EnrichBits: A monthly look at animal enrichment Our red wolves, who are shy by nature, don’t tend to be real playful in front of large, loud groups. If you catch them one on one, towards the earlier part of the morning, you can see them moving around. Here, Keeper Katy caught them really moving. Their exhibit, designed with a lot of hilly topography and natural elements, challenges them as a wild landscape would, and is long enough side to sideRead more
Posts filed in: Videos
Friend or foe?
Aaah, springtime! There are so many great things that happen in the spring: beautiful flowers come into bloom, the trees are full of bright green buds, temperatures are perfect for outside adventures, baby animals are in abundance, and suddenly every living thing seems rejuvenated! And those changes in activity and behavior also apply to the museum animals. Wendy the woodchuck has come out of hibernation and is starting to climb around her exhibit and run around the support hall again.Read more
The Birds
Lately, when you walk out the main museum doors into Loblolly Park, it’s like a scene out of Hitchcock’s The Birds. The holly bushes are full of berries right now and large flocks of birds are hanging out around in the nearby trees, flying in and out of the bushes, and creating quite a symphony of bird song. I’m not the best birder, but have noticed large numbers of robins and cedar waxwings. It’s a better effect in person, soRead more
EnrichBits: Max’s Monday out– part two
EnrichBits: A monthly look at animal enrichment In the last EnrichBits post, I showed Max, our steer, getting some time outside his stall and yard on a day we were closed to vistors. He got to experience many new and enriching sights, sounds, and smells while he checked out Loblolly Park (our playground). The goal is to provide new and exciting without crossing the line into stressful, so we had quite a few animal department staff out there to helpRead more
Virginia comes in for dinner
If you’ve ever been to one of our Meet the Keeper programs at Bear Overlook, a keeper has probably described to you how Virginia and Gus, two of our younger black bears, can climb up to the top ledge of the rock quarry that is their exhibit. They get up there by climbing up this natural ramp on the back wall of the exhibit. It’s pretty steep; I sure wouldn’t want to attempt it, but bears are great climbers andRead more
A Trip to the Wetlands
The plan was simple. Larry and Katy would put on chest-high waders and wade out to the current wood duck nesting box to take it down. Jill would take the row boat from the other side of the wetlands and (with one paddle) meet them and put the nesting box in the boat. Then they would row to an area of the wetlands that was less dense and install the nesting box there, hoping to increase the chance of theRead more