Day 37.
This morning we went in late in anticipation of having to stay until after dark! We arrived at 8:45, just 15 minutes before the park opens. Angela had to go to a meeting, so Sarah (MAIN Carnivore/Cheetah lady) took Amanda (a Cheetahs intern), Matt, & I to go let the Lions out. I walked the fenceline and picked up poo while Amanda sprinkled around some spices & herbs for enrichment. Sarah & Matt did this in the other pen. Then Sarah had Matt let Keeno & Natasha out the proper doors, and then I let Tau & Sarabi out their proper doors. It was like a test, cuz with Angela we look at her to make sure we're choosing the right pulleys, but I felt this time I didn't want to question myself and I just did it, and I was correct! So hopefully we impressed Sarah. hehe. Tau took his time again, sniffing around the last hallway before going into his pen. He took long enough that Sarah got the hose and threatened to spray him. He still didn't go, so she DID spray him, and he STILL didn't go! He ended up getting a nice shower, kept closing his eyes and putting a paw up in protest of the water, but he kept walking back into it! He put up such a good fight, but eventually went outside to escape the shower. SHEESH!
My next job was to go alone to QB to pick up the Brown Bear breakfasts, clean their yards, and throw out the breakfasts. Angela was supposed to meet up with me to help let them out. Well, when I arrived at the Brown Bear exhibit there was a line of almost 10 cars! I unlocked the gate and went in, then quickly unlocked each yard gate to go in and run around looking for trash and also throwing the breakfasts. I did this as quickly as possible while the cars all waited. Then I ran back to the hut to prepare Russell's meds (put in Swiss Rolls!) and waited for Angela. I called to ask if I could just let the Grizzly boys out since everything was ready for them, but was told to wait. Poor guests had to wait about 15 more minutes... Eventually Sarah showed up cuz Angela was still in a meeting. I released the boys and the cars were allowed to enter the area to see them. Once they crossed through the tunnel into their own yard, Sarah shut the tunnel and prepared the gates to the Girls' yard. I waited another minute for Angela to finally show up and we gave Russell her meds and released the girls into their yard too. whew!
I was left at the hut to clean it alone, which I actually like since it's some nice alone time and I think I clean it very efficiently when I'm by myself. Afterward, I took a few minutes to take off my boots and sit in front of one of the large fans (used to dry the floors) and cool off a bit.
When Angela & Matt finished their encounter they called and Angela was pleasantly surprised that I was already done cleaning and I met them at QB to prepare midday enrichment for all of the Bears. This didn't take too long since we'd been given some Rhea eggs for this purpose, and we just made a bucket of nuts and croutons too. Matt went to give the Brown Bears' eggs to them, and Angela & I went to give the Black Bears their eggs, croutons, and nuts. They didn't seem very interested in the eggs! Donna, Takoda, & Chochmo sniffed them and walked away.. Chochmo pushed on one and cracked it, but he only sniffed the contents and walked away again. Oh well!
My next job was to go alone to QB to pick up the Brown Bear breakfasts, clean their yards, and throw out the breakfasts. Angela was supposed to meet up with me to help let them out. Well, when I arrived at the Brown Bear exhibit there was a line of almost 10 cars! I unlocked the gate and went in, then quickly unlocked each yard gate to go in and run around looking for trash and also throwing the breakfasts. I did this as quickly as possible while the cars all waited. Then I ran back to the hut to prepare Russell's meds (put in Swiss Rolls!) and waited for Angela. I called to ask if I could just let the Grizzly boys out since everything was ready for them, but was told to wait. Poor guests had to wait about 15 more minutes... Eventually Sarah showed up cuz Angela was still in a meeting. I released the boys and the cars were allowed to enter the area to see them. Once they crossed through the tunnel into their own yard, Sarah shut the tunnel and prepared the gates to the Girls' yard. I waited another minute for Angela to finally show up and we gave Russell her meds and released the girls into their yard too. whew!
I was left at the hut to clean it alone, which I actually like since it's some nice alone time and I think I clean it very efficiently when I'm by myself. Afterward, I took a few minutes to take off my boots and sit in front of one of the large fans (used to dry the floors) and cool off a bit.
When Angela & Matt finished their encounter they called and Angela was pleasantly surprised that I was already done cleaning and I met them at QB to prepare midday enrichment for all of the Bears. This didn't take too long since we'd been given some Rhea eggs for this purpose, and we just made a bucket of nuts and croutons too. Matt went to give the Brown Bears' eggs to them, and Angela & I went to give the Black Bears their eggs, croutons, and nuts. They didn't seem very interested in the eggs! Donna, Takoda, & Chochmo sniffed them and walked away.. Chochmo pushed on one and cracked it, but he only sniffed the contents and walked away again. Oh well!
At lunchtime I sat alone, purposefully, to relax and read the rest of my book! I've now finished 4 books from the series The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency!
After lunch I went to QB to prepare all of the Bear dinners (forgot to pit the avocados! had to go back later and take them out) and wash "dishes". I set up the dinners in Brown Bear hut, but the Black Bears couldn't have theirs yet because the film crew wanted to get shots of them! If we fed them, they'd just go to sleep afterward! We did give them a small snack though. And then I cleaned two of their yards and scrubbed a pool. I finished this work before Angela came back, so I just sat there near the young ones (Donna, Takoda, Chochmo) in the shade and relaxed.
While waiting I heard on the radio "we got our shot!"- I think they were at the Elephants! Then later I heard "they're working on the hippo right now" from the park Director. How exciting! I still waited for a long while so that Angela could help me lift the pool I'd cleaned to drain the dirt out. I actually tried several times to lift it myself, but I couldn't do it, and I didn't want to hurt myself! When she showed up she checked over my work, helped me rinse the pool, then we went together to go put the Lions up. The Lions all went in pretty quickly and easily! Hungry Lions. :)
While waiting I heard on the radio "we got our shot!"- I think they were at the Elephants! Then later I heard "they're working on the hippo right now" from the park Director. How exciting! I still waited for a long while so that Angela could help me lift the pool I'd cleaned to drain the dirt out. I actually tried several times to lift it myself, but I couldn't do it, and I didn't want to hurt myself! When she showed up she checked over my work, helped me rinse the pool, then we went together to go put the Lions up. The Lions all went in pretty quickly and easily! Hungry Lions. :)
I got a treat after this! Matt & I were to learn how to walk Ellie, the Cheetah Dog!- she was raised with Sanurra the Cheetah who was a single cub. She's an Anatolian Shepherd. Amanda, the Cheetah intern, told us where we could walk her, how she walks (pulling!), a few training tricks, and to keep her away from kids and other dogs! We all walked her together down the road and to the river where she played in the water a bit and sniffed around. Amanda let me take the leash on the way down there. :) I was so happy walking and petting a dog! On our walk back up to the park, Amanda had the leash and Ellie kept trying to walk around me- tangling me up! We walked her back to her pen in the Cheetah area. Amanda showed us how to put her away, and when we'd finished we realized the door on the other side was open! The Cheetah keepers had left it open for us to put her in, but didn't tell us their plans! Ugh! We caught her fairly easily, and then put her into Sanurra's pen (switch for the night). The keepers need to work on their communication! They admitted they'd just thought of the switch, but for some reason expected US to radio THEM for those details, instead of just radioing to us about it themselves. sheesh...
After that little fiasco, Amanda & I went to wash remaining dishes and go sit in the office to eat our dinners. We got a nice break before the film crew came back to the park. Then we went to meet them at the Black Bear exhibit! Angela & I were extra excited! They weren't filming audio, so we didn't have to worry about making noise. Their truck was parked in front of the adults' (Ricky, Little Boy, Little Girl) yard, with their camera on a tripod on the bed of the truck. We were all pretty quiet while we watched. The cameraman asked Sarah if she could coax Ricky into moving certain ways, and Ricky mostly obliged since berries were being tossed his way! They did get a lot of butt shots, but they sounded pretty satisfied in his foraging. :) They said they were good, and wanted to try to get some Elk footage, so Dan (park Director) took them over to find the Elk herd. Angela & I ran to QB (nearby) to grab the Black Bear dinners and feed them finally! We entered the yard that the kids (Donna, Takoda, Chochmo) were locked out of, and scattered their food all around, then let them into that yard too. Then we quickly threw out the adults' dinners to them, and excitedly ran back to our truck so we wouldn't miss seeing more of the film crew! I think we were the most excited about this! Amanda actually said it was kind of boring- guess she didn't know what to expect..?
Well, we finished feeding them just in time, as the film crew had just finished filming the Elk! We had to lock some gates behind them while they drove over to the Cheetah area, but we only arrived 5 minutes after them. It was dark by then, and our truck only had one headlight and a dirty windshield! Kind of scary, but still pretty cool to drive through the park at night! Very different. We parked outside the Cheetah area and ran up the hill, still very excited! EEK! :) They had parked their truck on the Cheetah road that runs between Cheetah pens. They set up their camera just so, so that they didn't get any fences in the shot. The two female Cheetahs that they were trying to film wouldn't come up! Sarah was throwing chunks of meat which hit the grass with a thud, but only one girl slinked up to it, then went back and sat still again. Behind us, in another pen, a male Cheetah named Hulets had come down to the fenceline and started making grumbly noises. He was wondering what we were doing! The film crew thought it'd be easy to get good shots of him, but the fence was so high! The cameraman figured out an angle where he couldn't see the fence, and shot in night-vision. The viewing screen was big enough for us to stand behind him and see too. SO COOL! Another guy had a hand-held thing that I guess takes measurements of some sort? And a guy who I think was the director, was holding a little laptop thing where he could also see the footage and press record when he wanted to. This guy actually reminded me of Qlint with his blue eyes, cool hat and jacket, and being a film guy! :) Hulets was quite cooperative, eating chunks that were thrown. The cameraman asked Sarah to get him to walk a bit, so she threw a chunk further off and I watched in the night-vision screen as Hulets slowly got up and crept towards the chunk of meat, then laid down to eat it. He actually turned to look at us at one point which everyone thought was such a good shot! Satisfied with Cheetahs, we wrapped everything there up and Angela & I went to open all the gates for them to drive back through. There was an Emu waiting with us at the last Cheetah gate, so I kept an eye on it while Angela held the gate for the film truck to pass through. We said goodbye and headed to the office.
I wished my adventure with the film crew could continue as they were going to the Village area to film a few more animals in the dark, but nobody else was continuing with them, and Angela didn't think we could. It was already 10pm too. We finished our daily log report, sent it in, and drove home. What an awesome adventure to have watched a film crew at the park! and help a little too! Their commercial will be to sell the camera that they were using, so they wanted cool animal footage to show off the camera's skills. :) Hopefully we will all see this commercial soon in the future!
Well, we finished feeding them just in time, as the film crew had just finished filming the Elk! We had to lock some gates behind them while they drove over to the Cheetah area, but we only arrived 5 minutes after them. It was dark by then, and our truck only had one headlight and a dirty windshield! Kind of scary, but still pretty cool to drive through the park at night! Very different. We parked outside the Cheetah area and ran up the hill, still very excited! EEK! :) They had parked their truck on the Cheetah road that runs between Cheetah pens. They set up their camera just so, so that they didn't get any fences in the shot. The two female Cheetahs that they were trying to film wouldn't come up! Sarah was throwing chunks of meat which hit the grass with a thud, but only one girl slinked up to it, then went back and sat still again. Behind us, in another pen, a male Cheetah named Hulets had come down to the fenceline and started making grumbly noises. He was wondering what we were doing! The film crew thought it'd be easy to get good shots of him, but the fence was so high! The cameraman figured out an angle where he couldn't see the fence, and shot in night-vision. The viewing screen was big enough for us to stand behind him and see too. SO COOL! Another guy had a hand-held thing that I guess takes measurements of some sort? And a guy who I think was the director, was holding a little laptop thing where he could also see the footage and press record when he wanted to. This guy actually reminded me of Qlint with his blue eyes, cool hat and jacket, and being a film guy! :) Hulets was quite cooperative, eating chunks that were thrown. The cameraman asked Sarah to get him to walk a bit, so she threw a chunk further off and I watched in the night-vision screen as Hulets slowly got up and crept towards the chunk of meat, then laid down to eat it. He actually turned to look at us at one point which everyone thought was such a good shot! Satisfied with Cheetahs, we wrapped everything there up and Angela & I went to open all the gates for them to drive back through. There was an Emu waiting with us at the last Cheetah gate, so I kept an eye on it while Angela held the gate for the film truck to pass through. We said goodbye and headed to the office.
I wished my adventure with the film crew could continue as they were going to the Village area to film a few more animals in the dark, but nobody else was continuing with them, and Angela didn't think we could. It was already 10pm too. We finished our daily log report, sent it in, and drove home. What an awesome adventure to have watched a film crew at the park! and help a little too! Their commercial will be to sell the camera that they were using, so they wanted cool animal footage to show off the camera's skills. :) Hopefully we will all see this commercial soon in the future!
Bye for now...
Next two days off to do housework and planning my family's visit! ^_^
So awesome. It IS fun to watch a film crew! ^_^
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