Al is a well-socialized and very playful ferret who lives off exhibit in our education holding room. He is one of four ferrets here and is used for programs and birthday parties. Al was born in June 2005 and was originally purchased by someone from a pet store. He was given to the museum in January 2006 because the original owner could not care for him anymore. Al got his name from the fact that he is an albino ferret,Read more
Posts tagged: #Marilyn
A New Outdoor Area For Inside Animals
Spring is here and we are trying to finish work on an outdoor playpen for some of our inside animals. The enclosure used to be indoors and housed an iguana, so it needs some modifications for it to be usable outdoors. Some of these modifications include extra locks for security and replacing plastic wiring with metal so that animals cannot chew through it. It will also need some material put on it to provide shade. Once we finish that, weRead more
Red Wolf Recovery: The Beginning
In my first post about red wolf history, I ended on the topic of red wolf-coyote hybrids and how they were identified from full-blooded red wolves. Since DNA testing was not available in the 1970’s, biologists used skull comparisons as a way of removing hybrids from the remaining red wolf population so that a breeding program could be started. The recovery program was led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), but they needed a place to start theRead more
Creature Feature: Misha the Red-tailed Hawk
You may have seen a recent post about Birdapalooza, an event held here a few weeks ago. The day-long event included programs that discussed different species of birds, including raptors. Keeper Jill took the opportuntiy to do a program with our red-tailed hawk, Misha. Misha was born in the wild, but in November 1991 he was brought to the Carolina Raptor Center in Charlotte, N.C. with an eye injury.The staff there rehabilitated him and taught him to sit on aRead more
Red Wolf History
So far, we have written several posts about our red wolves here. While most of them have discussed our wolves’ health, we have also shown some video of great interactions with enrichment, as well as talking about their annual physicals. However, there is an abundance of information to be shared about this critically endangered species, and a good place to start is with their history. Red wolves (picture left) used to be one of the only large predators in theRead more
Divisions Of Labor
Most large zoos have keepers that specialize and care for specific species every day. Basically this means one keeper might oversee the care for the zebras and antelope while another oversees the care for the alligators and snakes. However, we operate as a small zoo and do not have keepers that work with only two or three species. Instead, all of us share the duties of caring for all our animals. There are benefits to both methods, but I personallyRead more