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.