So, I had the last two days off, and just relaxed, ran errands, went to dinner at the Lawrence's (volunteers I met in Bear Tower), and watched a movie with the other interns.
I worked with Angela (keeper in training) all day. We started by cleaning the Brown Bear yards. Both of us went into both yards- Angela cleaned and I spread enrichment (donuts, walnuts, fruit). Once the yards were ready we went to the hut to wake up the bears and let them out. Angela had me operate the guillotine doors to let them out. I say "Letting boys out" and once she acknowledges, I open the door and call out "Victor, Mak, Oso.. move off!" Mak raced out right away, Oso followed, but then he noticed Victor was still inside, so he went back in, then out again.. Finally Victor went out and all three crossed through the tunnel to their inner yard. Next we opened the door between the girls' rooms to see if they'd be nice to each other today. They did fine, so we let them out too- "Russel, Claire.. move off!"
After that we cleaned the hut (very smelly because last nights food was stuffed into boxes for the bears' entertainment.. and now the boxes were torn about and peed on! ew!)
We had an 11am Lion 101 Encounter to do, but first we had to go to maintenance to pick up the power washer and drop that off to Valerie & Sarah (the MAIN Carnivore lady) at the Lion hut, throw some almonds out for the Black Bears, and pick up a clicker borrowed from "the Cheetahs".
Once we rushed to finish all of that, we went to the front gate to pick up our encounter guests in the "giraffe truck". This is a tan truck with benches on the flatbed and a gate all around the people. Angela did the training and presentation, and I distracted the other lion with meat. First she trained Tau while I distracted Sarabi. Sarabi would make grumbly noises at me in anticipation of the treats. Lions can't purr, so they grumble instead! :) Then we switched lions and I distracted Tau, who is such a good boy! He lays down whenever I kneel and takes the meat from my stick so gently. :) Cutie-pies! Angela tried to get Keeno to come down from the back of his pen to do a little training, but he didn't want to. She also didn't even try with Natasha (Keeno's mate) because she is not food-motivated. (She's also 19! which is very old. Captive lions can live into their mid-twenties.)
Lunch time! I had to buy a meal because I forgot to grab my leftovers from Applebees! boohoo! But the veggie-burger was good!
After lunch we went to make all the Brown and Black bear diets. We measure out dogfood & walnuts, count specific amount of produce, and weigh a specific amount of meat for each bear. Before we finished I was asked to relieve Lion Tower for their lunch break. That was pretty relaxing. The lions just slept or strolled the whole time I was there. :)
Angela picked me up from there and we went back to QB to wash "dishes" (buckets) and make some bloodsicles and fruitsicles. This process is putting some balls of meat or squished fruits into bowls, then fill with water and freeze.
When we finished we were called to the Brown Bear hut by Valerie & Sarah- the girls (Russel & Claire) were arguing again, so they wanted more "enrichment" brought up to try and calm the girls down. I guess it worked. Sarah also gave us more dishes, so we went back to QB to wash those... blah. We put all of the bear diets that we'd made into our little car and headed to Black Bears to throw their food over the fences. Little Girl was out! She decided to take a long hibernation, so only recently started popping out now and then, and today she was actually OUT. :) Angela tosed out food for her and Little Boy & Ricky (all of those bears are in the front yard), while I tossed food over for Takoda, Chochmo, and Donna (all in the back yards). It is so cute how much smaller these bears are than the Brown Bears! :) We have to give Chochmo some fish oil capsules- Angela squishes them into an avocado- and his paws are so cute as he opens it up. :)
The end of the day had come, so now we drove the main road to close all the gates, stopping at the Brown Bear hut along the way to put them in for dinner and bed. I opened the guillotine doors again and the boys must have been so hungry because they squeezed through like seals before I even had the door all the way up! When I let the girls in, Claire seemed worried that Russel would be aggressive again, so she hesitated. We finally got her to come in, and she took one of the boxes that their food was put in and dragged it to the second room- just in case Russel would be mean! They did okay though, and hopefully will snuggle again tonight. :)
We finished closing the gates, and that was it!
I am enjoying every day, and don't mind being so busy since I am lonely when I'm NOT busy! ~sniffle~ Plus I am working with wildlife, just like I want! ^_^
bye for now...
~huggles for lonely Ash at un-busy times~
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