SHAMU BUG!!

Today as I was leaving for work, I pulled out of my apartment complex to go north on Kyrene Road when right in front of me, traveling south on the same road, the Shamu Cruiser passed by!! Now that's something you don't see every day in Phoenix. Sea World must be doing some sort of an outreach or tour program again. Although I was very temped to follow it, I decided against it because I was already running late for work. Plus I may have ended up in San Diego. Oh well, it was still awesome.

Here is the Shamu Cruiser and the story behind it..

Shamu Cruisers were created by St. Louis-based Craftsman Industries. Designed from the 2001 VW Beetle, there is a pod of six that travel around the country as part of Sea World's outreach and promotional tours.

Fiberglass molders, machine and body shop experts, painters, airbrush artists, graphic artists, decal applicators and mechanics all work together to make each Shamu Cruiser. Each fiberglass fluke weighs 45 pounds and the dorsal fin weighs 9 pounds. Solid aluminum rods connect them to the body of the car and the hatchback and doors remain fully functional. Despite the added weight, the shape of the tail fluke makes for minimal drag with no noticable effect on vehicle performance, so the Shamu Cruiser gets a respectable 25 MPG.

Keeper Assistant: Week 3

Monkey Village - Yesterday was Spock introduction day and I was lucky enough to be part of it! This was also my first time in the MV nighthouse, as well as walking around inside Monkey Village with a keeper, helping with feeding and BE. What an amazing day!

The Monkey pictured above isn't Spock, but one of the other Squirrel Monkeys at the Village. Each of them has a bead to distinguish them from one another - I still need to learn who is who. I will find out next Sunday who this is and post it in here. (Spock actually doesn't even have a bead, they didn't have one handy at his exam).

Okay, so at about 10am, after attending to the African Wild Dogs, Cheetahs and Howler Monkeys, we went up to the veterinary office just in time to catch Roberto and some volunteers giving Spock his annual exam. This was almost too much for me to handle...I'll have to get used to the medical stuff. We were able to pet him while he was under - it was kind of creepy actually. When he came to, about an hour later, Amber and I transported him over to Monkey Village to join the females and juveniles now that Kirk and Wharf are gone. He will be spending 2 days in the night house to re-acclimate himself to the Village and to the others. The reason he left was because he and Kirk got into a fight which resulted in poor Spocky losing a finger. He's all better now though and back in business with lots of females to attend to! ;-)

The string of exhibits I was assigned to last Sunday, June 24 is refered to as Row. Strings are based on animal Taxon rather than (necessarily) on zoo proximity to one another. Amber is the primary keeper on Row and the string includes the following animals:


AFRICAN WILD DOGS (Lycaon pictus)

Four African Wild Dogs reside at the PhxZoo. Amber told me their names but honestly I don't remember what they are as I was paying much more attention to the intensity of the situation. They were hungry and loud in their nighthouse, running frantically back and forth, jumping on wooden boxes, howling and drooling for food - and it was early, about 6:30am. It seemed strange for me just to be awake - let alone to be in the nighthouse of a pack of wild dogs. They were definitely checking me out, sizing me up as an intruder I would presume. I stepped back so Amber could get on with the business of feeding and so I could just observe without disturbing their routine for now. She explained as she went along.

Their a.m. feeding consisted of chunk meat and carnivore diet. Upon our arrival, the dogs were separated out into different "stalls" in the nighthouse. Once everyone was where they were supposed to be, she closed the doors behind them and quickly slipped a pan of food underneath the fencing. These dogs are very much wild animals and they viciously devour their raw meat as such. Quite intimdating for me but Amber was very much at ease with the whole thing (well, she has been doing this for about 5 years now...). After we cleaned up she coralled them into one stall and released them all out on exhibit at the same time, this was quite a sight to see. A pack of wild dogs sprinting out from the nighthouse, running together in the morning light. Their exhibit is a good size too - plenty of room to roam so they were all good to go. As we were leaving they walked up to the fence to get a good look at us one last time and I just couldn't help but notice those ears of theirs. Sort of Mickey Mouse-ish. They are very cute animals who deceivingly resemble the family dog - yeeeaaah...not quite so friendly.

CHEETAH (Acinonyx jubatus)
JUMA & RATEL

Awe...beautiful Juma and Ratel, the two Cheetah brothers at the Zoo. Though its still hard for me to distinguish between them, I did learn that Ratel (Rae-Rae as his keepers affectionately refer to him) has a scar on his face and you can see the whites of his eyes more so than Juma. I still struggle with this but okay. I guess (at least I think its Ratel) that he also only has 3 black stripes at the end of his tail intstead of 4 like Juma. Pictured above - I believe is Juma but who really knows. I see a scar but no whites of the eyes. Perplexing. Anyway, very graceful and powerful cats, to see them up close was amazing. We are not supposed to "pet" them but since they were hand raised in captivity and practically beg for it by purring and rubbing their faces against the fence, it is extremely hard to resist the temptation. I won't say whether we did or didn't, but...yeah we're really not supposed to.

HOWLER MONKEYS (Alouatta caraya)
BILBO & OLIVIA

This is an example of a male (above) and female (below) Howler Monkey - though these are not pictures of Bilbo and Olivia, they look very similar. The male above was photographed in Belize while the female below lives at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

ANTEATER (Myrmecophaga tridactyla)
Ebenezer, Jezebel & Ezekiel
Eb & Jez are Zeke's Parents

Interseting facts: The Giant Anteater is one of only two mammals without teeth (the Pangolin being the other).


MANED WOLVES

Maned Wolves - Timmy aka Romeo, & I can't seem to remember the females name right now. She has only 3 legs but is in overall good health

Monkey Village - Spock introduction day :-) watched his annual exam, no vaccinations and no bead i.d. tag. He will be spending two days in in night house to reacclimate to Monkey Village and the others.

Keeper Assistant: Weeks 1 & 2

Okay, so I started volunteering at the Phoenix Zoo back in January, working every Saturday at Monkey Village. The job basically required me and other volunteers to help the employees by making sure visitors were behaving themselves within the exhibit, as well as answering basic questions about the 17 Squirrel Monkeys on display there. About four months (120 volunteer hours) into the job, an opportunity arose for a keeper's assistant position! This is what I had initially applied for so I was really excited to get started. My first day as a keeper assistant was last Sunday, June 10.

Keeper's Assistant - day 1


Sunday morning - arriving at the Zoo at 6a.m. will definitely take some getting used to. For now anyway, I'll rely on my enthusiasm and a strong cup of coffee to get me there - on time and ready to work. Keeping focused on my goal of working with dolphins is really all it takes to keep me going though. I was assigned to assist the lead primate keeper, Denise, in her duties the first day, which began with a trip (for her...) to Siamang island. I waited on the dock while she made her way across the pond to feed these apes.

Siamangs are one of 12 species of lesser apes - or Gibbons. Similar to the great apes in some ways, lesser apes are restricted to deciduous monsoon and evergreen rainforests of Southeast Asia. Similar to the great apes, the Gibbons lack a tail and have the same dental formula. They differ in that they are much smaller in size, have a more slender form, longer arms, longer canine teeth, and the presence of those funny-looking butt-pads. In most species, males and females are about the same size but differ in coloration. To learn more, please go to: http://www.conservation.org/English/Pages/Default.aspx?USC=True

Keeper in training - day 2


Yesterday started out with carnivores . I assisted in the a.m. feeding and medicating of the Zoo's two spectacled bears, Rio and Will. Rio is a young female who they believe is pregnant and Will is a twenty something male (I forget his exact age) which apparently is pretty old for a bear. He takes medicine for his stiff joints. Spectacled bears are generally solitary animals and Rio does a good job at keeping Will away from her most of the time. They do have quite a nice, large exhibit at the Phoenix Zoo, so there is plenty of room to co-exist without too much aggression from Rio.

Before the bears were let out on exhibit, the keeper and I went out on a mission, shovel and bucket in hand. Its all part of the job. The clean-up actually didn't turn out to be so bad and the next item on the agenda was Behavioral Enrichment or, BE. After portioning out parts of their food, we wrap it in several paper bags and place them throughout the exhibit. This gives the animals an opportunity to sort of forage for their food, more like they would do in the wild, rather than simply having it handed to them. This along with many other enrichment techniques, referred to as BE, greatly improves the quality of life for captive animals by providing them with mental stimulation and something to do.


When we finished with Rio and Will, it was off to medicate and feed Vishna and Mr. Mestopheles, the white-faced saki monkeys. We placed their food (banannas, watermelon etc.) in several paper cups which we then wedged between branches throughout the exhibit. Vishna and Mr. Mestopheles (or Meesto) are an old couple who have bred many times but are no longer able to. They now hang out happily together in the forest of Uco on exhibit.



Next on the agenda was to feed Missy - the Jaguar. She is quite an amazing and intimidating animal. To watch her devour her raw meat breakfast from about a foot away was incredible. She wasn't pleased at all with me observing however, and quickly let me know by growling - to which I emmediately responded by backing up. The keeper laughed and said not to be affraid, at all times there has to be 3 doors locked between us and the Jaguar. Missy is quite and old lady at 18 years, and has always shown particularly aggressive characteristics.



By about 8am we went on to feed the male coati who's name escapes me at the moment. He is nothing like Zippy though - my favorite coati of all time. This guy has a stump where his tail used to be, I'm supposing he lost it in a fight. Quite a fiesty little fellow. Enought with him, so it was back in the cart and off to the Mexican grey wolf exhibit to feed Sonora and Mirella their morning ball of raw meat and prepare the rest of their carnivore diet for later. We have to be careful with them since they are part of a Game and Fish Department re-introduction program. We can't let them get used to human contact since they may someday be re-released into their natural habitat. Mirella, being the bolder of the two, reluctantly came over to us and the keeper threw in the meat. I helped change the water and scoup up poop. They are impressive animals to see but right now their coats are looking a bit withered since they tend to shed them in the summer months when it just gets too dang hot for all that fur. I took note that you can tell Sonora and Mirella apart simply by their faces - Mirella has kind of a mean look - like she would attack if given the chance, while Sonora looks much more friendly and docile.

It had been quite the eventful morning so far...and my day had only just begun. I was passed over to another keeper who carted me over to the otter exhibit. I love the otters - they are so cute. The PhxZoo has a small family of spotted necked otters (Lutra maculicollis). We have Biko (dad), Kima (mom), and baby Hasani who is about a year old and was recently re-united with Biko since he's been a little more independent.