Thanksgiving Week.

On Monday I drove to South Carolina to swap our alligators for smaller ones. Aaron and I arrived at the Museum around 5 AM to catch-up our current alligators. We use under-the-bed storage containers for transport. Our alligators are all less than 4 feet in length:  Drilling air holes and duct taping the container works great for transporting our alligators. Our Alligators are on loan to us from Alligator Adventure. When ours get too big for their exhibit or holdingRead more
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Kent Steps in to Help

Compared to a “normal” 8AM – 5PM, Monday-Friday job, we have rather weird working schedules here in the animal department. For example, in the 5 days a week I work, I have 4 different sets of hours. Keepers show up between 7 and 8AM (sometimes even earlier on crazy days) and stay between 3PM and 5:30PM depending on their scheduled work week. Some keepers work Sunday – Thursday, some work Tuesday – Saturday, some work Monday – Friday and oneRead more
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Morning Bear Yard Scooping

Sunny, quiet mornings are always the best time, in my opinion, to call in the bears and go scoop poop in the bear yard. This past week, Volunteer Colet and Human Resources Lady, Maureen, put on their grubby sneakers and went in with me. It only takes about an hour to finish scooping and scatter the day’s food around the exhibit. Sometimes, though, we find cool surprises! Meanwhile, in the bear house:     Once we’re done scooping and letRead more
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A Little Farmyard Fun

When I first started working here at the museum, I was told a very useful piece of advice from Kristen: “if you ever fall into the muskrat pool, toss your radio somewhere dry as you fall…radios are really expensive.” The last person I know of that fell into the pool was Larry and I have no idea if he saved his radio; it was before my time. While I’m sure you’d all love to laugh at me for falling intoRead more

AAZK Conference for 2013

Last year I was lucky enough to be able to attend the American Association of Zookeepers conference. This year, a lot of us keepers were very lucky to be able to attend because it was held in North Carolina.  Keeper Sarah and I were also lucky, because we were selected to present a paper this year. The topic was on enrichment and focused on inexpensive or free options. Even though I was presenting, it was said that Sarah was muchRead more