Day in the Life cont.

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.