Saint Louis Zoo Herpetarium Internship Summer 2013: Day 23: Snake Handling

Saturday, June 22

This morning I helped clean some of the glass before cleaning the giant tortoise yard. Today there were workers outside of the yard so there was no crowd gathered around watching me work. I was happy that I was able to work with the giant tortoises three days in a row! After cleaning all the salad scraps up I took a few minutes to give some attention to my tortoise friend. The other tortoises are always still asleep in the morning or they just let me know that they do not want to be touched. This tortoise is the complete opposite, which is awesome. I felt really sad today when I had to stop giving the tortoise a neck rub and get back to work. He was still stretching out his neck after I was already out of the yard in hopes that I would come back. I then misted the two outside lizard enclosures and cleaned the black worms. I then went to a zookeeper to see what I could work on next and he taught me how to use a snake hook and handle snakes! I was super excited to learn something new! Snake hooks take some practice to work with, but I was able to get down the general idea. I watched the zookeeper handle one snake and then I got to handle a Madagascar Ground Boa. We needed to take the snakes out of their enclosures in order to clean them and change the water. It was hard to try and handle a heavy snake using one hook and then holding the other part of the snake, while trying to get them in/out of their enclosure, while they are moving all over. After the morning break I then got to watch the same zookeeper handle venomous snakes. It was nice being able to watch another zookeeper work and see how they do things. This also gave me the opportunity to talk to him and some of the other zookeepers more who were in the same area.

Hispaniolan Giant Anole

After lunch I finished cleaning out the snake enclosures. I also got to work with two Boa Constrictors, one of which is a very relaxed snake who does not even care that you are picking her up and moving her. She is one that they use for a lot of educational talks. While working with the snakes, one of them musked which was not a very good smell at all! It took a little bit for the strong smell to dissipate. After the enclosures were clean I then got to catch crickets from the cricket bins to feed out to animals. I fed the crickets to the galliwasps, a Hispaniolan Giant Anole, and some Mountain Chicken frogs. Everyone was hungry, especially the Mountain Chicken frogs who were jumping all over. It was cool being able to see the animals eat. Once everyone was fed, I cleaned the Alligator Snapping Turtle tanks before break. I then filled up water bowls for some animals, did
some general cleaning, took out the trash, and then it was time to go.