If you have read any of my posts before- you know that I am a huge fan of lemurs. One of the biggest reason I have an animal crush on lemurs is because I train our Ring Tailed Lemurs here at the Museum. I’ve posted about training before, check it out here, but this time I want to talk about my progress. The most important behavior I am working on with the ring tails right now is ‘crate’. By crateRead more
Posts tagged: #operant conditioning
Spotlight: Julie Grimes, Behavior Consultant
Meet Dr. Julie Grimes. Julie has a PhD in Behavior and did her thesis work on the principles of animal training. She’s been a Behavior Management Consultant for many years working in the “zoo” world as well as with private individuals and their pets. She is also a faculty member in the Psychology department at Davidson County Community College. We’ve been working with Julie for almost three years. She helped us get our operant conditioning program up and running. At first,Read 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
Back from the conference…
I got back from the AAZK conference earlier this month and it went well. I heard some great paper presentations and saw a lot of terrific things at the different facilities that we visited. Now I have to find the time to put my information together so that I can present it all to my co-workers… I said I would post some pictures from my trip to the AAZK conference in San Diego, and although I’m a little behind on it hereRead more
The Farmyard is Closed…
Members of the museum are rewarded with several perks- one of them is being able to visit the museum at 9am- an hour before it opens to the general public. However, some of our animal exhibits aren’t quite open that early. Carolina Wildlife and the Farm Yard both open at 10am. The reason these exhibits aren’t open at 9 is simple really- we have to clean. Most of us Keepers arrive at 8am, we gather our food, enrichment, and volunteers and head out toRead more
Creature Feature: 1 3/4 wing barred owl
This is 1 3/4 Wing Barred Owl. She came to the museum in August of 1989, and was already an adult, so she is over 20 years old! When she arrived, she already had part of her left wing missing because it was fractured and had to be removed. The rest of the fractured wing healed incorrectly, and is kind of twisted. With this type of injury, she would obviously never be able to fly properly or live in theRead more