Sorry it’s been a while.

I would like to begin this post by apologising for the length of time since my last post. Unfortunately life sometimes gets in the way of volunteering fun. I won’t bore you with the details of working full time. It’s nowhere near as fun as being pecked by a Rhea (Zazu you cheeky devil).

Turns out a lot happens in three months at a zoo. Since my last day there, there has been quite a turnover in animals! Alongside many other changes, a male Lion has been welcomed to the family, after the passing away of Taz the Tiger (the terrifying aunt to the two giant housecats). The long term aim is to introduce him to Josie the female. They are currently in enclosures next to each other, so they can see each other. Apparently Josie is petrified of him at the moment, which is surprising as he seems so calm and lovely, whereas she is a angry madam.

My first day back consisted of a lot of physical work! If you need to lose a few pounds after Christmas (no comments please), I would recommend zookeeping for a great full body workout! I am quite stiff today after a day of cleaning different houses, removing dirty bedding from the gazelle (wet straw is really quite heavy), scrubbing an otter pond (it’s never looked so clean) and chopping up Christmas trees! Many people have donated their old trees to the zoo to use for animal enrichment. So yesterday we chopped the branches of one side of a few, to use as a nice screen in the aviaries. It looked lovely.

Unfortunately I don’t think I have any “what did Tash do this time” stories for this post! Short of being pecked by Zazu. Didn’t hurt, but it did surprise me. I also had to pretend that picking up crickets didn’t freak me out, whilst I collected 45 for the Meerkats. I chickened out of using my hands and opted for tweezers. Then there’s the classic meat delivery “I hate it but I can’t look away” moment. A normal meat delivery would consist of some boxes of steaks and mince meat. Not at a zoo. The meat delivery is a room of whole animals. Hung up. I’ll stop there in case you decided to read this whilst you ate dinner. I’m sure your imagination can fill in the rest.

So actually, having said there weren’t any entertaining stories, I have just come up with three. Zoos are non-stop entertainment.

Animal of the week – the Rhea (Rhea Americana or Rhea Pennata)

This is Zazu, the little devil that pecked me. Actually it’s not, but I’m trusting that none of you can identify these particular Rhea and will just believe what I tell you.

 

Rhea are large, flightless birds. Similar to ostrich but smaller and much less threatening (unless it’s called Zazu). They are from South America, and even within this continent are limited to a few countries of: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. With the exception of the small colony in Germany that has developed after a few escaped from a farm! They are grassland animals and live in flocks of between 20 and 25 birds. They are usually herbivorous, eating leafy plants, but will also occasionally eat fruits, insects and even small rodents and reptiles!

Rhea of polygamous and a male might try and mate with up to 12 females. He will try and impress the ladies with a loud booming call, the sort of noise you would not expect to come from a bird. He will then make a funny run, using his wings alternating with his legs (it’s hilarious to see). If he is successful, the female will lay up to 60 eggs. The male will incubate these, and will sacrifice some outside the nest to act as a decoy for predators. When incubating, the male will charge at any threat to the eggs, and may also use a subordinate male to incubate the eggs instead. Once the eggs have hatched, it takes 6 months for a Rhea to become fully grown, but they will not mate until they are 2 years old.

My 6 Month Probation

Ok I know what you’re thinking: “you had a 6 month probation period? It’s a VOLUNTARY job!!”. Well, no, I didn’t. But now I’ve been there for a good 6 months, I thought it was about time for a nice little self-reflection, a “what have I learnt?” sort of post. So I’ve come up with 10 things I’ve learnt in the last 6 months that I definitely didn’t know before:

1. I’m not as girly and squeamish as I thought I was – if you had told me one year ago today that I would be gutting things and chopping up mice, I would have told you that you were drunk. Long gone is the little girl who refused to go into the butchers with her mum because it smelt. So if you think you can’t be a zookeeper because you don’t even like chopping up chicken, maybe you’re wrong. However, if my posts make you feel sick just reading about it, maybe zookeeping isn’t for you…
2. NEVER let your guard down. I speak from experience when I say that it will be the day you think “NOTHING will phase me today, I’m a pro now” that you will walk into the freezer room and see a horse’s head in a crate. THEN you will think “it’s ok, I’m expecting it now, I’m still a pro, nothing will phase me now” and you will pick up a crate to find ANOTHER horse’s head below it. If you hadn’t guessed, this happened to me last week. NEVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN.
3. Turmeric is good for arthritis. Well it is for tigers anyway.
4. It is possible to train a jaguar. Almost everything at the zoo is trained to do something or other. Sovereign the jag was probably one of the most wild, “I want to eat you” type of cats, yet he was trained to lie down, get up on his platform and leave his house. Just incredible.
5. BLAG IT (but not too much). This is phrase I once told my mum and she uses it all the time. It’s great for when you are really grossed out by something or don’t quite have the confidence for something. Just don’t show people that you are screaming inside and they will never know. I used this for the horse’s head incident I mentioned earlier. HOWEVER. If you are unsure of something, ie. What to feed an animal, how to lock the gate… NEVER blag it. ALWAYS ask. All the horror stories I’ve heard about a crane being poisoned or a jaguar escaping resulted from someone trying to prove they could do something by themselves when they didn’t really know how.
6. Tapirs LOVE a belly rub.
7. Unfortunately, everything dies. I know this is quite a morbid thing to say, but it is true. There have been quite a few sad situations since I’ve started including the passing away of Roger the tapir, Sovereign the jaguar, and now I hate to say Blotch the tiger. Blotch passed away this week, another victim of feline cancer. By the end there was only a tiny amount of her lungs still working, and the specialists were amazed she lived so long. Such a gorgeous tiger and I’m really sad to see her go. She will be missed.
8. Supermarkets throw away A LOT of produce that are still perfectly useable. The fruit and veg used at the zoo are donated by local supermarkets, and it’s the stock that’s gone out of date and can no longer be sold. A lot of it, is to be fair, gone off and disgusting. There is also a huge amount that is perfectly edible and it’s such a crying shame that most supermarkets will just throw it away. Feeding it to monkeys is a much better use.
9. Cheetah poo REALLY smells. And as a zookeeper it’s important to not be disgusted by poo (and to wear rubber gloves!). The zoo is not a cute and fluffy place, it just happens to have cute and fluffy things living there.
10. Then there are the obvious skills. I’ve learnt the rounds, the systems, what animals eat what, which animals you can go in with, which you can’t and just the general “workings of the zoo”. These aren’t skills that I can put into a list, as there are so many little bits and bobs that I’ve strung together. But in general, I now feel pretty competent getting on with tasks and what has to be done when.

 

Animal of the week – The Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)

Cheetahs are the fastest mammals on land and have acceleration of 0-60 miles per hour in just 3 seconds. This is only just slower than the rollercoaster “Rita Queen of Speed” at Alton Towers!! (0-60 in 2.5 secs). They use this immense speed to hunt their prey on the African grasslands. They hunt fast prey such as antelope and hares, and use their exceptional eyesight to spot they prey then move stealthily in the long grass until they are close enough to start to chase.

Female cheetahs will have litters of up to 3 cubs and will stay with them until they are 1 to 2 years old. The male cheetahs live alone or in groups with their siblings from the litter. There are only roughly 7,000 cheetahs left in the wild and numbers are suffering as a result of human destruction of their habitat.

Sita the Cheetah enjoying her dinner 🙂

Wild Cheetah

The week I milked a Fox

There is no such thing as a boring day at work when working at a zoo. This is something I am fully beginning to appreciate. Even on the days I’m not placed on an animal round, and am given the task of simply moving a pile of logs that takes all day, I cannot say it is boring. Although that may not sound like the most glamorous of jobs, when you stop and look around, you are standing in a field of tapir. As a break from moving logs, I fed one a banana. Immediately, this has not been a boring day. When asked “what have you done today?” I can answer “I fed a Tapir a banana”. How many people can say that?

Another thing I’ve noticed is that in almost every conversation I’ve had since starting at the zoo, I can chip in with an animal anecdote. Whether this is a good thing or not, I will leave that to my friends to decide, but I enjoy it. For example, when walking through the middle of London, we see an urban fox. To which, I honestly stated “I milked a fox the other week”. I very much enjoyed the attention this statement received.

I suppose I should elaborate on that one…

The Red Fox, Bramble, was having a phantom pregnancy, meaning the hormones in her body were making her create milk when it was entirely unnecessary. The zoo put on some form of hormone regulating medication to try and stop this from happening. To check to see if it was working meant we had to milk her to see if she had stopped. When I say milk, I don’t mean we collected a bucket of the stuff, just squeezing each nipple until some came out. Unfortunately it did come out, so the meds had to be continued.

In other news, I have now been signed off to complete the bird round on my own! I am now brave enough to avoid hector the grumpy owl when he lunges at me. I have mastered the art of tempting buzz the parrot with peanuts to get him to the right side of his enclosure. And I am fully prepared to encounter dead rats when de-pooping the pheasant enclosure. (In case I haven’t told you this before – quite often there will be dead rats here, as the pest control people don’t have keys, so just shoot the rats through the fence and then leave them. This was quite a shock the first time I found a dead rat. I hate rats.)

The other news is not quite as happy I’m afraid. I’m sorry to say that Sovereign, the Jaguar has passed away. It was quite a shock to all the volunteers as it was kept under wraps that he was even ill. It turns out he had feline leukaemia, and had to be put down. His body has been donated to feline leukaemia research, and hopefully will help to find a cure. I won’t elaborate on how upsetting this news was, I’m sure you can imagine. The zoo feels much more empty without him. RIP Sov, you shall be missed.

Sovereign the Jaguar. Such a beautiful animal. He will be sorely missed.

Animal of the Week – The Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)

The red fox is an extremely widespread species, and its range covers the entire of the northern hemisphere from the arctic circle to Northern Africa including Northern America, Europe and Asia. They can survive in a diverse array of habitats including deserts, forests, grasslands, mountains and even human areas such as the centre of London! They are extremely resourceful creatures and although will usually hunt for small game, they can adapt to feed from garbage and pet food in more urban areas.

Their bushy tail is adapted to provide many functions including balance, acting as a blanket in the winter and using it as a signal to other foxes. Although usually solitary animals, foxes will meet in the winter to mate and the females will give birth to a litter of between 2 and 12 pups.

Red Fox using it’s tail as a blanket. (Photo from National Geographic)