Donald has been coming to the museum for 25 years as a visitor, bringing his children and grandchildren here, which gives him a very unique and committed viewpoint as a volunteer. For over two years now he has been coming in every week and helping care for our farmyard animals. On the right you can see him preparing feed bags for the farmyard critters. He is so important to our collective mood, that the Keepers actually argue (in a funRead more
Posts tagged: #spotlight
Spotlight: Volunteer Annie
Annie has been an outstanding volunteer for many years now, about 8 years! 2-3 days each week she comes and passionately takes care of our education animals. She has incredible observation skills noticing the slightest of changes in behaviors which is critical in preventative health care for our animals: her ability to spot small changes in behavior as she works with the animals has helped us to provide excellent medical care. Even when Annie is not here, she’s working forRead more
Spotlight: Katy Harringer
Last month you saw a photo of Katy with Dr. Vanderford giving one of our lemurs their physical. Katy is our veterinary guru (her official title is Senior Keeper: Veterinary Specialist). Katy actually started at the Museum as a volunteer in the animal department almost four years ago. In the photo above she is doing some training with the red ruffed lemurs when the keepers were trying to get the lemurs used to going on the ground. Katy spends aRead more
Spotlight: Debbie Vanderford, DVM
Dr. Debbie Vanderford has been a veterinarian for the Museum for almost 11 years. You can’t really see her under the mask, but she’s getting urine from one of our red ruffed lemurs during its physcial last year. (That’s Katy with her but I’ll tell you more about her in next month’s Spotlight). When Dr. V. started with the Museum she was a veterinarian at a veterinary office in Durham. Then she began her own mobile veterinary practice. She didRead more
Spotlight: Dr. Allen Cannedy
We’re fortunate to have several veterinarians helping us care for our animals. One of our veterinary specialists is Dr. Allen Cannedy. He is what’s called a “large animal veterinarian”. These are the vets who see domestic farmyard animals, like pigs and cattle. Dr. C comes when one of our Farmyard mammals needs care. He comes to check on them at least twice/year, but is usually here more often. We’ve been working with Dr. Cannedy for about 10 years. He comesRead more
Spotlight: Dr. Thea Staab
I first met Thea Staab in May 1997. She walked into my office for an interview to be an animal keeper. As any good graduating senior would do for an interview, she was in her business dress: not something very common for those applying to be animal keepers. But she stood out then, both to the keepers who laughed at her dress and to me who was impressed by her interest in animals, demeanor, and apparent good work ethic (whichRead more