A while ago, I wrote about all our keepers and how each of their strengths make our animal department team better. We were in the process of hiring a new keeper then, so I thought I’d give an update. New keeper Cassidy has worked in the past with lemurs and also with black bears and other native NC wildlife. She was actually a volunteer here at the museum when she was a teenager!
One of the great things about having a new person around is having a new set of eyes to see areas in which we can improve. Cassidy thought it would be great to have some climbing sticks in our snake exhibits and voila, a few days later, our yellow rat snake (who is often buried under mulch and not visible) was climbing and using his new sticks!

I also have to give a shout out to parttime keeper Erin, who got no credit in my last post, but whose humor and affable nature add so much to our team!