All Day Area

This Saturday two of my roommates and I had our first "ADA": All Day Area. During the weekends, only a few of the students are required to be at the zoo to keep things running while the public are here. We are still required to be here for morning Area every week (this morning we cleaned for the Lemurs, Samantha the gibbon, and the Capuchin troop again) but only have to come in for the full day roughly once a month.

The first hour of ADA is always what we call "projects." These are tasks that occasionally need to be done around the zoo, and often include things like repairs and maintenance. For example, one of the projects for Saturday morning involved cleaning out the inside and outside of one of the zoo vans. Projects hour usually wraps up around the time that the public is arriving at 11. Usually each station is only assigned one student, but since the first years are learning the ropes we were shadowing the second years in pairs.

After projects hour, my group headed over to Primate Watch. We stood in the blazing sun, trying not to collapse in the humidity, smiling at guests and making sure the kids didn't get to rowdy around Malay, our temperamental Siamang. Primate etiquette says that you should never stare or point at the primates, as they can interpret it as a sign of aggression. They can also get extremely riled up if people are running, shouting, or rough housing. Primate Watch exists to make sure these rules are followed and that all our animals and guests are happy.

After Primate Watch, we headed inside to the refreshingly air conditioned Zoo 2 classroom for a long lunch before our second year left to man the ticket booth and my fellow first year and I sat down at the computer lab to be trained on Dailies. Because a zoo relies so much upon good communication and meticulous record keeping, everything is written down on daily reports. Leftovers, medications, diets, positive checks (making sure the nocturnal animals are still alive and well), and any abnormal health concerns. We also record all behavior enrichment or training activity. These enormous piles of paperwork then need to be entered into a very primitive computer program so that they are easily accessible at all times, and this is where the training comes in. There were a lot of very particular rules and requirements about the way the information needed to be entered, but we got the hang of it all pretty quickly and headed out to join our second year in Tickets ten minutes early.

After our hour in the ticket booth (my favorite - it allows lots of time to catch up on studying and the booth is air conditioned) we headed out for a Round. Since my fellow first year had never attempted one before, my second year let me lead for the half of the zoo that I was familiar with. I felt pretty confident with the procedure, and it was definitely satisfying to check off the seemingly endless list of checks and tasks with barely any help.

We ended our day at Clarence's enclosure for Galap Watch, making sure the guests kept their fingers away from the 90-year-old 500-pound tortoise's mouth. Part of Galap Watch at the end of the day also involves making sure Clarence puts himself to bed, and closing him off in his shed. However, the shed was 117 degrees yesterday and Clarence was having none of that, so we closed the flaps of the shed without him and let him chill in the shade.

At the end of Galap watch we went around the zoo collecting all the Dailies, which we then brought back to Zoo 2 to check. We made sure all the animals had been signed for in the feeding log and that all of them had gotten the correct medication at the correct times, and then we headed home after a long and exhausting day to study until we dropped.



Working here is a bag of such insanely mixed feelings and emotions. I can hardly believe all the amazing things I'm doing and experiencing.  This morning I was closing off the capuchin bedroom and one of them reached out and tried to pull my hair. A monkey tried to pull my hair! I'm feeding bananas to lemurs and navigating out of reach of Samantha the gibbon's very long arms, and all of it is so cool I just want to look around and say did anyone see that?? Of course they did, but as we're all experiencing the same things together no one else seems to think it's as cool as I do. One of the hardest things about being here is not being able to share these experiences with my family as effectively as I want to. I wish everyone from home could see this, could follow me around for the day and experience what I experience. I wish you could hear the cacophony of noise the primates make as we arrive in area in the mornings, starting slow with Sam's high pitched squeak of a chatter and building as the Siamangs join in with their booming yells. I wish I could accurately convey what it feels like to walk to school at 6:30 in the morning and hear a lioness's deafening roar. I wish you could hear the emus drumming or see Scout the coati excitedly emerge from her hammock when she hears her name or understand how funny it is when Cain the lory repeatedly chatters "Bird here! Bird here!"

Of all the insanely difficult things about this program - the long hours, the manual labor, the impossible amounts of homework and studying, the terrifying lack of money - I think the hardest of them all is being here alone. There are days I wish I could hop on a plane and fly home to what is comfortable and familiar and safe. But if I really think about it, I know I belong with these animals. As hard as the next two years will be (and as insanely expensive...) I know I'm heading towards a prize that is beyond what most people could ever dream of.  And somehow, all of this will be worth it in the end.

That's all for today. Don't forget to send me any questions you have!

Love and bellyrubs,

Christy