Day 6 - A ssssnake!

Day 6.

So this morning we woke up the brown bears again. We threw food over the fences, then let out the boys, who crossed over onto their inner yard, then tried to get the girls out, but Russel was being aggressive with Claire! We got them separated into their own rooms, then let them out one at a time. (Bear Tower told us they kept doing this every once in a while throughout the day, so someone ended up putting them inside in separate rooms sometime in the afternoon. They think it might be because it's mating season. Russel is the dominant female.)

Erin, another intern, and I finished up the paint job in the bear hut! YAY! It looked very nice. :)

I then went to Lion 101 with Valerie (the main Carnivore girl) and Erin. Erin did the presentation while Valerie did the training/tricks. My job was to distract the lion that Valerie was NOT with. First I distracted Tau as Valerie showed the group Sarabi. He was very gentle taking the meat cubes from off of the stick I held it with. He also laid down every time I knelt to get another piece. Cutie. :) Then we traded lions. Sarabi was a bit more aggressive getting her meat. She accidentally pulled the stick from my hand at one point, but Valerie had warned me she might do this and so I knew to just let it go.

After that we had lunch where I talked on the phone to Mu for almost the whole time. :)

Erin & I went on our own to clean the Brown bear huts. Some of the paint hadn't dried ALL the way, so it came off a little. But the place still looked a lot better than it had! After that we drove into the bear exhibit to meet a group for "Big Bear". Erin did the presentation again, while I sneaked a few pics of the bears. :) The Bears stand up when the trainer says "big bear!". This helps them to look the whole body over for any wounds or anything.

After that encounter, I went on another Lion 101 with Angela (keeper in training). I distracted the lion who wasn't being trained at the time again. So fun! Sarabi was a little more grumbly then so I had to feed her a little faster so she didn't go over and bug Tau as he was doing his tricks.

Valerie & I drove to QB to get the lions' dinner and drove over to Black Bears to throw some meat to them too. We had a bit of a break here, so we went to the office for about 10 min. It was nice to relax a bit. :)

When Angela, Erin, and Matt (another intern) made it back to the office (from cleaning the Black Bear yards and feeding them), we ALL went to put the lions to bed. Their dinners were just snacks because it's a "fast day". They do 2 "fast days" a week cuz in the wild lions don't get food every day. The lions seemed to know, because it was hard to get them to come in. Sarabi came pretty fast, but Tau took a LOOOONG time. They just kept calling him. lol. Finally he went in, and Keeno hesitated a couple minutes but he finally came in too. Then Natasha was totally ignoring the keepers! We could see her laying in her yard on her back, not even looking when they called! haha! Angela, Matt & I left while the others stayed to get Natasha to go into her room. So the 3 of us went to close up all the gates and make sure no guests were left in the park. At the last gate I saw a bird drop a snake in the driveway. I had to get out to shut that gate, so I crept over to look at him. He was SOOO TINY! (or she!) He was in the alert position too- hehe. We were very careful in case he might be poisonous tho. You never know.

Now I'm at the library, then I will meet Angela at the "house" at 8:30 to go to the grocery store in Roseburg to pick up our donated fruits/veggies. And that's it!

bye for now...