like all things, they come to an end

I can't believe the summer has ended! :( I will definitely miss the zoo and Omaha. This whole summer has been such an amazing experience. I have learned so much more than I was expecting. I was able to make some new friends, both humans and zoo animals, build memories and skills I would need to be in the zoology field. Achieving this summer's internship was just one part of my journey to complete my degree as a piece of my life. However, like I also learned as well, I am still only at the beginning. There is still a lot of work to be done. Now I need to make even bigger goals to keep my drive and spirit going.

Sad day leaving the zoo :(

Even though I am at home now, but not for long, it still has not hit me yet that the zoo is over. I miss all of my animal and human friends! However, they are all still with me in my heart. I'll never forget my experiences with them all. They all shaped and helped me learn all the ins-and-outs of the zoo life. But don't worry though, the same Jill everybody knew before I left is still there. She just got a little bit of exotic animal in her though. I'll have to show the humans how to "move it, movie it" like we do in the exhibit, Expedition Madagascar. I'll sure miss those lemurs!

Like all things, they do come to an end eventually, but at least we can start a new good thing. I look forward to my Sr. year of college and fulfilling new goals as mentioned before. I also do look forward to completing the connections I have made in Omaha and bring it back to UW-Platteville to help our university become a stronger department in Zoology. If I can pull this off, it would be awesome way to say, "thank you," to my school and help our Biology/Zoology department grow.

Now I guess it's back to the other side of the Midwest and normal clothes. However, I'll still keep that wild heart! Until we meet again Omaha!

hanging out with the head trainer and behavist

So today was a really fun day. I got to hang out with the zoo's famous animal behaviorist and trainer, Jay Pratte. Before this experience, I thought I had a good idea of what his role is here. Luckily, I did have a good idea, however, not all of it. To start off our day, we started training the two main African lions, Mr. Big and Nala, their target training. After warming them up, we started to train them so we could get their tails to come over to us so we can take blood samples. This was really cool to watch. The lions had a total different behavior in the back holding compared to their public display areas.

After the lions, we then moved to the Malaysian tiger. This was really interesting to watch since the tiger, Mia, only had three legs. One of hers got amputated due to poaching before she was brought to the zoo. She was too mangled up and in order to save her life, the procedure had to be done. Even though this is not the ideal way of living, Mia does get around pretty well and can still be persistent through training. She is a trooper!

After this, we went over to hoofstock and got to hang out with the giraffes. What a character they are. The keeper area is located right where the giraffes can put their head over the ledge to give us a nudge to ask us for some treats. We did needle injection training here.

We then ventured over to the aquarium. Here, we did target feeding with the sting rays and zebra sharks. Here I observed that every animal is different. Each one has it's own characteristics and personality. It is important to work with animals on a regular basis so you could notice if there is any change in behavior.  I especially saw this when we were target feeding the African painted wild dogs.

The dogs are located under the gazebo that got taken down that I mentioned in a previous blog. There were bats in there and we tried to clear them out before it got torn down. This event effected the dogs since it was a lot of commotion up the hill for them. Since then, the dogs have not been in their regular routine for training. From this event, this changed their behavior. The keepers need to spend some extra time to make sure that they are cognitively all right and are able to bounce back to their A-game.

After a long day of training, we ended our training at the komodo dragon. This guy is super smart. He knows how to do target training. However, he doesn't know his station very well when he approaches the open window. Some advice that I heard Jay tell the keepers was possibly setting a log by the window so that he knows his exact location of his station instead of being half way through the display window.

After the day is over, I learned so much from Jay. He has really put things into perspective in what I want to do. After observing and asking questions all day, some things that he really stressed that if I want to do this is to get experience. Experience is very valuable. Without his multiple experiences, he even mentions that he would not have this job today. So far what I have done in my life is great, but I still need to do more since this kind of job is so competitive. Hopefully through my time paying my dues and getting experience, I can pull it off and be like Jay Pratte! :)

Another thing I learned is that it is very important to maintain positive reinforcement when training. If not all of the keepers are not on the same level when trying to perform a task, the animal could lose interest and the task to be trained becomes harder. You should never give up, should always be patient, treat every animal as a unique individual and respect their needs. After using these requirements, training becomes a lot easier and fun!

As you all are probably wondering, why would I like to do training? Well, Jay put it in very good words and I can totally relate and agree with him. I like how the Omaha Zoo, Jay and I are on a mission to have training serve as a means of providing a positive experience in every animal's lives. We need to unlock the code that the animals are trying to tell us what they need so then we can therefore provide a better life for them. It is a learning process for both sides coming from the animals and the keepers. Also, training helps the animals gain enrichment for ways of getting their diet and help out when the veterinarians need to do anything with the animals. It makes the animal more comfortable with us and the procedure we need to do with them.

All of this was just a wonderful day. I hope that I can continue the quest as did Jay in his experiences and end up like him someday. Today has definitely put things into perspective for me on what I want to do. It's amazing how much he inspired me by allowing me to tag along and shadow him. I hope one day I can do the same in his position and inspire another intern who was in my spot. We need more people like Jay. Together, we can education the world on how important animals are and by being educated on this, we can save our animal friends and live in harmony with them! :)

saving bats. one bat at a time

So after work, I usually spend my time out for a run in the zoo and try to keep updated on my blog. When my roommate Rebecca comes home, she says that the zoo could use our help. I was more than happy to help out. It turns out that the zoo has this old gazebo that is not part of display anymore that a tree had fallen on and they are going to tear it down. It may be an eyesore to the public, but a nice little home for large brown nose bats. Despite their name, these little guys are quite small.  On a one night notice, the job needed to get done.

When I arrived at the site, it wasn't quite dark out yet. Since we had to wait until it at least got dark, the keepers were nice enough to give us something for our diet, pizza! :) Unfortunately, this did not draw the attention of the bats to come out and try some with us.

After we were done devouring our pizza,  it started getting dark. Some bats started flying out which was good because this is what we wanted them to do. However, we still needed to get the rest out and keep them out. We started sealing off the gazebo with plastic furniture covers. Even though this isn't the ideal method of doing this, this is all we could do on a one night notice. After a hour or so of sweating from the humidity, stories over the summer and quality bonding time between the interns, keepers and myself, we finally got the place sealed out. However, we still had another task to complete.

As cute as the bats were, there were still a few stubborn bats who did not want to leave. We had to check every crevice in the ceiling and try to take them out and release them. As soon as we thought we were done, we would find more. I thought the night was never going to end! By 12 AM we were finally able to get them all out. This is good news to us since we were expecting a 25% death rate of all the bats living there.

By morning, we were all gone and so were the bats, except for one unfortunately. However, this is better than the expected 25%. In the end, we saved a lot of bats before the gazebo was torn down. Even though this was a very unexpected experience, to me it was a learning experience of what duties are called as a keeper. Sometimes they call for late nights, long hours, patience and unexpected events. Even though that saving the bats were not important to the people tearing the gazebo down, it at least made our saving crews' night and could sleep better knowing that we saved a bunch of bats. :)

lemur days!

So during my typical day at Madagascar, the fun never ends. Like always, my favorite part of the day is preparing enrichment and training. One would think that these activities would be for the animals. However, that day was different. When I was target training the lemurs, I was in for a turn in events.  It all started out normal until when we were about to be done. It turns out that I was in for a treat for some training. One of my favorite lemurs, Teddy, a black and white lemur, was my lemur to train for the day. He was very good at all of the commands I asked of him. On my last command, I made him hold on to a vine as a give him a push as if he was on a swing. Teddy always likes this and so does the audience from the board walk above. As he passed me a couple a times, he was successful to holding on. However, one time Teddy came around and ended up accidentally runs into me. Fortunately, I was able to catch myself instead of sliding down the hillside. When I thought that recovery was over, I hear another black and white lemur laughing at me. This made the audience laugh and the other zookeepers. Eventually, I had to join along. All of this makes my day. I guess the lemurs are starting to like me :P.

member's day and meeting a new friend

Member's day is a very fun day at the zoo. It is a day that the zoo would like to thank their members by having extended hours, activities, chance to see some back holdings and enrichment. For me, I helped out the most with enrichment. We made lots of ice treats that had fruit or meat. We even made new toys for the foosas that was covered in lemur scents and fish blood. The foosas were very excited for this! Not only was this fun and a learning experience for the public, but I definitely took a lot of this day.

Throughout Member's Day, we were fortunate enough to have someone who volunteers to talk about the country of Madagascar. He just recently came back to Omaha in July after spending the last 5 years of his life there. After speaking with him, I have also learned a lot about Madagascar. Something I learned was that lemurs actually can be found through fossils all around the world. However, the chimps drove them out and became dominant, except for Madagascar. Since Madagascar became an island, the chimps could not get to the lemurs, therefore, letting the lemurs thrive! Another cool fact I learned from him is that especially for the ring-tailed lemurs, they are more adaptable in all parts of the world in terms of environment the live in compared to the other lemurs. After listening to all of these cool facts, I took initiative to talk to this person and tell him about our school, University of Wisconsin-Platteville. I hope that since he would like to make programs to teach people out in Madagascar, I can try to make connections through him and our school. Hopefully something turns out!

macaques

So during Member's Day, I helped out the Jungle and close down the exhibit. During this closing, we stopped by our South America back holding. We have two macaques there. Since we were feeding out, I always like to hand feed them through the enclosure. This was a cool experience because it is not every day that somebody gets to shake hands or feet with a primate. Macaques are among one of the most intelligent primates. With some negotiation of bananas and other fruit, I was able to give a command, "hand," before I fed him. The macaque was very cooperative and gave me his hand with a good hand shake. He also gave me his foot to shake as well. This was super cool!  

feeding, training and future plans

Expedition Madagascar has been so much fun. My greatest challenge is learning all of the animals names! So far, I have done lots of cleaning, feeding and training...like always. Madagascar has animals that I can get close and even interact with. Today, I got to feed our hog-nose snakes snakes some rats. This was a thrilling experience since I have never done this before. Snakes are really fast and very strong. Fortunately, our male hog-nose is very friendly and likes to slither between my hands and arms; sometimes all over me while I clean their display!

In addition to training, I train our lemurs every day. We use a PVC pipe as a target indicator, make the lemurs touch this with their nose and use a training clicker to let them know they did something right. We also use raisins as a tasty reward. However, we don't give them raisins every time so that they do not become dependent only on treats for a reward. When we train, we try to get them familiar with staying still on weight scales, a stand to receive a puncture from a needle and many more exercises. We do this because we want to make sure our lemurs are ready for anything we need them to do instead of being new to a certain procedure we need them to do. This is my favorite part of the day! :) I also like training since lemurs tend to me known as pick pocketers. They tend to sneak up behind me or crawl up my lag to steal some raisins from my pocket stash. Despite their rude manners, their cuteness overrides this.

Even though my summer is coming to an end, I feel like I have really found my niche in life is. I love the zoo atmosphere! Since I love doing this kind of work so much, I have already applied to get next summer's plans come to life. Hopefully I will receive another internship next summer here or in Denver, CO, or receive a summer keeper job in Omaha. Wish me luck!

I apologize for not having many pictures lately, but most of my work consists of "behind the scenes" in which I cannot show, however, I do have one picture from today that I can share with a lemur. I hope you like it!

an end is a new beginning

The Jungle was quite the experience! I cannot believe how much I have learned and got to do. I feel very blessed and lucky to have such an opportunity. My hard work and goals finally became a reality. Despite my last day was last Friday, I decided to go back and help out on Saturday even though that is my only day off. I cannot get away from the Jungle! I accomplished most of my goals that I wanted to do in the Jungle. I finished Jing's enrichment device (a new toy) for him and it was a strategic success, learn about the life of a zookeeper for all types of animals and meet some awesome zookeepers. They are such a crew! Even though my time there is done, I want to go back on Saturdays to help out still if I can. The only goal I have left is to get a painting down by Jing. I hope it all works out!

With all of the skills I learned in the Jungle, it has definitely made my life easier now that I've started in Expedition Madagascar. The same cleaning, diet prep and providing enrichment is very similar. So far, the only new things I have yet to master is getting to know the Madagascar crew and all of my new animal friends. So far, their personalities is the only thing I have in order to distinct between them all! In addition, I hope to learn even more in my next chapter of the summer. I only have 25 more days left until I'm back in the 563 and 608!

end of chapter 1

Tomorrow is my last day in the Jungle. I can't believe the time has already arrived. I feel like the animals knew about my departure. Lucky let me scratch her back and one of the howler monkeys let me play with her too. I will miss all of my animals. However, I look forward to meeting new friends and learning in Madagascar.

Today I had to work and was really fun. I got a chance to learn how to operate a steam train! Check me out on the job!

I hope Madagascar is ready for me on Monday!

a friendly visit

On my day off, I was fortunate to enough to have my adviser, Dr. Jeff Huebschmann to stop by in Omaha. I really enjoyed this since I could show him where I have been working this whole time. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time for me to show him the whole zoo and the line was too long to see the Kingdoms of the Night. This complex had his one and only favorite animal, bats.  However, he did enjoy the areas that I am currently interning at now and where I will be in two weeks for the remainder of the summer. Throughout the day, we talked about how cool this internship is and how this experience will really earn me competitive brownie points on my resume.....I mean, make me a good candidate for a future job. Jeff seemed to be really impressed by how much the zoo has changed the last time he has been there to now, how I know all the animals by name and be able to tell who is making the noises. In addition, we also talked about how I could possibly be a guest speaker to our university's biology club or talk to other biology students and inspire them to get involved with their major. I hope my achievements during my collegiate career will give UW-Platteville a good name and help others obtain their dream career.

new kids on the block

So it's another day at the zoo. After our morning meeting to start off our day, I went to start cleaning our howler room. When I got there, I was told to go outside first. When I did, I found three cute and little pacas in kennels in the back of our truck. The three pacas were just shipped in from San Diego. Here is what they look like from Google.

Before we let the howlers, sakis and squirrel monkeys out, I had to observe how the three new pacas were adapting to their new home. They were a bit timid at first to their surroundings, but then eventually came out of their hiding spots and started to run around. These guys are very small as full grown, they like to be under bushes or underground. Even though these guys are cute, they can be aggressive. As I walked around them, they seemed to not mind me, but I still considered the new information and kept a distance. After observing these guys for a while, I was called back to start cleaning the back holding. After cleaning that out, we set out the howlers, sakis and squirrel monkeys. After doing that, I was sent out to observe again for an hour. 

This was very interesting since the primates were not expecting new neighbors. The pacas were very intimidated by the primates' curiosity and the pacas hid in the bushes for quite some time. For a long time, I could not find the pacas. However, the primates gave away where they were at by staring at certain locations that indicated to me where they were hiding. Eventually, the pacas were brave enough to roam around their new home with the other primates around. This made me feel better that this display and zoo would be a good home for them. 

During this activity, I learned a lot about observation. Observing is a very useful skill to know how to use since it can give you so much information. As mentioned before, I talked about how I observed their behavior among the new environment for the pacas at first and then the interaction between the pacas and primates. Something else that I did observe is how they manage to get their water, food and where they feel more comfortable at within the display. Since they like to run, we had to clear some pathways so then they could run without running into anything. We also had to put their food under the bushes since they prefer to be there. In addition, we had to lay down a log to get from the higher tier to the low tier since they cannot jump from one another. We also had to put a water bowl out for them since getting their water from the water fall was too difficult for them to reach. 

After making all of these adjustments, I hope the three new friends can live happily here at our zoo.  All that is left to do is picking out names for them! I hope we can pick something good!

going for a run

A way to keep in shape while I am out here with a lack of knowledge still to the city, I like to run around the zoo when it is closed. That way, nobody can notice how bad of a runner I am, I am not running people over  and nobody thinks that I am running away from a loose animal. Running in the after hours is very peaceful and is quite a different atmosphere than the open hours. Most of the animals are back in their back holdings while some are still on their outside display. I feel this really cool connection with all the animals around the whole zoo since they are beginning to recognize me. When I take my break, I always like to spare a few minutes by the big cats. 

As the sun begins to die down, all of the animals are entering their nocturnal behavior. As the peacocks are making their strange bird noises, the orangutans and other primates are howling. However, my favorite sound to hear when the voices of the night appear are from the big cats. As they are getting ready for their sleep, they like to stretch. While they stretch, they let out this big yawn that turns into a roar. They continue to roar for a few minutes and quiet down. Within a few minutes, they continue to roar again. There is something about these big cats' roar that does not get old to me, unlike some of the primates and peacocks. They were cute at first, but can get a bit annoying. 

Hearing the big cats roar is such an amazing feeling. It really does give you a sense of how big they are. I never get a chance to hear them roar in the day. They save it all for the night when no one is around. I feel really lucky to witness this. At this point, all I can do is savor the moments while I get to witness the very unique experience. Hopefully someday, I can learn some more and/or witness other cool things about the big cats.  

tiger rat snakes

So on Friday, the 14th, I was helping out full clean out a display. This display was a different experience since the zoo let me get my hands dirty in a display that contains animals that are not as friendly. The animal I had to clean their display for were the tiger rat snakes. Sorry that I do not have a picture, but here is a picture of what they look like on Google. Ironically after finding this photo, this photo was uploaded from somebody who took this shot from the Omaha Zoo! How ironic, eh?!

Aren't these guys so cute?! I love the way their prints look. A fun fact about these guys is that they can almost reach to be as long as 10 feet long! Also, as aggressive as they are, they used to be known to be completely nonvenomous, but recent studies shown that they have a very small amount of venom. Either way, one should always still be careful around any animal no matter how cute they are. ALL animals can be very unpredictable when you least expect it.

Anyways, while I was cleaning out the tiger rat snakes' display, this brought a lot of attention from the people on the other side of the display window. While some people thought I was really cool cleaning in a small room with these snakes, there were really big tough guys who couldn't handle watching me perform my tasks. They were pacing back and forth barely able to watch me while they bring their friends over to show them their disbelief. This made me feel really cool since only so many few people get this kind of opportunity. However, I had to keep all of that distraction behind me since my main concern was being able to get my job cleaning their display done all while watching the snakes instead of what I was doing or any other distractions. Even though the snakes seemed a bit threatening from time to time, I had to be patient working around them by stopping whatever I was cleaning and back off. When the snakes were ready for me to proceed cleaning again, I stepped back in the display still keeping an eye on them. After a patient amount of time cleaning, I was able to finish cleaning out their display. After exiting their backdoor to the snakes, I had the audience who was watching me asking all of these questions and how I am ever able to have the guts to get in with all these kinds of animals with ease.

To me, this makes me reflect on the whole summer and how I get to work on these amazing animals. I feel really blessed to be here and how much of an opportunity it is to be able to say that I get to work with animals that most people don't even dare to even consider with. This makes me feel like I am an individual that people admire and have a great deal of respect for. In reality, if it wasn't for the people like myself who have an interest in this field, the animals would most likely not have a great future in their (hands, claws, fins, etc.), the public would not be as aware of the reason why we need to preserve and know how to respect these animals. I'll agree that being a intern keeper is not the most glamorous job, but we do risk our safety for these animals so that the animals have a good life while educating people why they are important. 

Bitter sweet

When we think of a Pygmy Slow Loris, images of super cute little ones comes to our thoughts. Today, I got to full clean out the Slow Loris. I apologize for not having pictures of me cleaning, but here is a cute picture of a loris if you do not know what it looks like off of Google.

They are definitely on my "Top Cute Animals" list. We have two of them in our Jungle. The female is very shy, however, the male is very curious. As I was cleaning their display, he had a urge to keep following me and try to pull off my protective glasses. He even followed me all over the display and made it hard for me to keep doing my job. He was also pretty quick despite his name. This seemed to draw a lot of attention from people on the other side of the display. People were taking pictures of the both of us as I was trying to clean as he kept chasing me around.

 These guys like to have their fruits and veggies in their diets. I make sure they eat their veggies first since they tend to only like the fruits more. Picky eaters they are! These guys can be hard to find though since they do not move around a lot. You can find them clinging onto a branch or to another loris. If you would hand them some food, they will hold onto their branch and try to reach as far as they can to get it and pull it back to themselves in a very shy way. How can anyone not think these guys are cute yet?! However, you would need to be careful when feeding them since sometimes they like to bite you if you give them the chance. In other words, as cute as they are, these guys are bitter sweet since their cuteness is overwhelming, however, they do like to bite. The male tried to bite me as he was trying to climb on my back and steal my protective glasses and almost bit my ear instead. Either way, these guys are easy to love and forgive. I hope I can work with them again!

Operation: Power Outage

I had a really nice start to my day. My father and his girlfriend came to visit me and the zoo. Even though letting me pursue this internship was a tough call for my family, my father could see why this opportunity was one not to turn down. After showing them how awesome of a place this zoo is, they left. :( I then went back to work in the Jungle like I would have any other day. The rest of the day went as smooth as it always is. I did more cleaning for the messy gibbon family, make new enrichment for other animals, and do some diet preparations like cutting up fish. The fish scent tends to stay with me until I take a shower. I would not recommend keeping the fish scent as your choice of perfume! After my afternoon shift was over, I asked if I could stick around and see what else there is new to learn in by helping out the closing keeper, Kyle, what it is like to close the zoo.

Shortly after we started closing down, the power went out. Since we were underground, it was VERY dark. Not a crack of light was to be seen anywhere. Luckily, Kyle had his flashlight. This was pretty useful for this situation. After struggling to find each other, we eventually do and our plans for a normal closing night is now skewed to solve a power outage problem. Kyle ordered me to check the DO levels (dissolved oxygen) first since the power stopped circulating the water flow. Since there was no water flow, this threw off the DO levels and could kill off some animals living there. Luckily, the levels were not affected too much.

The next thing on the list to make sure was getting back in order was by  check the water falls. Other than their their beauty to add to the jungle theme, the waterfalls are important because it helps prevent primates from going to other parts of the jungle. Most primates do not like water and try to avoid it. Since the waterfalls were turned off, this could create a problem that would allow the primates to go where they shouldn't. Luckily, none of the primates did not go where they should not have.

After taking care of that, we had to make sure all of the heat lamps would turn back on. A lot of the reptiles and amphibians need the heat lamps since living in a jungle is not our normal room temperature.

While I am trying to move as quickly as I can and hoping that the power comes back, the animals were stressed since complete silence is not normally in their habitat. They knew something was up. We lastly tried to get all of the animals back in their back holdings. This was hard since losing power and created an unusual environment stressed them out. All of the animals were very vocal at this point. However, with enough patience, compensation of treats and friendliness, all of the animals were safely put back in their back holdings.

All in all, it was a very long evening after a long day earlier to get all of this done. However, instead of just learning how to close down the Jungle, I got to learn how to follow through a procedure in case if there was a power outage!

The work that I do continues to be the same as far as cleaning, developing enrichment and making sure there's no animals on the loose. However, this animal (myself) got out on the loose from the zoo and escaped to see the famous downtown Omaha. 

With the only one and famous, Chef Bioardi

 They have a lot of nice cars

Durham Museum

This city has a lot of history behind it and diversity behind it. Since working here in Omaha, I got a chance to take a picture with a car that came from all the way from Alaska!

People come from all over the US and the world to see Omaha. Even when I am working the front gate at the Omaha Zoo, I have seen people coming from Mexico, Europe and even Australia! It is so cool to see all these different people come to Omaha and the zoo. Some highlights of downtown Omaha is the Century Link building. They hold Olympic swim trials here.  If only I could swim that fast! I also visited the famous Pedestrian Bridge. It goes from Nebraska to Iowa. 

 Approaching the Pedestrian Bridge

 View of Omaha from the bridge

 In two places at the same time!

 View of Omaha from Council Bluffs, IA

View of the famous downtown Omaha

Two of many of Omaha's famous buildings

Even though there is a lot of diversity in Omaha, there is something that I have found that this city does share something very similar for each other. The first thing Omaha has in common with each other is their love of baseball. The College World Series actually used to be placed in the parking lot of the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo called Rosenblatt. Rosenblatt is a historical idol to Omaha since Rosenblatt was a native to Omaha and played baseball and eventually spent his later life voluteering his life to service for his community. Since many people were upset about that going down, a new place was selected in downtown Omaha to hold The College World series. In replacement of the original location, a smaller field as a memorial was built just in two weeks to honor the original Rosenblatt College World Series location. It marks off the original  home plate, three bases, original lines to the field posts, and the original sign that was on top of the score board. Unfortunately, I could not take a picture quite yet. However, when I was downtown, I did come across this!

Another thing that the people of Omaha have in common is their service to our country. Omaha has a very strong involvement with active duty. The reason why Omaha is so active in service is because Omaha holds lots of air bases here. Omaha recognizes the people who participate in service throughout the city. 

Unfortunately, all of these were underwater due to flooding last year. However, they stand strong today. I feel that the pictures speak for themselves about the feelings the people of Omaha have about serving our country. Seeing all of these monuments has really moved me and I grow a great respect for the people who live here and what they do. 

Even though I may have not wrote much in this blog entry about the shananigans happening in the zoo, I do feel like having this experience outside the zoo has taught me a lot about what kind of community the Omaha Zoo has to provide.Check my facebook to see my videos since my blogger doesn't like to upload them.  Enjoy, comment, and share!

Getting things going

Hey Everybody,

Living in Omaha for almost two weeks has really been quite the experience. I have learned so much more already. Coming from Platteville, I definitely feel like this prairie dog.

Omaha is a big city with lots of diversity. However, I am excited that there is just as much diversity with the animals I get to work with. As you can see, I am working hard at work! My first order of business is showing you guys my new ride to work every day and my new home since I finally got some time to take some pictures and be able to share. 

Just kidding, I walk to work every day. It is not that far. Also, do not worry. I have plenty of work to do while I am here. I just took the weekend off to see the jungle for myself. 

This week, I have done a lot of things. Usually the first thing I do to start my morning is to take a DO (dissolved oxygen) calculator and take records of all the different water areas around the jungle to make sure that they were in the 70-85% DO level.  It is critical to make sure for this type of habitat to not be out of range for the animals who strive here. They cannot tolerate anything less or above these levels. Another task I would usually do in the morning is make sure the displays are nice and clean from the outside. One of my favorite displays to visit while I do this is my pygmy tamarins. They remind me of little Einsteins. As adorable as these guys are, they will only be friends with me with a compensation of grapes. Luckily, this guy let me take his picture! :)

After I am done with my morning tasks, I have to clean out more displays and back holdings (where they stay when not in display). Within this week, I cleaned for three pygmy hippos, Mochel, Scooby, and their 3 month old Ralph's back holding and display. Below is a picture of Mochel and Ralph. Arn't they cute?! To me, they are more like over-sized dogs since they like to hang their tongue out, wag their tail and ears, and also  being curious about you. As Mochel and Ralph were keeping the crowds busy on display, Scooby was patient enough to withstand my singing in the back holdings while I was cleaning. 

We clean most of the back holdings and displays with bleach and soap. However, some animals make an exception. If we were to go and clean the howler monkey room, we have to use a special chemical once in a while since they are carriers of Hepatitis and we do not want that spreading throughout the jungle. For animals that are known to be scent trackers, it is not wise to use soap and bleach in their displays and back holdings. This would take away the scents they are familiar with and cause them to be distressed. We just take a strong hose head and power wash their area. Amphibians also do not use any chemicals and we have to use certain water so that they do not get sick since some of the animals are semi-permeable. 

Each day is fairly similar with the tasks that we have to perform. I would say that my day consists of 85% cleaning the animals' back holdings and display and 15% is miscellaneous between preparing diets, finding enrichment for them (either a new toy, new mulch, bubbles, scents, treats and so on) and miscellaneous tasks. Even though this a very strenuous labor and work, I find myself enjoying getting to know the animals' names, their personalities and their eagerness to see me every day. 

With only being here one for almost two weeks, I know I have learned so much already, but there is still much more to learn. Keep following me to see what else I am learning and fun events that happen here. Enjoy the pictures and videos below! Also, feel free to comment! All pictures  I post are taken from me or a friend that takes a picture of me. 

How I feel after a long day of work

Waterfall behind flower

Fork in the path

 Waterfall

 Deep in thought

This is Lucky 

 Howler

 Not my area for interning, but visited the Desert Dome

Ring Tailed Lemur

"Please, no pictures"