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.