Day 7 - Bears have cute lips.

Day 7.

First we went to wake the Brown Bears up, as I've been doing every morning. I went around the girls' outer yard to clean and spread jelly around randomly for enrichment, while Angela & Matt did the boys' inner yard. Then we went inside the hut to wake everyone up. The boys were all cuddled together- so cute! The girls were in their separate rooms since Russel was being aggressive to Claire yesterday. We left them in their rooms for Valerie (main Carnivore girl) to see how they would do together today. So then we let all the boys out and went to do the Black Bears. At the Black Bears exhibit, we cleaned their yards and spread salsa & perfume for enrichment. I did the salsa. We put them out into those yards we had finished doing.

After the bears, I went with Valerie to make "diets" for all the bears. I measured out dog food & walnuts, counted produce (apples & pears today), and weighed meat for each of them. We put those in separate buckets and drive those to the bears at specific times during the day. Valerie had me measure the meat! EW! I put it on a scale to make sure we had correct portions for each bear. After we set all of the diets up we went to have lunch. I read Mu's book and other workers came and sat with me too, but they didn't mind that I read a little still. :)

Once we finished lunch, Angela (keeper in training), Matt (intern), & I went to do a Lion 101 encounter. We walked the group of people back to the lion hut area and Angela did the presentation and training with just Tau. I took pics for the people, with Tau standing against the fence behind them. Then Angela had me walk the people back out to the front of the park.

We had a small lull after that to take a breather, and then went to QB (food area) to pick up the Black Bear diets that Valerie & I had prepared earlier. Angela, Matt, & I went back to the Black Bears to throw their dinner over the fences, and spread some "enrichment" in the front yards for the other bears. (there are 6 total: young ones- Takoda, Chochmo, Donna; older ones- Little Girl, Little Boy, Ricky. And Little Girl is still kind of hibernating.) I put out teriyaki sauce and pickle juice!

We drove back to QB where we took extra cars back to the offices- I got to drive the automatic! It was pretty fun. :)

Once we got back it was time for ANOTHER Lion 101 encounter! It was Angela, Matt, & I again- Angela did the presentation and training and Matt did the distraction of the other lion (they were both in the pen this time and are food aggressive, so one has to be distracted while the other trains.) Once that was over we walked all the people to the front together (one ladies young boy was not minding well and kept running around all over! She called him back and he would come, but then he just went off running again. sheesh...........)

After that we went to wash dishes, but there were the 3 of us and now Erin (intern), so I only had to stack the dishes after the other 3 had washed them. hehe. Then Angela & I put together the lion diets. She picked meat out of the cooler that seemed the right size for each specific lion, and then I weighed them to make sure. One piece was too big, so I had to cut some off! She said to pick whatever knife and I took the biggest one! I actually thought she had told me to pick that one, but she laughed about it. :)

While we were there someone radioed that one of us interns needed to cover the last 1.5 hours of Bear Tower. I thought in my head that I wouldn't mind doing that, but I also wouldn't mind helping with the other stuff either. On our way there we stopped at Black Bears again and I blew some bubbles to Donna for "enrichment". She liked them, but most of them blew towards me on my side of the fence. A few bubbles floated her way and she chased and bit them. :) Cutie.

We took the lion diets we had made, and went to feed the lions and put them to bed. I got the job of stuffing Keeno's oil pills into chunks of meat. It was hard to create a hole big enough with the knife I had. Took me a while, and during that the others had brought in the lions and pushed their meals through the chutes. We checked all the locks, etc. then left to go pick up Matt from the Bear Tower and put the Brown Bears to bed.

Earlier in the day someone had radioed that Russel had Claire (Alaskan Coastal Brown Bears) pinned in a corner and was being very aggressive towards her, so Valerie had come and put them in their separate rooms. So they were already in when we arrived at the end of the day.

SO Matt came down from the tower and we drove to the bear huts right there. Angela had me open the guillotine and call them in, "Victor, Mak, Oso- move UP!" Mak ran right in and started eating, but Victor & Oso took their sweet time. :) Sillies. Angela got some berries to entice them, but didn't end up needing to use them. After we set everything upstairs (the guillotine control area), we went down to say goodnight. I was able to give the berries out, but only Victor was interested. They have such cute lips! hehe!

After that we drove the drive-thru to make sure no guests were left and locked up all the gates. I rode in the back of the truck for this since it's so fun back there with the animals near. :)

And that is all for today!

bye for now...