There are a lot of improvements taking place in the animal department right now, and the renovation of our education holding room is one of them. I have never seen such a sparkly room in my life… I mean, that floor looks like an ice skating rink! For the last two weeks, the animals that normally live in the room (such as our ferrets, silky chicken, opossum and salamanders) have been staying in our exam room down the hall soRead more
Posts tagged: #Marilyn
Creature Feature: Chummix the boer goat
We have had a couple of recent posts about operant conditioning, so I thought I would do a feature on the animal that I am training right now. Chummix, pronounced “chummy”, lives in our farmyard with Max the steer. He arrived at the museum shortly before I started working here, but he apparently came to us in a very interesting way! The story that I was told (as passed down from one of the other keepers) is that we adoptedRead more
Story to share
I was cleaning the farmyard yesterday morning when something really cute happened. I was raking Nimbus‘s yard (our farmyard rabbit), and a woman and her two little boys (maybe 2 or 3 years old) came over to visit the rabbit. I heard the mother refer to Nimbus as “Ollie” when she was talking to the boys. Smiling, I asked her, “Is that what you named the bunny?” The mother preceded to tell me that the boys’ favorite cartoon has aRead more
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
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