As promised, I have a nice long update for you about the turnover process for all of my animals! But first, the bit of exciting news I previously mentioned...
One of the most exciting parts of zoo life is adding new animals to our collection. Recently, we took in a blind baby turkey vulture, only a few months old, and a slightly older kestrel. I put my name on the list to be considered as a trainer for the new kestrel, and I got it! Thankfully the kestrel doesn't have the same long turnover process as the rest of my animals, since she's brand new. So for the first time ever, I am a real live trainer of an ATZ animal! We built her a shelter box and prepared her quarantine enclosure with shade cloth and perching, only to find that she is SO small we had to put a bird cage in her quarantine enclosure because she may slip out through the space between the bottom of the enclosure and the concrete! Her name is Pip, short for Pipsqueak, and she's doing pretty well all things considered. She has a HUGE voice for such a tiny creature, and loves to shriek her displeasure when anyone gets too close. She's pretty snappy and not the tamest or friendliest creature, but at staff's direction we've been attempting to get her to step up this past week or so. On Wednesday, my most recent feed day, I managed to coax her into stepping up on my glove not once but three times! I'm so proud of the progress we are making!
On to the rest of my animals...
Mowgli the Ocelot: Like the rest of my animals, Mowgli's turnover required that I observe him for a certain number of hours and write a paper before I got to proceed further. I finished his observations and paper before any of my other animals because it was so important that I begin practicing his injections as soon as possible. My co-trainers and I observed our second years perform a few injections, and one day we sat down in the vet lab with all of the other trainers on cats who need to be poked, and practiced injecting oranges and feeder mice. It was nice to get the hang of drawing up fluid and build my confidence a little. The next step was to start building our relationship. I visit him one or more times a day just to sit with him, give scratches, and play tug of way. I also bring him 25g of meat from his diet and use that to start asking behaviors: sit, lie down, "be cute," climb it, high five, etc. This gets him used to the idea of seeing me as someone he should listen to. A couple weeks ago I started adding "side" to the behaviors I asked him. This is his cue to press his side up against the enclosure mesh so I can grab a pinch of scruff and inject him. Of course, this was all practice. I would ask side, grab his scruff and manipulate it for a few seconds, then reward him for holding still and cooperating. Some days were better than others, but it felt great to really get that solid. When the time came for me to practice injecting saline for the first time, I felt awesome. I knew I could handle it, and I was confident it would go smoothy. Mowgli was a little less cooperative now that he could see I had an actually pointy pokey thing in my hand, and I did bend the needle on the way out, but I managed to successfully give him the injection! It was one of the most exciting and nerve-wracking things I have done with my animals so far. Now our second years are leaving for their projects, so we'll be taking over all feeding days and medications since we have already learned his diet and cleaning schedule. My co-trainer Amy is currently a little better with the injections, so she will be taking all of them these next few weeks while I continue to practice with Saline. When our second years come back from Projects, all I have to do is demonstrate that I can perform the injection and I'll be good to take over completely. Then all Amy and I have to do is teach our third co-trainer the procedure over the summer, since he hasn't progressed quite as far yet. So aside from getting the injections down really solid, I'm pretty much turned over!!
Cain the Chattering Lory: This little squishybird has been one of the hardest animals to turn over on. As I'm sure I mentioned, I was a caretaker on Cain, which means he has been building a relationship with me since September. My two co-trainers are brand new, so I have had to take a back seat while they "catch up." At first, the plan was for me to limit my interactions to saying hi as I passed his enclosure. The other two girls would take him out with the second years and get to know him a little. During this process, Cain started becoming increasingly aggressive towards the second years. He is a smart little guy, and he is definitely aware that turnover is going on and that the second years are about to leave. At one point we even had to halt turnover entirely until Spring Spectacular was over, so Cain wouldn't attack the second years on stage. Things had been going pretty well for me, as limited as the interactions were. He would call to me whenever he saw me, love dance at me when I stopped by, and continually offer his head to groom. So, I was feeling pretty good about finally being able to interact freely again! Yesterday, I was finally approved to go in and drop his PM diet, something I hoped he would be excited about. Unfortunately, the minute I entered his enclosure he started relentlessly flying at my head. I would duck, and he would land on the branch behind me only to turn around and charge at me again. If he did hit his target he would latch on and start biting. Nothing could get him off - eventually I had to fling him to the ground at which point he sprinted across the bottom of the enclosure trying to bite my shoes. I left, took a breather for ten seconds, then came back with seeds. He was much calmer, and took the seeds without incident. Today, I took him out to play for the first time. Once again, he was incredibly aggressive. No amount of distraction could divert his attention from biting every exposed inch of skin. We tried everything, but eventually had to take him home. I brought him seeds again a few minutes later, and he tried to make love to my hand through the enclosure wall.
Cain is a walking contradiction.
My theory, and the second years seem to agree, is that this is an incredibly difficult time for him and he may not understand who is leaving and who is staying. He may think of me as being on roughly the same level as the second-years, so as he is punishing them for leaving he is also punishing me. We've adjusted the turnover schedule now to let ME catch up. Tomorrow, I will shower him with love. I get to take all his feeds, bring him seeds all day, and essentially suck up to him as much as I can. Sunday I will be in San Diego, so hopefully on Monday when I attempt to take him out by myself his feelings towards me will be a little more positive!
Michele the Capuchin: Turnover for Michele has been slow because she is a primate. She's incredibly intelligent but also has some neurotic tendencies that can flare up when she is nervous or overwhelmed. We started off simply helping her trainers make her diet and packaging it up in cool B.E. We then helped place her food around her enclosure while she watched from her spot locked off in a separate bedroom, so she could see us with her trainer, know we were "okay," and would associate us with the arrival of good things. The next step was to start dropping food and B.E. on our own. Every so often I would bring her a little flower, a piece of food from her dinner wrapped up in paper, or a packet of cinnamon. Cinnamon is her absolute favorite. When I give her a packet, she squeaks as she opens it up and then rubs it vigorously all over her fur. The BIGGEST step we've made so far in turnover has been to start asking behaviors, which only began yesterday. I practiced with each of her current trainers, and then for the first time today I went to ask behaviors on my own. She can stand up, give a high five, put her hand on her head, climb the enclosure wall, grab and hold a carabiner attached to the mesh, and present her hands, feet, and tail for examination. She performed all of her behaviors for me! It was so cool to hold her tiny hands in mine for the first time!
James the Donkey: Fluffy faaace! So far, I have spent bonding time with him, taken him on walks, learned his behaviors, learned how to administer his medication, taken over feeding days, and observed him in a show. All that is left is to take him to a show on my own and I'll be all turned over! "Turnover Shows" are the last step in the process for all show animals. For me, that is James, Cain, and Miki. I have to bring them to one of our shows for the public and talk a little bit about the species and the individual animal while demonstrating their behaviors. All turnover shows must be observed by staff, at which point we are officially "checked off" on our show skills!
Nadia the Kinkajou: I was making great progress with my kinkajou for a while, and then things slowed down a little bit. However I have caught up pretty quickly. I watched several training sessions with her and accompanied her trainers as they walked her in her crate down to our Eye-to-Eye theater. I've learned how to make her diet, and also how to perform positive checks. Since she is a nocturnal animal, she needs to be checked on three times a day to make sure she's still okay and not too hot or cold. Today was my first official "Nadia Day!" I arrived at the zoo extra early to do her first check at 7:30 a.m. I opened up her little den box and peered under her blanket to see a sleepy little kinkajou staring back at me. Since it was still cool, I took one of her blankets but left the other one behind and closed her box again. By the time I went to do her midday check, the temperature had risen significantly. I opened up her box to get some ventilation going and exchanged her fleece blanket for a much lighter pillowcase. I left the fleece blanket hanging over a branch so she could get it if she got too cool. For the third check, my last of the day, I closed up her box again for the night but left a smaller box open so she could go there if her main den box became too hot. I left both the pillow case and the blanket in her enclosure so she could decide which she preferred. Before I left, I spread her yummy dinner out all around so she could climb around and explore to find it all.
Miki the Orange-Winged Amazon: Miki-bird's biggest problem is his food aggression. I've made GREAT progress with taking him out to weigh him, he is now consistently stepping up for me without lunging or biting. However, when I go to spread his dinner or breakfast around, he becomes aggressive and very possessive of his food. There is an art to accomplishing this task that I haven't 100% mastered: you must duck PAST the angry bird to the very farthest food dish, so he is (theoretically) happily distracted by the food far away from you while you place the rest. However, that bird moves like lightning and I'm not totally comfortable ducking past him to get to the farthest dish and then having to once again get past the incredibly focused parrot now making his way rapidly towards me with fierce determination. My strategy instead has been to put a handful in the dish on whatever side of the door he is not occupying, and THEN sprint to the farthest and back out again, dropping pellets and veggies frantically as I go. I'm sure that as he learns to trust me more (and I learn to trust him) this task will get much easier!
And that's all my critters! I hope this gives you at least a small picture of what daily life is like for me at the zoo. I'll update again as I make more progress!
Love and Bellyrubs,
Christy
