Chris has been volunteering with us for four summers. Kristen met him and thought he would be a great addition to our summer team. We get almost 300 hours from him each year.Chris will do anything we ask him to do, although doing dishes is not his most favorite thing. He’s a good sport though, because the keepers tease him about hating to wash dishes and he just laughs with them. Most of the time he helps us inside, caringRead more
Posts tagged: #animals
Wildlife wins: refuges get to stay refuges
In a series of previous posts, I have discussed many different threats to the wild red wolf population in eastern North Carolina. About a year ago there was another topic that, had it not been abandoned, had the potential to threaten red wolves and several other wildlife species, as well. There was a proposal to place a naval outlying landing field (OLF) in the areas surrounding two of eastern North Carolina’s wildlife refuges. This Navy landing field would have beenRead more
EnrichBits: Training
EnrichBits: A monthly look at animal enrichment Kristen doing some operant conditioning with the ringtail lemurs Marilyn mentioned operant conditioning in her latest post about Gus the Bear, so I wanted to explain it a bit further. You can click here for a technical definition of operant conditioning, but it can really be summed up with one word: “training”. Training is the final big area of all those important enrichment categories (remember?…exhibit design, olfactory, visual, auditory, tactile, social, novel objects,Read more
I’m back from the Red Wolf meeting
I just got off the airplane a couple hours ago from the Red Wolf SSP Master Plan meeting and before I go home to bed I wanted to let you know that our red wolves- 1369 and 1227- will be here with us another year. It is really important that these two produce offspring so we are going to give them another shot. If anyone knows any fertility dances or spells, or anything else to help these two get together,Read more
Creature Feature: Gus the black bear
Our bears are some of the most entertaining animals to watch here at the museum. Gus is our only male bear, and he has some funny antics that make the keepers laugh on a regular basis. Even though he is the youngest bear, at only 3 years old, he is already the dominant bear in the enclosure! Since black bears are naturally solitary animals, they have to form a heirarchy in order for them to co-exist with one another. ItRead more