I know it's been almost two years (yikes!) since I posted on this, but I have an awesome internship at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden this summer so I figured I should start it back up while I'm here to document my experiences!
My internship is in Wildlife Canyon, which is the section of the zoo that works with Sumatran rhino, red pandas, warty pigs, red river hog, przewalski wild horses, takin, and emu.
I figured today I would just give a pretty broad overview of what I'm going to start doing daily, and then from here on out just update the blog when something exciting happens (which who knows, could be every day!)
First of all, there are two interns in my area, therefore they split us up and every 2 weeks we will switch which section we are working on (buildings 1&2 or 3&4). These next two weeks I will be in buildings 3&4 working with Harapan, the Sumatran rhino, Rhea, the red river hog, and our three warty pigs. However, we also work with red pandas for part of the days when there is time, despite them being building 1!
The Daily Grind:
It is a fairly uniform day each day, but of course with animals something special will always happen! I arrive at my area at about 7AM everyday. This is the best time for us to clean outdoor exhibits and stalls so that the animals can be out in their yards by the time the zoo opens up at 9. Today I followed around the keeper I was working with, Lissa, in order to get a grasp on everything. First, we gave Harapan a banana with his daily dose of vitamins in it. We then fed out morning diets to the warty pigs and the red river hog. We then cleaned Harapan's yard first, picking up all the food from yesterday he didn't eat, cleaning and refilling his pool, and refilling is mud wallow. We then came back inside and did a small training session with him while feeding him his morning ration of fruit and veggies. During this time we also gave him a bath, then got a daily weight for him and gave him his eye medication.
We then gave him access to his outside yard, locking him out so we could safely go inside his indoor holding and clean. This involves taking all of his old food from yesterday and all of his waste out of the stall first. We then hosed down the entire set of stalls, washing it out his water bowls as well. This is followed by scrubbing down all of the stalls with a disinfectant, and then re-hosing everything down to ensure his stall is as clean as possible. We then refill his water bowls and switch out the enrichment for the day.
After that, we move on to the warty pigs stall and yard. On any other day we would have split the work and done all of the outside yards first, but since it was my first day we accomplished these tasks slower. The pig stalls are a much quicker clean than Harapan's. We start out in the yard, cleaning up their old hay and waste, cleaning out their pool and refilling it. We then let them out and clean their indoor stalls, much the same way as we did Harapan's. Once that is done we move on to Rhea's yard and stall, which is the same steps as the other two!
Once all this is completed it's time for a 15 minute break, where we go back into the office and discuss the goings of the rest of the day. Once this break is over we head back down to buildings 3 & 4. This is when we set up Harapan's diet for the night, he has two large boxes on the side of one of his stalls where we stick roughly 3.5 boxes of brows in, to make it resemble a tree, making his enrichment look as natural as possible. We also provide him with a few flakes of hay and some grain. Once this is done we cut up diets for the afternoon, making sure to give each animal the directed amount. We then wash down anything outside the stalls that got dirty during our cleaning for the day.
If we get done with all of our tasks early enough before lunch, we do training with Harapan, getting him used to his medical shoot, in order to eventually be able to perform regularly scheduled exams on him. This involves us getting him into the shoot, with the door open to keep him comfortable, and feeding him his fruit there, giving positive reinforcement for coming into the shoot willingly. Once that is done we let him have access to his in and outdoor exhibit. We then clean all of the diet dishes for the day and go to lunch.
After lunch, we prepare for the camel talk which happens at 1PM every day. This involves the interns getting camel treats and the counter (for how many people come to the talk) and heading to the area in front of the exhibit. Here, we do crowd control, explain to the guests the best way to give the camel a treat, and make sure the line is efficiently moving, while the keepers are in the yard with our adult female camel, Saarai, giving the actual talk.
Once the talk is over, we go back inside and do some general tasks until about 2, when we all head up to the red panda exhibit to watch the keeper give a talk in the yard while we watch from the front. Before the talk begins we put the diets for all of the red pandas in their indoor exhibit and lock them out so they are active for the talk. Once the talk is completed, the keepers open the shoot and the pandas are able to go in and out as they please again, generally going in and eating their food before returning outside!
At this point, the day is just about over, all that is left is to feed out PM diets and bring the warty pigs in for the night. All in all, the days go by quickly but it's because of all the activities that we are being surrounded by! The work is hard, but completely rewarding being able to hang out with some of the world's exotic animals.
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