Okay Sports Fans, here it is! The start of a week which revolves around our fuzzy and lovable friends! They eat a bunch, they sleep a bunch, they shed a bunch – no they’re not Italians – they’re our Bears! It’s officially Bear Awareness Week! And we here at the Museum are lucky enough to have 5 of the lovable fuzz buckets that we call part of the family to enjoy each day. Gus, Ursula, Mimi, Virginia and Yona areRead more
Posts filed in: Enrichment & Training
Enrichment at work
Proof is in the picturesRead more
Sheep and Waffles
It’s time to say goodbye to our wonderful interns, Casey and Jessica. They have worked as keepers, with us, 3 days a week for 4 months- we will miss them! Casey and Jessica are in the Zoo and Aquarium Science Program at Davidson County Community College. On top of working and classes, the interns had to present an enrichment project. They choose to create a teepee tree for the lemurs. The goal of their creation was to increase social interactionRead more
Max & Molasses
On Friday, Keeper Marilyn and I were getting enrichment ready for Max, the steer in our Farmyard. Sometimes the enrichment is some kind of scent or flavor sprayed or spread on some of the toys that we vary in the yard. This time, we thought it might be fun to try molasses and see if Max might like it. As soon as he was let out of his stall, he ran down to the pole where we had hung hisRead more
QuikPost: Fun with enrichment
As I stated in another post, sometimes animal enrichment also serves as keeper enrichment. Last summer, the exhibits department donated the large stuffed horse from Play To Learn to the Animal Department when it was time to buy a new one. The horse sat on our support hall for a very long time, but finally one of the keepers decided to use it as enrichment for some of the farmyard animals. Obviously, this is an item that needed to haveRead more
New species at the Museum…
So, being a “Life and Science” Museum not only do we have the pleasure of having our own animal collection that we get to work (and play) with, but we also have the added bonus of a large outdoor campus with all kinds of fun wildlife as well. Sometimes we get to see groundhogs, sometimes snakes, and once in a while a brand new species wanders into out midst that completely blows our minds. This weekend, it happened again. WeRead more