Today I thankfully had a dry morning commute! After helping to clean the glass in the herpetarium, I was taught how to clean the filter pads in the hellbender tanks. One of the externs said that she would 'take me under her wing' and was really good at teaching me how to do things. I also fed the fish and learned how to clean black worms. The black worms are food for the hellbenders and since they excrete a lot of oil, their water needs to be changed every day in order to keep them alive/healthy to be used as food.
During the morning meeting there was discussion about a new system that stores information for every animal in the zoo. It is a way to keep track of how each animal is doing, treatments they are given, any eggs/babies that are born, etc. One of the zookeepers mentioned that they saw a post on Craig's List of a person selling a native Missouri snake. Obviously that is not ok, so our boss immediately called someone else at the zoo, told them of the post, and they said that they would take care of it. I'm not sure how they go about stopping that person, but it is nice to know that something will be done about it.
After the meeting, I got to watch four zookeepers wrangle two dwarf caimans out of their current enclosure in the basement to be put back on exhibit in the herpetarium. One keeper used a catch-pole to bring the caiman out of the water, one used a pole to gently close its mouth so another keeper could saddle the caiman to tape its mouth, and another keeper held the tail. In the same area of the basement there was a gopher tortoise pen and some tanks that had pig-nose turtles! They were really cute and would come up to look at me almost as if they were saying hi.
We then did the same routine of measuring/weighing another cage of juvenile hellbenders. I found a hellbender from a diagram again and I also found a small notch in the tail of one that would be a great identifier. The zookeeper seemed excited that I had found it!
Lunch was spent in the herpetarium, which was nice because it was a smaller group of people to be able to carry on a conversation with (the last two days there have been multiple conversations going on at one time!). I also read an article from a herpetology magazine about caring for outdoor tortoises. I want outdoor tortoises one day! The author of that article will one day be me with all my tortoises :)
After lunch, I was taught how to do dishes- the zookeeper way! Not much different than normal dishes except you have to bleach all the dishes at the end. I then went back to hellbenders and helped feed black worms and remove uneaten food from certain tanks. I also got to bleach clean the containers and tools we used for measuring/weighing.
We took a break in the afternoon and then I was taught how to clean large sock filters for the outdoor tanks. Even though I was cleaning I had to smile because we had the same type of filters in the coral tank at school. They were definitely smaller, but the cleaning is the same. Who would have thought that being a research assistant for corals would help me work with amphibians! It is paying off for this and also for my knowledge of water quality tests. There was some extra time at the end of the day to do some organizing of materials. Today goes to show that the zookeeper life isn't as glamorous as it is thought to be.
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