Week 70: San Diego Trip! Semester 4=Over

Somewhat bright and early we left the zoo on Sunday headed for San Diego. On Sunday, we hit a couple of outreach companies in the area that are run by some graduates. They were both very different companies but they work together a lot on things. It wasn't really anything new or special to me. We then found our nice and fancy resort hotel at a steal of a price and made camp.
On Monday, we went to the fantastic San Diego zoo and got to see some great shows and listen to some interesting and very important people. Bird/animal trainer extraordinaire, Steve Martin, of Natural Encounters Inc. is running a contract show there and we got to talk to him for quite a while and it was rather enlightening. Despite my general dislike of birds, I would deal with it if I could work with him. His company also does a lot of consultations with zoos and other organizations, so the work would eventually not be limited to birds. The new Elephant Odyssey Exhibit at the zoo is fantastic and we got a little behind the scenes look (not that there's much you can't see anyways) at how they run and a good talk with a keeper about their whole operations. Still an awesome zoo to see if you haven't yet!
Tuesday brought us to the San Diego zoo's wild animal park. Here they have a training compound where they run their cheetahs and you can currently pay a fee to see this as well. Look out though because in about a year, they are going to start offering it daily and for free! We got a good talk with all the trainers there about cheetahs and all the other wacky animals they work with. We then went on a tram ride to see the unique multi-species Africa exhibit where the animals are just mingling as they would in the wild (minus the predator factor). After that we found the new mule ride area and talked to the wranglers there. The mule ride takes visitors near the Africa exhibit, but then goes on a longer trail through the hills nearby. During the ride, they talk about the animals in the exhibit as well as the local landscapes and very endangered habitat they ride through. They are contracted to the zoo through Zoo to You, a company run by some of our grads. After our talk, I stayed and talked to the wranglers for a bit and I think they would have offered me a job on the spot had they not just hired. Still, it's a good prospect for a summer job if I can't find one.
Finally, Wednesday came and we got to go to Sea World! I've never been to one before so I was a little excited to see how this went. We got the royal treatment in the morning and were whisked around from stadium to stadium to talk to trainers about the sea lions, belugas, polar bears, otters, dolphins, and of course, the killer whales. After that, they gave us the afternoon to enjoy the park. We saw all the shows, of course, and it was really neat, despite the extreme cheese factor. I got to see the Anheiser-Bush clydesdales on their last day. The park was recently sold to another company, so the clydesdales had to go. It was a pretty good day, and I got to pet a dolphin for the first time! I found it all interesting, however, I also know none of that is for me as swimming/water creatures are not my thing.
On Thursday, we checked out of our hotel and hit the road. We made a detour to see Have Trunk, Will Travel, a most excellent elephant company. Any elephant you have seen in movies/TV/advertising or any elephant rides you see on the west coast area, it's them. Their facility is gorgeous and I would give my right arm to work there! The people were very nice and the elephants were cared for with the utmost precision and you could see it in everything they do.
We got home and then I had one somewhat normal day at the zoo. Since the semester is over now, I didn't have much to do besides some feedings now. The weekend brought our holiday event again, "Arctic Lights". The snow and everything happened just fine, just would have been nice to have more people... (Pictures from Six Flags: Discovery Kingdom: Saw fish, walrus, and sea lion)

Week 69: Seriously?

Finals this week. We have every final happening this week since next week is the much anticipated trip to San Diego! Not a lot going on besides lots of people studying and freaking out about it all. There it was though, on Friday, we took our last Gary final ever. Pretty nice. The only written tests we have left to take in the program will be for vet classes next semester.
However, again on Friday, we were all left a little saddened and scratching our heads at the sheer number of losses we've seen as a class. During morning area, Decoy, our wood duck, was found deceased. Cause is yet to be determined, but we are certain he was also quite old. Later that day, one of our blue and gold macaws, Rio, was taken to the vet so they could get a check on how some polyps in her digestive tract were doing, never woke up from the anesthesia. That's two in one day. I wasn't really attached to either of the animals, so it didn't hit me particularly hard, but it's still sad to know that we continue to lose animals at such a rapid rate and we haven't really gained anything to replace them with. Our shrinking collection is really quite sad and we are all holding our breaths that something else doesn't leave us while we're on our field trip. (Pics: a wood duck [not Decoy], Rio, Dolphins from Six Flags: Discovery Kingdom)

Week 68: Tripple the Sadness

This week many people began prepping and seriously focusing on the impending finals. We already had our training finals going on, and mine was this week as well. I did pretty well, getting an A on Mau and a B on Bwana. On Tuesday, we had a vaccine clinic for our vet lab where people associated with or in the program could bring their dogs or cats to receive some core vaccines (not rabies) at a cheap price and we administered them as some what of a practical exam. It was pretty fun and interesting to see some peoples' pets, and I even stuck a super adorable kitten that didn't seem to notice anything was happening. About halfway through the clinic, Dr. S got a call that she was needed on the zoo and went rushing in. I found out it was Darwin, our old sugar glider, being unresponsive. I went to the zoo and found them in the treatment room, trying to help him out, but after a bit I could see he was already mentally checked out. If you'll recall, I am a sugar glider trainer now, so I was needed as good emotional support for my co-trainer that was dealing with this alone since the other one was home sick. We sat with him for a bit until he was gone. It was quite sad, but he was also quite old. Possibly 12 or 15. Seeing the necropsy the next day, it was shocking to see all that was wrong. He either had cancer or a massive internal infection, we'll have to wait for the lab results. Sad, but definately his time. Crazily, this very same day (Wednesday), at the end of the day, I saw Wendell, our goat, out for a walk doing his normal thing. I find out not five minutes later that he keeled over and died. Initial necropsy reslults told us it was a brain anurism that killed him instantly, nothing to be done. Again, incredibly shocking and sad, but he was also incredibly old.
On Thursday, I had a zoo day in Santa Barbara, so I was praying that something else didn't die while I was gone. It was an OK day, just doing the reptile string, so boring for me, but not necessarily bad. I came back to learn that on Thursday, Forrest, the camel, was taken back by the company that owns him. We knew this was happening, but they never told us when they were coming, so it was sad and unexpectedly sudden to the trainers. While he didn't die, he is still another loss to the zoo. It's really just been an outrageously crazy week... (Pics: Me & Darwin, Wendell, and Forrest)

Week 67: Thanksgiving!

This was a really great and short week with the holiday. Classes were a little bit lighter, although we are trying to hurry and cram in a lot to our vet class since we're a bit behind. Our big paper was due this week in vet class that next semester we have to make a power point presentation about. My topic was chronic wasting disease. It's pretty interesting, feel free to look it up if you want to know more about it, or you can ask me since I just finished making myself a mini-authority on it. A very exciting thing happened this week as I had my very last ever PM area! All these "lasts" are starting to happen now, and it's kind of sad, but mostly really exciting! The new area schedule was posted and I also learned that I never have all day area again! That was excellent news!
I managed to get Thanksgiving day off this year with no area and no animals to feed. Hubby and I had a wonderful time making our own meal and stuffing ourselves silly. Just the one day though! On Friday, I was back at the zoo. It felt good to know that these should maybe, hopefully, be some of the last ones I spend with out family. That all depends on where I end up after this of course, but I'm still hopeful. (Pictures: San Francisco zoo, polar bear, lion, and me feeding a giraffe)

Week 66: Peggy!

After several months of anticipation and preparation, Peggy, our new, 3-legged opossum, arrived at the zoo! She is pretty small still and quite cuddly. So far she has an amazing temperament, perfect for being a handler animal. We plan to keep her that way so she stays friendly. Peggy is definitely no good at walking (missing your left front leg is kind of a big deal as an opossum) so she needs our help to get out and around to see things. Her favorite activities so far include sleeping and smelling everything. We look forward to seeing her grow more and helping her out in life.
Another big happening this week was an escape drill. We safety managers had been planning this out for a few weeks. We decided to have two trainers play their animals, one was Ozz the Geoffory's tamarin, and the other was Buddy the raccoon. Since I was a lead that morning in area, I didn't get to do much in the actual drill, but planning it was fun and it went off really well. No one got "bit" and both animals were dealt with quickly and successfully. One of the trainers even managed to squeeze himself into a crate! It was a great learning experience over all and we were proud of how well everyone functioned.
On Friday, we had a guest speaker: a studio trainer from Birds and Animals Unltd. came and he brought the capuchin he works frequently with. She is the capuchin featured in "Night at the Museum" and has done several other movies (I just can't remember, but if it's a monkey, it was probably her...). He also brought a dog with him and the dog was in "Hotel for Dogs" most recently, a super cute border collie. He discussed what it was like to be studio trainer and all the ins and outs of that side of the business. It was good to hear that it was all the same things that I had picked up on my project with Hollywood Animals. (Pictures: Peggy and I.)

Week 65: Final Assignments!

(Sorry for the lack of updating. Sadly, the posts will suffer and likely not be too detailed because it's all a blur.) Not a whole lot exciting at the zoo. Now that we're back, we all have to get back on track with our training behaviors. Finials are less than a month away! Traveling and trying to work on training just doesn't happen well, so this whole semester of training is sort of silly. Big highlight this week was having my last LA zoo day this semester on the Indian rhino string. I had a great time, the rhino and the hippo are really awesome! However, it was full of pain and disaster as well. When cleaning the hippo pool, I managed to fall and scrape up my hands pretty good (don't worry, the pool was empty and I had just finished cleaning it!), but it could have been much worse. Later that day, I managed to destroy my ankles as well when I fell carrying a 50 lb. bag of feed. Always look where you step! I'm fine, and no doctors were needed or lawyers for that matter...
This week we also got a few of our last animal assignments posted! I got Buddy, the raccoon, and one of the sugar gliders, Chip. I'm super excited about each of them, but it was a little weird to be added to the sugars since they are supposed to be year-long assignments. The good news is that their trainers and I get along swimmingly, so they are actually excited too. I can't wait to be out there in Spring Spec, jumping those little guys around! Not sure what extras I will or won't ask for though so we'll see if that's it or I might add one more. (Pictures: Golden Gate bridge, San Francisco Zoo bears)

Week 64: Project #1--Hollywood Animals

I spent Monday through Friday of this week hanging out in Santa Clarita at a place called "Hollywood Animals". These guys specialize in big cat movie work. As an example of some of their recent work, I met the tiger featured in "The Hangover". Her name is Kate! Anyways, it was a great week and I learned a lot about the ways they handle and train their cats. One of the owners, Brian, is about to go off and tour with Ringling Bros. doing a lion act. We watched several training sessions with a hyena, leopard, bear, and lions. The highlight was getting to tag along to see a shoot for a TV commercial (which I can't say much about due to confidentiality agreements. I'll let you know when it's released!). All the trainers there are really great and their animals are awesome and well kept too. On Friday, I got to work a tiger on leash to test out their new system of semi-protected contact for a trainer for a day they had coming up. It was a great week and I'll never forget all the lessons I learned and the contacts I've made! It almost feels weird going back to school and knowing I'm still not done until May. (Pics: Guide Dogs for the Blind)

Week 63: Crunch Week

That's not it's official title, but it felt like it should have been... We had one week to turn over our new first year caretakers! That was some sheer insanity. They have been very hard to get to come to anything, not to mention all the people checking out for various illnesses. Weren't they listening when they told us all to get the flu shot? The week started out with a test and some papers to write. There was also much discussion about dealing with death when you're away. All good to bring up as well. I had some meetings to plan our animal escape drill with the safety team, that should be fun. The big highlight of the week, which also added to the crunchiness of this week, was doing our outreach show at the juvenile detention center in Sylmar. We ended up performing 5 mini-shows with different line-ups of animals since we brought so many. All the kids we did a show for were considered "high-risk", meaning they were all being tried/convicted as adults (that means really bad stuff here. I'm talking murderers.). The youngest one was only 13! Very sad stuff, but they all really loved it and were very thankful. It was really weird to think of them as such hard criminals when they just seemed like some good inner city kids. Stupid gangs... Great experience though for everyone involved. Next week is projects! I'll be at Hollywood Animals for the week learning about studio work. (Pics from Davis: Wild Things presentation)

Week 62: Davis/The Death of a Sea Lion

Davis week happened, and it was a blast! I had a ton of cool experiences which I will share in small snap-shots for each day and as for actual pictures, I will put a few out here and there so there is more pretty things to look at in the future!:
Sunday: Sat on a charter bus...FOR 8.5 HOURS!! So that sucked, but it was worth it when we got to Wild Things, an outreach company that serves the bay area (that's places around San Francisco for all you non-Californians). It's run by two of our graduates and they were so welcoming and they really do it right for outreach. The kids up there are lucky to have access to them! Then we got to our hotel and relaxed.
Monday: Davis! We went to UC-Davis and saw their super amazing veterinary teaching hospital facility. They have the capacity to necropsy an elephant! All their other facilities were really amazing and very state of the art. The capacities they have to care for large animals (i.e. horses) is really great and it was cool to see a few things in action. They also do a little bit towards helping people learn exotic medicine too. Then we went out and checked out their primate research center. That was really interesting, but really, just a lot of monkeys in cages. That's all. And I couldn't take any pictures at either of these facilities all day, so no pics from here...
Tuesday: We started out at Guide Dogs for the Blind. It is truly a gorgeous facility. We saw some cute puppies! They are really cool and they are probably the best at what they do, which is providing guide dogs to the blind at no cost, if you couldn't figure that out. After that we went to the San Francisco zoo and had an interesting talk from their curator of mammals (a graduate) about all their recent incidents. It was enlightening.
Wednesday: Discovery Kingdom! This is a Six Flags park once known as Marine World. In addition to the few rides and coasters, it has a mini-zoo/marine mammal park. We toured all the different stadiums and facilities to see all they do. It started off with the dolphins, then we moved to the sea lions (they also have harbor seals and otters), we also saw the walrus (they are the ones featured in the movie "50 First Dates"). We broke for lunch, and on that break we discovered that Schmoo II, our sea lion of I don't know how many years, passed on. It was hard to hear since we couldn't be there, but it was also good to know. She was crazy old and had many problems from that age. After much tears and mourning, we went back to the park to see the rest they had to offer. We started at elephants, then went to their wildlife theatre (wide variety of cool things), after that we saw the tigers (hooray for free contact training!), saw the bird show, then finished up with the killer whale! That was really cool and we all got a group shot (it's on staff's camera...hope I can get it somehow) with the whale.
Thursday: We checked out of our hotel and headed down the coast. We found the Marine Mammal Center. They have a beautiful new building and housings for their animals. All they do is rescue/rehab/release marine mammals. Currently the sea lions are having a rough time of it, so they had a lot of those, and one northern fur seal. They also deal with harbor seals and elephant seals and are currently fund raising for their cetacean facilities! It was a great tour and then it got kind of boring as we explored the depths of their pool filtration... But a really awesome organization and one people should totally support! After that we traveled down to the Moss Landing Marine Mammal research center. There they have six sea lions they train and pretty much run a small version of what we do at EATM. The animals there are amazingly well behaved and the training demos they did for us were very helpful and I think everyone learned a lot in those few hours there. After that we left for the new hotel in Monterey and then had a cool group dinner at a pub on cannery row.
Friday: Last day! We checked out the fabulous Monterey Bay Aquarium and got some talks from the otter keepers and the vet. Seeing the white shark and the fantastic jelly fish exhibit was really great! I highly reccommend it if you are in the area! After that we headed on home and it was all over (only a 5 hour trip this time...).

Week 61: Packing Up

This week was all just a crazy mixed up jumble. All of us were running around with our heads cut off trying to find all the people we needed to see to explain care taking on our animals. We unveiled the script for spring spectatular to the class and it seems to be a hit with most everyone (except for the people who don't really care about anything anyways)! Had a zoo day at LA again and I did the tiger string. It was really fun and strangely my favorite animal to work around there was the mountain tapirs, not any of the big cats (although those baby snow leopards are freaking adorable!!). We went in to clean around them and feed them and they are very curious and friendly. It was really cool and they could easily entertain me for hours if I had time to sit around. Next week is Davis, and I'll take lots of cool pics so you can see some of the cool things that I'll be seeing!

Week 60: New Additions!

All the Davis trip things are coming together: we filled out permission slips (I know, it seems silly, but it's more of a liability waiver I think) and made hotel reservations and arranged for our roomies! Everyone is very amped up and excited. We also got the first year care taker assignments so we've started training them. These assignments also kick up the drama dust pile since now we have more gossip circulating about who cares about what and all the usual BS. As a sweet change of pace from all the death around here, we've got some new animals! We got Harold the guinea pig on Thursday and we will soon be having Peggy, a 3-legged opossum coming into the collection. And, best of all, I'm going to be a trainer on Peggy! I'm really excited and my co-trainers are my good friends, so it should be lots of fun and I'll post her cute pics when she gets here. I think that's the gist of the week, so hard to keep things straight any more, and as you've noticed, I've been slacking on getting posts made too timely.

Week 59: Rare Kitty Close Up

Had a pretty good week! Things were functioning as normal. Mau was taken to a vet to get her eye checked out. Apparently her eye lid/lashes are curling inwards, irritating her eye. Might have to fix this surgically... Sadly, this trip seems to have destroyed her trust in us and set something off in her brains. She has suddenly stopped coming out of the hoofstock area again, so she's out of shows until we can fix that. On the up side, Bwana seems to be trusting again and that's all back on track. Have my mid-term for those behaviors next week!
On Thursday, I had a Santa Barbara zoo day. It was great! I worked the cat string. They have lots of really rare and cool cats and one of the most rare, an Amur leopard (there's only like, 30 left in the wild!!), was knocked-down to get a look at him, so I got to mess with him (petting, exploring) and help with that procedure!
The best news of all came on Friday: the Davis trip is on and approved! It was in limbo for a while, but now it's all approved and we are taking a sweet charter bus that is being paid for, so it's cheaper than usual! Everyone is releived and excited to know that's going to happen now. Sorry I don't have any sweet pics for you this week...

Week 58: Kissu Check-up

It looks like the E! apperance didn't pan out, which doesn't really suprise me at all. Ah well. This week I continued to get by without a vehicle of my own, which is starting to get very old. Fortunately, I have a good roommate who is willing to deal with it all! Being a lead in area has been interesting, getting to know various people I haven't met yet and learning more about ones I do know.

The coolest part of my week was on Friday, we knocked-down Kissu, my summer mountain lion assignment. All trainers, past and present got to help out and watch everything and it was very interesting. The whole thing ended up taking around three hours, which was way longer than I expected, but we did a full check up as well as some closer looks at things that we found odd. The origional reason for the knock-down was a bump we saw in his mouth and we weren't sure what it was, so we were trying to figure that out, but it had dissapated due to the antibiotics he was put on. Other things we did were: draw blood, cystocentesis (urine sample straight from the bladder), x-rays on his paws and face, palpating the body, cleaned the teeth, ultra-sound on his liver (which seemed abnormal), and a nipple-ectomy. That's right folks, probably one of the strangest things, a nipple-ectomy. We removed his left, first nipple because it had some funky things going on with it, and he's male, so he doesn't need it. Here's some cool pictures of what we did:

Week 57: Drama Class

Not a lot of big or impressive things happened this week. I have no idea if the segment on E! for the fundraiser happened. I've been pretty busy and things have gotten harder since my car was taken by the hubby to replace his broken one.
The first year class has been very interesting so far. I feel that the vast majority of them are highly immature and inexperienced with any type of animal. We had some issues this week with one of them shooting off her mouth a bit too much about things she didn't fully understand and she got a good talking to from the staff about it. That didn't make her very happy, but hopefully it taught her a good lesson. There are a lot of really great first years too though and I'm glad we have most of them around. Things like this also make me wonder how our second years perceived us when we started.

Week 56: So Long, Samburu

Things are still chugging right along. Projects are being planned/worked on, animals are being trained, shows are being performed, and a certain script is still being written. Amidst it all, Samburu, our caracal (pictured below) was put down. He had been having some severe neurological issues (possibly a brain tumor, or some other degenerative disease). He was about 15 years old, so he wasn't a youngster or anything. Very sad still.
All the animals we took from the facility that was in trouble went home this week. Yeah for them still having a home!
In our vet lab, we've started learning about injections and how all that works. I know a lot of it already, but it's always good to get other perspectives and tips.
The highlight of my week was doing the Peacock Foundation's fundraiser on Saturday. It was a blast! Sprinkle's cupcakes were there, so I sampled their tasty treats for free! I also bid in the silent auction and won some gift certificates to a local BBQ joint and then a frozen yogurt place for dessert! Oddly enough, E! network was there to cover the event, so I might be making an apperence on their morning show! It was a great time and I hope I'll have enough time that I could help them out in the future.

Week 55: Someone's On Fire!

I'm sure you have all heard about how southern California is once again on fire. We aren't in trouble, but another facility was so we were housing some of their animals when they had to evacuate. That was really all that happened the first half of the week. On Thursday, I had a zoo day at the LA zoo's health center. It was pretty fun! They were also housing some animals from that same facility, so I helped care for them, and then I got to watch a few medical procedures! My afternoon was occupied by some paper presentations from a few vet students on rotations. Even those were fairly interesting (to me at least...). Speaking of medical papers, I've comitted to my topic for the paper in vet class: Chronic Wasting Disease in Wild Cervid (that means deer, folks) Populations as a Result of Predator Dessimation. That means deer are getting sick out there and part of it is caused by a lack of predators in the wild.
Any who, on Friday, we went on a field trip to Steve Martin's Working Wildlife (no, this is not the actor, and not the bird trainer.). They are amazing! I had the capuchin from the first pirates of the carribean movie crawling on my shoulder, as well as a brown lemur! We saw Bart the bear, a 1,000 lb kodiak grizzly, and some other really cool animals like foxes, lions, chimps, and more! I'll try to figure out how to hook up my new phone so you can see some pics eventually.
On Saturday, myself and a few others went to check out the Peacock Foundation, a group that works with troubled (abused, neglected, homeless) kids and uses animals to help with their therapy. They are having a fund raiser next week and we are going to be walking around with their animals! It's nothing spectacular. No one famous will be there, and their animals are just domestics and a few reptiles, but they are a great organization and I a glad to help out!

Week 54: Let's Get Rolling!

Lots of new developments in classes. I'm in the outreach group going to a juvenile detention center, and we've booked the show! The planning process is slowly beginning for that. I've started training my animals with their behaviors and it's slow going with Bwana, but Mau is picking it up quickly, as I expected. Our vet class gave us an interesting lecture about how to deal with death in our professional lives since it's something we're likely going to be encountering somewhat often. We got some zoo days assigned, and I've got one next week already! Resume class is going strong and it's really good to hear these prospectives from the animal world of job hunting. It's also helping with the setting up of projects. I've got some letters to write already! And on a super up note, we got permission to use the trucks again!
I've joined the spring spec. script committee, and we are flying full throttle to get this thing done. We are now working on a tactful way to whittle down the numbers in the committee from 11 to about 4. Can you imagine writing dialogue with 11 people? I know, it's ridiculous. I think that's my week. So much going on, it's hard to keep it all straight!

Week 53: Semester 4; Second Years!

Our classes started this week and they are going to be really awesome and keep me very busy again this semester. Here is my normal break-down:
Wildlife Education 4/Lab: This is our long awaited out-reach class. That means that instead of the usual kids paying up and coming here for a show, we go to them. We do nine free shows for a few lucky places that range from your average schools to the Ronald McDonald house and a juvenille detention center. I'm really looking forward to seeing how all this goes. In addition, towards the end we also start a bit on a few Spring Spec. plannings and we do the script reveal.
Animal Training 2/Lab: This is a continuation of last semester's training course. This semester we focus on training husbandry behaviors (this means things that allow the animal to assist in its own care, i.e. crating, medical procedures, etc.). For the lab I'm going to train Bwana (turaco) to crate and Mau (pig) to desensitize to ear manipulation and possibly move it forward to a blood draw from the ear vein. This is the class that our big Davis field trip occurs for.
Elementary Vet Procedures 1/Lab: This is taught by our vet. Here we will be learning about the ethical and emotional issues of treating animals, as well as actually discuss diseases and husbandry related issues in the field. We also have a big paper to write as though we were invited to present at a conference on a topic of our choosing. In the lab we will be working with our own zoo animals and assisting in their care, as well as doing some more formal things like dissections.
Second Year #1 Zoo Work Skills: The catch-all class it always is for everything we do at the zoo that doesn't fall under another class.
Zoo Days 2: Same as the summer. We have three zoo days in LA and two in Santa Barbara.
Professional Resumes: This is taught by our primate person (also the projects person). She is very savvy at how to set us up for job success in the real world and this is basically a class where she begins to give us those helpful hints. We will all work on and build resumes and cover letters to use once we graduate. This class is only half the semester and the other half it will continue with interview skills (I'll fill you in on that when it starts).
So, that's my super-busy schedule! Also, it was the hubby's b-day this week, and we celebrated the heck out of it! My buddy cooked us dinner and a cake for him! On Saturday, we went to Marina Del Rey to visit my uncle who I've recently found out has moved here. Now I have more relatives around and they all want to come see the zoo! Always nice to be able to share my really cool life with a few more people who appreciate the animal world!

Week 52: Semester 3 = Over

Yea! The summer finally ended! I'm an official second year! We have first years! It's all been pretty crazy this week. It was orientation week, but I don't feel like I'm very oriented for my new semester. I've learned mabye 5 first year's names and I'm really not sure what my class schedule looks like next week. Projects are closing in and just around the corner, and still, no one has any clue where they are going to be unless they are going to the marine mammals conference (FYI, this is not me). My buddy is really cool and we are likely to hang out frequently. My roommate is also awesome still as I've gotten to know her better. Been a little lonely without the hubby around, but I've also been fairly busy and exhausted all week too, so it all works out. My turnovers are going well and I'm almost finished with all of them. We start feeding the new ones this week, so that means so long to all my old semester assignments. They will be missed (well, most of them...)! Classes start next week, then we'll see what this whole crazy semester will really be like.

Week 51: VACATION!

Yea! I spent the week in Chicago with my family. Very relaxing, very nice. Found out we got our eagle back ups, and I also got assigned to Boo, one of our mountain coati sisters. I contributed to scientific research (and was paid for it), babysat, and watched a lot of hulu. Suckily, I got a 24 hour bug on Thursday night, so Friday was totally ruined and my flight home wasn't so much fun either. Came home to our new room mate, who seems to be pretty awesome! It's good to be back now and see my kitties again. Sadly, have to wait another week to see the hubby...

Week 50: Bye Bye Baxter

It's been a fairly eventful week prior to my vacation. We got our new training assignments for the fall. I got Bwana (white-cheeked turaco, pictured previously) and Maureen (or Mau, a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, pictured below). I'm pretty excited about both of them. In the fall, we train husbandry behaviors, which means behaviors that allow the animal to participate in its own care (vet procedures, crating, shifiting, etc.). We are starting turn overs now, so I'm learning these two new animals, and I'm teaching others about Kissu, Nuez, and Chance. So far, no one is on Nova, but there will be someone. I've asked for extras too, so I should have one more animal added hopefully.

I had my training final this week, and it went OK. I got a 95% with Benji. I actually changed his behavior to be a "stick 'em up", and he's actually really close to finishing that. Kissu got me an 85%, but I'm OK with that. The tough thing is that you never really know if you got that grade because the animal just isn't progressing and it's their "fault", or if that means Gary thinks you should have done more and the animal should have been farther along. Ah well. I'm pleased; still get an A!

Now, the sad thing. Baxter, our last Yucatan mini pig, was put down on Wednesday. He was super old and having extreme joint pain (basically no cartilage left...). It was sad to see him go, but not unexpected or overly sad to me. He was pictured in previous posts if you don't remember.

Week 49: A Light?

Vacation nears ever closer, I can almost taste it. (Yes, maybe I am obsessing over this a little at this point.) Things just keep cropping up and I just keep having to deal with them. I actually had a dream where I exploded at a bunch of classmates to just leave me alone for a week so I can go on vacation! I got sick this week too, which really made it all crappy. Thanks for that hubby! Training behaviors are coming along alright, and my final is next week. He grades easy at least... Laramie has been getting steadily better but we'll be doing a better assessment at the end of the week. I'm still fairly out of it from the sickness, so I'm going to end it there.

Week 48: Spoke Too Soon

Remember how I said everyone was healthy and happy? Yeah, ignore that. Schmoo, the sea lion, is having issues witht that flipper infection again. The new thing is that Laramie, the golden eagle, got a blood infection. We are trying to get more solid information on exactly what is wrong with her, but the tests are taking time to come back. In the mean time, it would appear that all eagle trainers are pitching in for her care. Looks like next week is busy!
I do feel like my schedule is slowing down a little. No more classes, just a few appointments to keep here and there. The heat is just brutal still. I find myself sitting in the computer lab catching up on TV with hulu (amazing site). Training is going well, I think I've found the way to finish off Kissu's behavior, but I'm still stuck on Benji. Hopefully I'll have another epiphany like I did with Kissu. There is sadness in the fact that some of these animal assignments are coming to a close and we are starting to pick new ones for the fall. I'll be keeping Ghost and the vervets, but I'll be loosing my big cuddly kitty, Kissu, and Chance, and Nova, and Nuez. I'm sure I'll love my new animals, and that the new trainers for these guys will be great!
Meanwhile, there's only two weeks until I'm on vacation! I need to start pulling the house together so it's all ready for our new roomie who will arrive while I'm gone. Yea vacation!

Week 47: Break From Classes

This week our last formal lecture-style class ended, Primate behavior. We finished up with a field trip to the Santa Barbara zoo to see their Bolivian titi monkeys, gorillas, and gibbons. Then we took a little quiz and it was over like that! No more sitting in classrooms again until August! Yeah! I also had my last zoo day for the summer at the LA zoo working in the enrichment department. I stayed up in their little secluded workshop with some pretty nifty people, mostly volunteers, and made some cool toys for the animals! However, there is still about three weeks left until my vacation...:( I have noticed that a few people that have returned from their earlier vacations are already crapping out again, so I feel good about my choice for the last week.
It shouldn't be so bad anymore now that people aren't in classes and we only have to worry about shows and getting our animals fed through the day! So far everything/everyone is staying healthy and cool despite the super hot temps! And we'll all float on OK...

Week 46: Making it Through

People started leaving on vacations this week, so the soupy-ness of this summer is starting. With fewer people, everything takes more time, especially area. I have more animals to feed generally and the heat is starting to get bad. It's really wearing me down. I'm starting to wish I had taken an earlier vacation, but I know it'll be very much worth it once I get to go just before the semester starts. I started a new training method with Kissu, and it's working beautifully! Now I think I'll get this done for sure!
I had another zoo day in LA on Saturday working the South American primates string. It was very awesome. I got to do lots of interacting with the animals and I watched the keeper do lots of training sessions with all of them. The spider monkeys were super adorable, but the howler monkey was my favorite. She was sad since her mate died a few weeks ago, but very cool. The leopard was very awesome too, but we didn't do a whole lot with him.
My philosophy for this month is really to just get through it as painlessly as possible. The heat is horrid, but I love my animals, and I love trying to keep them cool with good frozen things! So, hopefully we'll all make it through together and in one piece!

Week 45: Fun Times in LA

We had our first run of our gameshow themed scripted show this week and it went very well! Other than that, the first part of the week was nothing special. On Thursday, we went to the LA zoo to get a look at their primates. It was pretty interesting, but nothing I can't easily see on a zoo day. On Friday though, we went to Universal Studios! For free! We went in to check out the animal show they run there, which employs mostly our graduates. I got to hold their 5 year old orangutan! The rest of the day we just goofed around the park (there's not much there, I don't recommend paying for that...). On Saturday, I had my first LA zoo day working the bongo string. It was not very exciting. Just lots of raking. Since hoofstock animals are generally afraid of the world, I didn't get to do really anything with them. No petting, just poop cleaning. Hopefully my next days will be more exciting. This month is going to be crazy. I have somthing to do every Saturday, and they are all day-long events. Hopefully some of my Sundays will be open.

Week 44: Momma Mia!

I had my training mid-terms this week, and I did great! Kissu got me a 95, and Benji got me a 100! This means, of course, that Gary will likely expect that since I'm making such great progress, the behaviors should be finished by the finals...poop. Nah, I'll be pretty good. The final in training lecture is next week!!!
We really had a pretty chill week. No shows. There was Jr. Safari camp that started, so there are small-ish children running about the zoo all day now, but that's ok, we don't have to babysit them!
We also had a meeting with staff and our fellow leads for the different areas (remember way back when I had second years, and they were teaching us how to do the different areas? That's what a lead is). I will be a lead in the carnivore training compound! Yea! That means that once we have first years, the only area I will do (when I have area) is carns!
However, the bestest best part of this week was that on thursday, my mom came to see me! It's been over a year! I showed her all around the zoo and all my amazing animals and she had a blast! It was short, but excellent! (sorry guys, no pics this week...)

Week 43: Oh Dunny boy...

This was a pretty cool week. The script for our show is all done and turned in; should be pretty good. Training is going well too. I've changed my strategy with Benji, so I'm starting over essentially and my mid-term is next week... It's all good.
This week was also full of some pretty cool field trips. On Thursday, I went to the Playboy mansion. That's right, one of Hugh Hefner's properties. Bunnies and playmates live there (well, actually just his girl friends...). We got a tour of all their very cool bird species (lots of horn bills). And they have some primates as well (spider monkey, 50 squirrel monkeys). We saw all of the grounds around the house, and saw the cool little game room and the grotto! I thought it was pretty cool over all and those are my pictures down below.
On Friday, we went to the International Gibbon Conservation Center. It's not as fancy as it sounds. It's one guy that has collected some of the rarest species of gibbons on the Earth and is working to breed them and works to conserve them in the wild with foreign dignitaries. He's also pretty crazy... I got pics, but can't post them, so remind me to show you when you come visit. I can let you hear some of the cool songs the gibbons sing.
On a very sad note, Dunny was put down this week, as I said would happen in my last post. Walter seems to be holding up alright. Dunny will be missed...
(Pics: Me, holding Hef's $10k Hyacinth macaw; Hef's personalized Hollywood square; and a couple of cool horn bills)

Week 42: BLEH!

Classes are good. Training is going well. We have a mid-term next week and it should be fine. A sad decision was made this week to put Dunny, our Scottish highland cow down next week. It has been found that he has some genetic issues with his legs/joints and is in massive pain, and there's nothing we can do about it. Much sadness there.
On an up note, we took a field trip in primates to "Animal Guys" and it was fun. We got to pet a porcupine and hang out with a siberian lynx. One of the guys even gave me a hook up with a potential project, maybe even job, for a vegas magic show. Sorry this post is short, and without pics for now, but I hope to correct that soon. We are experiencing issues with our internet connections and are going to end them soon anyways, so things might be a little more touch and go here as I'll be relying on the school's internet access.

EDIT: Here's some pics from Animal Guys: (Gray fox, me and a north american porcupine, me and a 3-toed sloth, siberian lynx)

Week 41: 065 Saw the Light

This week, being the first week of my fancy new summer schedule, I will give you a break-down of my summer classes:
Zoo Skills: At this point, it's everything. This grades me on feeding animals, keeping up with day watch schedules, morning and afternoon area (which I finished doing a straight week of on Wed.), and all that zoo jazz.
Zoo Days: This is us spending 3 days at LA zoo and 1 day at Santa Barbara zoo (done!) working with the keepers in various areas. My LA days are coming.
Wildlife Ed. 3: Here we are doing shows again, except they're different during the week. We have set groups we work with on our week day shows and we will have a script to use (we're working on that now). So, basically we'll put on the same show all summer long, just rotating positions/roles.
Animal Training: Ah! At last! Here we meet twice a week at night for just 5 or 6 weeks and Gary teaches us some basic training techniques.
Animal Training Lab: This is where we are actually graded on training our animals! We pick one or two to train over the summer and do weekly meetings/consultations with Gary to make sure we are on the right track and to test. I have chosen to train Kissu and Benji, both just some silly behaviors, which is the focus of the summer.
Primate Behavior Lab: OK, I know I said I wouldn't take this ever, but I did. We are going on a ton of field trips to various animal facilities to look at everything they do. In between all that, we are learning a bit about primate behavior and enrichment.
That's the schedule! Pretty sweet? I thought so.
So, now you're going, "OK, Liz, but what the heck does any of this have to do with your weird title?" Nothing. Nothing at all. My title is a nod to the death of our golden pheasant, 065, or more affectionately referred to at Phez. She was old, and the necropsy showed signs of gout, and obesity... She will be missed! Here's a picture of a golden pheasant (f), not Phez, but a likeness.
Below, a video of my rat, Crow (now slightly obese), running the maze!

Week 40: Semester 2 = Over

The second semester ended as of Wednesday! I passed with flying colors, looks like straight A's for me! Everyone is getting ready for next week and the summer semester to start. Sadly, we discovered one of our classmates is leaving the program due to some absence issues. We will have a new student re-joining the program then to fill her place. That will be kind of weird, but I'm sure we'll get over it. I had my semesterly meeting with Mara (staff) and things went well. She has a good grasp on who I am and how I operate and staff seems to generally really like me and the job that I'm doing. I just need to improve on being more enthusiastic outwardly, which I totally understand and I've definitely been working on it. We also had an awesome meeting this week to discuss our up coming projects! Cindy (staff) gave us a list of already set up, ready to go projects and then she wants us to start talking to her about any others we want that aren't on the list so she can work on setting those up. It was just really exciting to think that we really only have a year left here! On Friday, we met with one of our part-time staffers that works at the LA zoo full-time. She is in charge of our zoo days class and we met so she could explain how that class was going to work, as well as how LA zoo days work. We have 3 to do there this summer and I should know when and what areas I'm working soon. It's really super exciting to be thinking about all the cool stuff we are about to start doing as second years. I can't wait!

Week 39: Santa Barbara Rocks!

I went to my first zoo day on Tuesday at Santa Barbara zoo. It was amazing! I worked the bird string, but my cool experiences were not limited to avian types. My morning started out by getting oriented with the keepers and the zoo. We started by opening up some tortoise exhibits, and then we went to the giraffe exhibit (there are cranes, horn bills, and tortoises in there). I got to meet a giraffe face to face and I fed him some biscuits! I also saw the back end of the gorilla exhibit with their juvenile males. We cleaned and fed the animals there, then I moved on to another keeper and I was working more with birds of prey. They have an awesome tawny frogmouth (look it up!), named Stanley! I love these birds, and she let me perch him out and I put him back home later in the day. I did some un-exciting hosing here and general chores. I got to see their new California condor exhibit, that was neat to see four of approximately 300 existing birds. I then got to help out with their morning and afternoon penuin feeding. We even played with one in the back-end of the exhibit who was hand-raised and people friendly! I also got to feed the brown pelicans! In the afternoon, we candled a penguin egg (it's that time of year!) to see if it was fertile; it didn't look good, yet they were unconvinced. I got to help out with the Asian small-clawed otter feeding in a bit of free time I had (they're so cute!!). At the end of the day, it was a lot of quick feedings and pulling food. There were a lot of macaw pairs to be put back into their over-night holdings. We did that by perching them on the end of a long stick and then carrying them back with the stick held up like a flag pole! The really cool part of all of this is that when I was asked if I knew how to handle or do something, I did and they trusted me. These zoo days are going to really show us how much we've learned so far.
That was the true highlight of my week. Otherwise, finals started and are going well so far! Still having massive co-trainer issues, but hopefully people will learn to grow up and take some responsibility soon, or get kicked out. Either way... Pictures: ([reptile presentation a few weeks ago] Hila monster, gaboon viper, me and Kissu, CJ [AKA Calamity Jane]: coyote)

Week 38: Farewell, Second Years

We are taking great strides as a class, learning how to work together, and figuring out how to work it with just us there. The second years have been gone for weeks now on their projects, and their time here has come to a close. A good lot of them already have secured fabulous jobs/internships and are heading out right away. Friday's graduation ceremony was very nice, and a very fitting send-off for such an awesome group. I wish I was confident to say that we will be remembered as a whole class as fondly, but it won't happen. Our class is pretty disappointing. There are bright points, but a lot of lows, and they seem to be out weighing so far. The summer will really tell though.
This week we also learned about an aspect of our summer and second year: zoo days. Here we will spend days at the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles zoos, shadowing a keeper(s) and seeing what they do and how. I'll actually be going to Santa Barbara on Tuesday to check out the bird line.
Another part of our summers were also decided this week: I'll be getting my week of vacation over my birthday, so look out Chicago! I'm coming to party!
Crow ran the maze this week, and it went fabulously! I got a 95%! I'm bringing home the maze this weekend and I'll make him run it one last time to get some video of him so you can all see the good work I'm doing out here! Pictures: (Savuti- Spotted hyena, Kiara [Savannah]- African lion, Ceylon- Burmese python, Madagascar hissing cockroaches)

Week 37: My friend Chance

This week wasn't anything special. Schmoo came back today (Saturday) and is looking alright. They ended up keeping her a little while longer. The rat maze finals are next week, so people are training like mad to get that done. Crow has/is doing quite well and I'm not worried a bit. I'll try to take some video of it so you guys can see the fruits of my labor. On Thursday, I had a cool experience where I got to restrain Ghost to pull a broken blood feather from his stub. We'll be doing that again to replace his anklets as they are very stretched out. The rest of my animals are doing good. We might be gearing up to do a nail trim on Chance in a while. That's a whole ordeal where we have to knock him down to do it.
The other week, the names of our first year class were pulled, so we did some calling. I then put out an add for our extra room and I've gotten two bites. We'll see how this goes, but definitely good to have a roomie again. This week's pics will be some good ones of me and Chance, appearing for the first time in this blog!

Week 36: Helping Hands

Things are going pretty well at the zoo. This week I got to be zoo foreman for the first time. It was nice since instead of waking up and working hard, you wake up and walk around to make sure things look good and function well. Definitely a welcome break.
A few weird things happened this week and all parties will pull through thanks to the generous help of others. First, starting on Sunday, our sea lion, Schmoo II was not doing so well, and she is quite old. After a few days of her not eating, she started not moving either, so we panicked and got some people who were too generous to take her in at a little place called Sea World. They did a full work up and found she had an infection. They were also generous enough to keep her and treat her for the week. That's not so sad news, Schmoo is/will be fine! Next, not so good.
On Monday, the primate class took a field trip to a facility founded by some of our graduates called Zoo to You. It's a wonderful facility with tons of cool animals, including a few we used to house. I stayed back since I'm not in the class and helped take care of the animals at the zoo. We learned on Thursday that their temperature controlled building had burned down and was a total loss, along with 38 animals housed there. Very much a devastating thing to happen since some of our former animals were included in that total. This time, we are the helpers and most students have been excellent at offering their services to this wonderful facility to help them recover their loss and cope with the pain.
A really cool experience also happened this week in that Wednesday, a company called Brockett's came out with some of their poisonious reptiles to talk about them and the safe handling (or not) of them. They also talked a little bit about what they do for movies and some of the jobs they've been on out in the field consulting for Survivor and other shows.
Pictures!: (Michelle- white-faced capuchin, Boo- mountain coati, Wendell- African pygmy goat, Rorke- Abdim's stork)