We Have More than Three Black Bears??

Not too much from yesterday but I did want to share this video of Keeno getting his diet out of a box.

 

Not uploading now, will be fixed later

Also a glamor shot of Sarabi

Today both lions and bears got let out a little late because maintenance weed-eated and mowed all the lion yards, and fixed a broken insulator for the hotwire at the bear yards. This put the order of our day off a bit but we still managed to get everything done. Maintenance also got to put out our newly painted brown bear sign. It was a past intern's (Rachel) project to make a write up for the sign and get the painting set up. We just got it back from the painter and it looks great.

Today was also a very exciting day. It was pretty nice weather out and it seems it was just warm enough for our adult black bear boys to make an appearance. The adults have been in hibernation and although we have a had a few sightings of them this is the first time I have seen Ricky come out and eat, and Little Boy at all. So I was pretty excited about it :)

Ricky Bear

Little Boy

I was going to put a video of Ricky eating his diet in a box but blogger is being so slow about uploading videos right now here are some pictures instead. He was super cute.

I should also add in that while I was off Val got weights on Sarabi and Tau. Sarabi is 305 lbs and Tau is 435 lbs. This is pretty close to what our estimates were for them but it was nice to finally know we had an accurate weight on them. We hope to be able to weigh Sarabi every other week so we can monitor her for weight gain in case she becomes pregnant.

Playtime

Today, because of schedule changes due to Val and Sarah's vacation, I got to work with Valerie on a Friday. this was actually really good because I was able to show er how I have been running the tug-of-war encounters. Also due tot he high number of people we have been having on these encounters we set a limit for 25 people. This is a lot better because we were getting too many people to play against the cats. The cats would start getting tired and we had some people complain because they didn't get to play as much as they wanted. So this 25 limit should work out much better. It is also definitely an easier crowd to manage and keep in one place than the 35 we were getting. Today we also had our new intern in for his second day of work. Curtis seems very nice and is picking things up very quickly. Unfortunately spring break is a tough time to come into this internship since it is so busy. but at least you get to see all the encounters very quickly. We gave Keeno and Natasha some meat in bags for enrichment today and Keeno seemed to enjoy his. Natasha even came down and ate some a little later.

Mmmmmm

Oso and Victor were super cute at closing. They were running all over the place on the island wrestling. It was adorable.

Packed Morning

Today was very busy as we did some vet work on Natasha our 20 year old lion. However, we had me, Val, Sarah, and Anna all working so we were able to crank out both cleaning huts and diet prep early in the morning. Then we could spend most of our day focusing on Natasha. All her blood work looked really good and so did her x-rays. We took shifts keeping an eye on her as she recovered from the anesthesia but she did just fine. But I hope you enjoy these videos and pictures of the bears.

Rayna training with the boys

Donna finding her food in the big tire

Chochmo eating on top of the culvert

It is really fun hiding the bears' food out in the yards for them to find.

Lion Time

Days 2 and 3 of Spring Break have been pretty busy. They were a bit easier because both me and Rayna worked plus our interns Anna and Andrew yesterday and Andrew today. Lion tug-of-war is very popular, we had 30 people on this encounter yesterday and 35 today!! I am still working on how to work out this encounter and keep it running smooth but I think it is coming out pretty darn good. Today was super busy with encounters, we had our three scheduled daily encounters (Big Bear at 11:00 and 4:00, and Lion T-o-W Fri-Mon Lion 101 Tues-Thurs at 3:00) plus a lion feed tonight. Despite the business I feel we still had a lot accomplished. I do look forward to having Sarah and Valerie back though. I know I can handle things and actually enjoy running the day, but it was just a little stressful with them gone. But here are the best shots of the last few days!

Tau being an adorable goofball

I got stuck in lion tower for a while yesterday. Our tower was late and when guest services called him he said he would be in 45 minutes later. I figured, oh that won't be very long, I'll just sit up there for a few instead of making an intern do it. Two hours late he still hadn't showed and I finally had to swap out with Andrew so I could go get some things done. But it gave me a chance to get some cute pictures of the lions from afar.

Tau and Sarabi in the Right Burm Pen

Laying on the shade structure

Ostrich Dance

Chilling after Tug of War

Natasha was resting like this. She looks like she has no front feet!

More Bears :)

So nothing too big happened between yesterday and today save for one thing, which I will tell you about after some more cute bear pictures, you know you love them!!

Claire bear was sleeping like this when we came in

She got up, moved, and lay back down like this, too cute

 

Chochmo scratching on a rock, makes me think of Baloo in the jungle book!

Finding food, Chochmo up the log structure!

The girls taking a nap

Chomp!

Oso and Mak enjoying their hide burritos for midday enrichment

 Chomping away!!

As previously mentioned there was one big event yesterday. Yesterday was kind of a hectic day as it was just me and Anna, with one of the vet students, Roberto, helping for the day. However, during the afternoon our local news station KPIC came by to do a story on Safari for Spring Break. Dan Brands, the curator asked me if I could do a Big Bear for them. So I had my very first news interview. I have been there when they have done stories and been on footage, but Sarah usually does all the talking. I don't know if I mentioned it, but Sarah and Valerie both went on vacation starting Wednesday and they won't be back until Monday, which leaves me as head of the Carnivore department, and us a bit short staffed for the first few days of Spring break. But so far so good. Anyways back tot he news, Big Bear went smoothly, the reporter seemed to love it, I felt like I talked too much and thought of things I wished I said afterward, but all in all I think it went well. Here is a link to the story, let me know what you guys think!!

KPIC Story

KPIC Video

Bear Training

Today we didn't too much out of the ordinary, but it was nice because we were able to fit in ta lot of training. Rayna did her first session with the brown bear boys today, unfortunately I have no pictures but there will be some up soon. They all did well. They seemed to know more than we thought they did. They have not had training beyond their "Big Bear" behavior (where we have them stand up outside in front of guests for our Big Bear encounters) for a couple years. They all seemed to know Target (put their nose to a stick), Sit, and Sit Up (putting their front paws on the fence with their butt still on the ground). It was really cool to see how well they did after all that time. Rayna will be working with them regularly from now on. Rayna also got some pictures today of our tug-of-war set up for Fresno Zoo. It is really nice to be able to share how we did this with another facility considering it. Of course we got the idea from Busch Gardens who does it with their tigers. Hopefully Fresno will have some luck with this event too. Here are a few pics of the bears I snagged today.

The girls shredded their log overnight

Russ sleeping with her head in the corner

Russel had fun with her frozen cantaloupe for midday enrichment

The boys were waiting patiently for theirs

I was able to train all three black bears. Chochmo is doing very well on his training, he is picking things right up.

Chochmo doing "Sit Up"

All in all, a good day for bears.

Big Bears

Today was a bit of a hectic today. In the morning it was just me and Andrew as Rayna did not come in until 12:45 today due to an appointment. We took our time getting lions out and getting the breeding pen decks all sprayed off.  really hate how gross they get when they are not done every week so I always try to make sure they get done, even though it takes a little more time before we can let the cats out. We got a nice surprise once we did finish and make it down to brown bears. Sarah was there with Cheetahs working on getting weights on the grizzly boys. Oso was very nervous and they had to eventually give up on him, but after a lot of coaxing we got weights on both Victor and Mak!

Mak weighed 546.5 lbs and Victor weighed 612 lbs! This was particularly exciting for us because these guys have not had accurate weights in a long time. We estimated them at about 750-800 lbs at their peak so that seems pretty accurate considering these guys are really at their skinniest right now. We are going to work on doing monthly weights on them now.

The rest of the day went pretty well. We were fairly busy since there were only two of us for the morning in Carnivore land. But Valerie, who was in Cheetahs for the day came and helped me with a Lion 101 for Education. We combined this encounter with an attempt to do a tail blood draw on Tau. All the kids watching were very good but unfortunately we did not get any blood. the tail vein is so small towards the end of the tail it is really hard to access. But Tau is doing so well and we will keep trying.

Lions and Cub Scouts

We had  a tug-of-war encounter again today but this time for a private group. We used Tau today since we used Sarabi yesterday. My calendar said six adults in the group but I actually had several small children too. I am still working on fitting in my lion talk with the tug-of-war and I have a harder time talking to young children, but thankfully they seemed to like it. All the kids played tug--of-war but most of the time I was talking they got bored and played on the bleachers. The adults did seem interested though so I am hoping it all went over well. Tau did very well, he was still a little slow to let go of the rope but he did without too much trouble. He is getting better at it. I also got in good training sessions with all three black bears today. Takoda does not seem to want to do "lay down" but he still remembers both paws and "Up". Chochmo is doing well on "Target" and starting to learn "Paw". Donna is doing well with all her old behaviors but does not really remember "Paw" which we were just working on before hibernation. Soon I will be able to introduce sleeve training to her, which will allow us to do voluntary blood collection with her. To finish the evening off I had a Bear Feed with about 18 kids and 6 or so adults for Education. They were all cub scouts doing a Camp Tiki program where they spend the night at the park. This was a bit tough because we had to do two groups of about ten people each. I had half come in to see the girls come inside and eat, then half come see the boys, then let the first half back through so they could get a look at the boys too. It was a little complicated but I think it turned out alright and all the kids seemed to enjoy seeing the bears.

All the pictures I snagged today were of Tau being cute on the sundeck but he is adorable.

Rolling around

And back

Rocking that Mohawk

Handsome face

Big Paws

Sunny Days

Today we had and intern form another department shadowing us. We also had encounters for all the new hires in guest services, so they can better describe them to the pubic. Because of the encounters we had to do a very quick cleaning job in the morning. We left Anna at lions to clean by herself while Sarah, Jen, and I all went to bears. I showed Jen how to spread their enrichment in the pens while Sarah did some cleaning, then we got them out and slammed out cleaning huts. We had to stop in the middle so we could go do a Big Bear encounter for the new hires. As Sarah and I were going to do that we were sending Jen to unlock gates at the lion drive-thru. But then there was a Code 2 Houdari in the wetlands and Jen and I had to go assist Ungulates while Sarah stayed to do the encounter. Houdari is one of our giraffes who frequently likes to cross over cattle guards to other areas. A Code 2 is a non dangerous animal out of its enclosure. We had to go shut down some gates while Ungulates herded Houdari back into the Africa section of the park. Our cattle guards have special gates next to them so we can open them up to herd an animal through. Even though Houdari walks over the cattle guard to get into an area, we don't want to push him over it back out because he could hurt himself. After the code was clear we unlocked lion gates and then went back to help Sarah finish cleaning. Once bear huts was all done we headed up to lions to do the tug-of-war encounter.

After lunch we gave the lions some hide burritos and the brown bears some big fruitsicles. They had a lot of fun with them.

Tashi girl taking a nap

Keeno has such a handsome face

See?

Victor enjoyed his bucket sized frozen juice

Russ eating the last of hers

And Claire Bear

Victor with his fruitsicle..

I got in a  good training session with all three black bears. we are just starting tog et back in the swing of training with them and they are all doing very well. This year I am the primary trainer for Donna, Takoda, and Chochmo and I am pretty excited about it.

Sit Up with Donna

We also put the pool back in yard D for the first time since hibernation. We only had time to fill it halfway but it gave them something to play in besides their water trough. Donna took a walk around the edge.

We also got to spread all of their food around in the yard to find, which is a lot more fun then just putting it in piles. We were able to gauge how much they ate while in hibernation time by putting their food in piles in the huts but now that they are up and doing more we are giving them better things and we can hide stuff in the yards for them to find.Their diets are also going up now and will continue to get larger throughout the summer.

Busy Days

Today we had one of the vet students, Tony, helping us out for the day and Sarah brought her Mom down to see how we let lions and bears out in the morning. We sprayed some perfume in the pens for the lions and Sarah put a little on the fence as we let Keeno out. he was rubbing all over it. I managed to catch the last bit before he went all the way into his pen.

We left Anna, our new intern, to clean lion huts by herself while we got bears out. We picked up both the yards today which let us spread some apples, nuts, dressing, craisins, and feta cheese around in the enclosures for the bears to find. Tony and I got bear huts all done, which actually left us with both huts all cleaned before 11:00. So we got to go to QB and got all of our diet prep done before lunch, which is always nice. After lunch we went out to do some lion training. It was really nice because we have been doing so much with the tug-of-war I had not run through all three lions basic behaviors for a while. Before Keeno came over I got a super cute pic of him and Natasha lying just over the burm.

The cutest couple

We did had to walk through Hut Tree Pen (HTP) to go train Tau and Sarabi since we out them in our off display Lower Breeder Pen (LBP) for today, just for a change of pace for them. They both did well during training, and even though Sarabi did not want Tau to train after her, they were both very nice to each other, and we did get her distracted enough so I could work with him.

Muddy kitty

Tau had a blast playing with his blue barrel after training.

We did have some issue getting out of HTP because all three ostriches decided to graze in the lion drive-thru. This normally isn't an issue but we don't want to be out of our vehicles close to them. At least with the two females I can keep an eye on them and make it to the truck if they aren't too close but the male can be fairly aggressive so we had to wait until one female stopped pecking the truck, then Anna had to distract the male, Dezi, down the fence line, while I snuck out and got into the truck to drive it up to the gate so Tony and Anna could safely get in. But we did eventually make it out of lion drive-thru. Then we went off to do a Big Bear training session with the boys. That is where we have the grizzlies stand up on their hind legs on command. When we do an encounter we talk about bears, have them stand up, then let the public throw food over for them. Today I just showed Tony how to do the training and let him do it and get a few pictures. After that we went to black bears and I got to do training with all three of them. We just started training back up with them since hibernation. Last year Donna was my project bear to train and this year I will be training all three young black bears. i am pretty excited about this and really looking forward to getting the training program underway. Donna remembered most of her behaviors but has some trouble with Lay Down. Paw was the newest one we left off on and she doesn't seem to have that. Takoda did very well, he remembered both Paws, Up, and Target, but not Sit or Lay Down. With Chochmo I just worked on Target since that is all he learned last year but soon we ill be able to work on more. After that we finished up chores and got to go visit the cheetah cubbies. Anna had never met them before so we did some training with them and Sheilah, our docent in cheetah lodge, was nice enough to take some pictures for us! There are a lot but I am just going to put up some of my favorites. These are all Sheilah's and copyrighted.

Chimba

Mohawk

Doing some "Ups"

Tony and Anna

Family

All Done

I know there are a lot of cubbie pics, but I just couldn't decide which ones to post, so I did a bunch =D