She stopped meowing as soon as I got in there and fell asleep curled up under my chin.

2 words.

freaking. adorable.

Say hello to my little friend

2008-06-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

Meet my new friend Mia...

She's a feral kitten that we found at the safari roaming around with her momma and three other siblings. We caught her and one of her sisters, we are still trying to live-trap her mom and other two siblings. We will spay momma and find her a good home and (once we find them) I'd like to take one more kitten home with me so Mia has a friend. We are estimating her at 8 weeks, she got her first set of shots, worm meds, & frontline.

This is pretty sad but having her here just makes me miss Madison even more. Mia has a lot of the same markings that Mad has. Mia is pretty freaking adorable. She is the runt and is super skinny, I can feel all her little bones sticking out. She is eating really well, and growls while she eats as if she is still fighting off her siblings. So funny! She nurses while she sleeps and has quite the little motor. She loves tummy rubs which is the total opposite of Madison.

I did need a friend though, it was perfect timing. On the one week anniversary of Madison's disappearance I found Mia.

I feel like it is too soon to replace Madison but Mia isn't really replacing her. I still want my cat to come back home.

Staple-free!

2008-06-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I got the staples removed from my head on tuesday, phew!

Didn't hurt at all, just weird.

Now its scabbed and itchy but definitely better. We all know I need another hole in the head like a $2 hooker needs a coupon special.

Madison is still gone.

I went to the local animal shelter to give them a flyer and it was HORRIBLE. I was doing ok until I went back to the cat area to see if she had been brought in, then I lost it.

All these kitties reaching out through the cages and meowing their little hearts out, even worse were the ones just sitting there looking at me like, "yeah, I know you won't take me home."

I couldn't take it and then on my way out the lady started trying to reassure me by telling me not to lose hope and that people do recover their cats.... yeah, that's when I started bawling like a baby.

And this was on my lunch break so I still had to go back to work and finish my day.

Staple-free but heartbroken.

Missing...

2008-06-14T22:58:00.000-07:00

What the hell do I do without my Madison? I have no chatter box greeting me when I come in the door, I have no meowing at the sink to get a drink of water, I have no motor running on my chest while I fall asleep, I have no bunched up rugs when I get home, I have no furball tripping me as I walk to feed her.....

:-(

I want her home!!!

I made up flyers and passed them out to all my neighbors... handed out about 40 and then someone told me that we have a neighborhood email system. Some guy has the emails for everyone in the neighborhood and he sends out notices and updates. Frickin sweet!

So I emailed him my flyer and hopefully something will turn up on her whereabouts.

I called all the local animal hospitals, shelters, county animal control, etc. Am going tomorrow on my lunch to post flyers at their locations.

This sucks.

I want my kitten back!

R.I.P. Bug

2008-06-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

Denali a.k.a. Bug

From Oregon Zoo email update:

Good-Bye to Bug

It was sad to read this morning of the passing of Bug, our grizzly bear, who was euthanized this morning. Bug had been showing signs of lameness and stiffness in his legs. He had been put on multiple medications to control his pain, but his condition did not improve significantly. A veterinary exam this morning revealed joint deterioration in his right hip, resulting in a bone-on bone situation, and part of the socket had worn away. There were also bone chips in his feet making it very painful to walk. Bah and his brother Bug came to Portland in February, 1985 when they were a little more than 3 years old. Bah died in 2001. They were both very special to all that worked with them.

Bloody cats

2008-06-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

My cat is gone.

She's wild, always has been. She was born wild, anyways.

She's been with me and indoors since she fit in the palm of my hand. She was a rescue.

She's always wanted to be outside SO bad, it's like a drug for her. So I leash trained her since we always lived in a city (i.e. downtown Portland). Well, since we moved here, the leash has not been enough and I've always felt really bad about denying her the freedom of being a cat outdoors. So I decided to start letting her outside sans leash.

It's pretty freaking scary.

Knowing what could happen to her out there and not knowing where she is or if she's ok.

Unlike children, you can't have your cats carry cell phones and check in with you.

So she left all night one of the first times I started letting her out (a month or more ago) and then she hadn't done it since, she'd been staying really close and only gone for about an hour at the most at a time.

Well, since noon yesterday she's been out there somewhere.

I can't believe she hasn't come back for food. She LOVES her canned food that she gets every morning. Loves it! So this is really disturbing me.

I hate this.

One braaaaave turkey!

2008-06-12T15:42:00.000-07:00

This is pretty F'n bad

2008-06-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

This is how they clean their lion cages... notice the cats are still in there......

Animals become prey at Egypt's Giza Zoo

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gizazoo8-2008jun08,0,6530817.story

"Most visitors come to the zoo to eat, sleep, throw orange peels at the animals and then leave trash behind them."

"a photographer tried to lure passersby into the lion's den for a snapshot with the king of the jungle. He said there was no danger because the cub and its mother were sedated."

"more than 400 animals have vanished from the zoo in the last three years"

"police say workers have been turning them into dinner or selling them as pets"

Zoo chairman says "how can I ask a zookeeper who struggles to feed himself to be merciful to the animals?"

Um, how about this.... don't have a fucking zoo!!!

Another one bites the dust!

2008-06-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

Caribbean monk seal becomes extinct

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jG7KS792s_njtUMaxoi66jmWRqgwD9154M6O0

Hawaiian monk seal is next... anyone wanna place bets?

Ouch, I Did it Again

2008-06-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I fell. I slipped and fell. Pretty cool injury, huh?

I was cutting meat. Every tuesday I cut 66 - 5lb. cheetah diets, 9 - 3lb. cheetah diets, 4 tiger diets, 2 tiger fast bones, 6 female lion diets, 4 male lion diets, about 30lbs. of chunks for bears, and about 10-20lbs. for village animals. Thats a lot of meat, yo.

Things get wet and slippery.

I had just finished cutting diets and wheeling them all into the walk-in cooler and was walking back down the metal ramp, which is not very steep mind you, next thing I know I am on the ground and my head feels like it has exploded.

Now, I've been injured pretty badly before but never a head wound and I've never felt anything like this before.

It. fucking. hurt.

I rolled over and was just trying to hold my head on. It took me a couple of tries but I made myself stand up and walked to find my co-worker who was in the back room and didn't even realize I was bleeding at that point.

It sucked ass.

Turns out I nailed my head and my left butt cheek on the edge of the metal ramp.

(I am so not showing a picture of my butt)

2 hours later I could finally see straight and had three staples in the back of my head.

(I can't get a picture of my head wound without assistance so will post later)

So I got put back together... why do people insist on teasing you about an injury? I got hurt, I understand the need to laugh it off, it's what I do, but the jokes get old.

office staff:

"If you wanted attention, there are better ways of getting it, you know"

doctors and nurses:

"are you dizzy? more so than usual? get it.... you're blonde?" (dur!)

"now you're a metal head, hee-yuk!"

co-workers:

"have fun... don't fall!"

people tip-toeing up the ramp... etc. etc.

Yeah, yeah.. everyone's a comedian.

Enough already. I hope you all have fun the next time you get injured.

But for now, my butt hurts!

Fly Repellent for Big Cats

2008-06-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

I'm a member of quite a few zoological list serves i.e. zoo professionals from all over the world can share info and ask questions via web posts that are updated to your email, it's pretty super.

But you would not believe some of the topics that come up... see title of blog entry.

Seriously, do your cats stink that bad? Do they have decaying flesh? Are they lying amidst their own feces? Do you live in a cesspool a.k.a. Florida?

And how would you get rid of said flies? How is a spray that delivers DEATH to insects not harmful to your cats? What do you use, the hanging strips of sticky paper? Electric zappers? Breed spiders? (ugh, shudder!)

It's a good question... very tricky.

I vote for moving out of Florida or Louisiana or wherever they are, seriously, we should never have colonized the bug infested swampy humid states.

(I crack myself up)