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!