Have you watched a training session at the museum lately? (Click here to see an old video of Marilyn training Chummix) If you see Kent training Max, or Kimberly training the lemurs, or Sarah working with Lightning, you’ve probably heard a clicking sound while they train. What is that thing? It’s called a clicker, and it’s used as a conditioned reinforcer. You can establish any arbitrary sound as a conditioned reinforcer, but clickers and whistles are the two that seem toRead more
Search Results for: marilyn
Big Word of the Month: Symbiosis
Many of the animals at the museum live with another animal of a different specie. They might live together because they seem to like each other or because they don’t bother one another and fit the exhibit well (large exhibits with 1 animal are pretty boring if that one animal doesn’t want to be in sight of guests). Some of the animals we have together are a donkey and dwarf goats, a steer and a boer goat, a pine snakeRead more
Why I shouldn’t work alone
It’s National Zoo Keeper Week so I gave the Keepers off for the afternoon yesterday. Okay, it’s not as bad as when I work alone on Christmas, but we all know what happens when I am here alone. The Keepers started trickling out for the afternoon around noon. I think I was literally under the leaking fish stream when Katy, Sarah, and Marilyn left. Then, the power went out while I was working on the computer. An explicative or two were said, (I thinkRead more
Recognition
A while ago I was in my doctors office and saw a National Geographic that talked about animal recognition. It stated that “A team of British scientists has shown that sheep are able to recognize the individual faces of at least 50 sheep and remember them for more than two years.” I then started to think if sheep can do this with other sheep, do we think that the rest of our animals including the sheep recognize members of theRead more
So, what’s wrong?
Hi everybody! Hope you guys are doing well, I am all kinds of fine and ducky, thanks for asking! For this post, we’re going to have a bit of a game. Now, I know you guys are all aware of my intellectual awesomeness, but now I’m going to give you a bit of a test. Ever play those “What doesn’t belong” games when you were a kid? Well here it is in blog form! I’m going to write a funRead more
“Target” click
One of my favorite duties as an Animal Keeper is training with the Ring Tailed Lemurs. We train many of the animals at the museum using operant conditioning. When I first started here, I was familiar with training, I used positive reinforcement for several animals at my previous job- a Serval, African Crested Porcupine, Binturong, several birds including large Macaws, a Raven, Crow, Hawks and Owls. African Crested Porcupine Even Rats- But it wasn’t until working here at the Museum that I really got intoRead more