With the cold weather we’ve been having recently (especially in the evenings), the moat in our bear exhibit has frozen over sooner than usual. We always expect freezing of the moat to occur in late January and through February, but this winter it has happened in December! Even with temperatures now getting warmer during the day and typically melting any ice or snow on the ground, the warmer weather doesn’t necessarily thaw the ice in the moat because it doesn’tRead more
Posts tagged: #ice
QuikPost: Preparing for bad weather
Today the Keepers (Cassidy, Erin, Jill, and Kristen) are preparing for the impending precipitation. Who knows what will happen, but we’re preparing for much snow/sleet. Here’s a photo of one of the documents we use to help make sure we are dealing with everything that needs to be dealt with. Any thoughts, questions, suggestions, or comments appreciated. If time/conditions permit over the weekend, we’ll get photos to share with you. (remember the post about power outage? Some of the prepRead more
Bear Pool Icing Follow-up
Your comments were great regarding the issues with the waterfall/pools freezing:no water for the bears to drink, concerns ice would fall on bears or staff, ice might pull rock down as well, pump burning out because of lack of circulation of water, pipes bursting do to frozen water, bears slipping on the ice or falling through. The other thing we did was lower the water level in the moat by a couple feet- do you know why?Read more
QuikPost: Icing of the Bear Pool
It’s been so cold that the waterfall in the bear exhibit has been freezing over. You can see all the ice building up. It’s beautiful, but it can cause issues.Do you know what two issues we are worried about when this happens? Leave me your ideas in the comment section. Also, look closely at the second picture. Gus is standing on the middle pool which is already iced over.Read more
EnrichBits: It’s hot!
EnrichBits: A monthly look at animal enrichment As you probably already know by now if you are a regular reader, enrichment is all about giving our captive animals the opporunities to exhibit their natural behaviors. Well, on a 95 degree afternoon, the natural behavior for a lot of our outdoor animals is to find a cool shady spot and sleep. These are afternoons where there is no interest in new scents, none of the animals seem to want to exploreRead more