Day 12: Escape Artist

This morning I was excited to hear that we would be moving the giant tortoises outside, but then later found out that it would be postponed due to the weather. Since the building opens at 8am now we do not have to clean glass! A keeper comes in earlier in order to get everything ready to go for the day. The other intern and I went around and picked up salads bowls/trays and then went out to clean the giant tortoise exhibit. One tortoise was quite enjoying the neck rub it was getting so I knelt down to its level and it put its head close to me. It was cute! We almost had a tortoise get out on us when we tried to open the gate to leave. Thankfully we could get it back inside. Unfortunately, in its escape attempts, it bent a rake so far back that it broke in half! After break we finished sorting through wax worms to separate out the living from the dead ones. We also cleaned out the mice enclosures.

After lunch we worked on cleaning out the Spotted Turtle and McCord's Box Turtle tanks. Today the building got its weekly delivery of crickets so we then had to clean out the cricket tubs and add the new ones. After break we worked on dishes, checked to make sure all the animals had clean water, and did some miscellaneous housekeeping and organization tasks.

Day 11: Caught on Camera

I arrived at the herpetarium a little early and was sent to work right away to clean glass. With the new summer hours the building opens at 8 so we can't go out and start glass at that time anymore. I was able to get one whole side of the building done and a few other interns got the other side. Afterwards, I started pulling salads from the building (I also single-handedly picked up all the salads I had put out yesterday!). This took a while especially when I had to change some water bowls along the way. I then cleaned out/did a water change for some McCord's box turtles. By then it was time for break, followed by cleaning the giant tortoise exhibit with the other intern. Even though it is hard work to clean the giants exhibit, I don't think that I will get tired of it. I was thinking today of how much I am going to miss those tortoises when this internship is over. Thankfully I have a long time before I have to say bye to them! I then worked on cleaning some Spotted Turtle tanks until lunch. Over lunch I was looking at a book about sea turtles and the best places to see them. It had a section about Tortuguero, Costa Rica which made me happy because I went there for sea turtles! The book even mentioned the program that I went on to go there to work with turtles.

After lunch, I finished cleaning the turtle tanks and then went to clean the black worms. Once I finished up that I was taught how to further take care of the Giant Haitian Galliwasps. The zookeeper said he has never seen them actually drink out of their water bowls, but since they still need water and moisture, they wet the soil on one half of the enclosure. With half of the enclosure being wet and half being dry under the light it allows the animals to regulate their body temperature better. I also had to clean water bowls and remove any waste from the exhibit. While the task itself is not hard there are a lot of Galliwasps to take care of! I finished two of the racks and then went to go check on the time to find that I had worked 20 minutes past the normal start time of my break. Break today was fun because I got to see my parents and some family members that were in town. I gave them a personal tour of some of my favorite exhibits in the house. While talking about one enclosure and animal, I found that I had forgotten to pull a salad. So I quickly went behind the scenes to pull the salad and was then photographed working.

After break, I finished my work with the Galliwasps and then had to go take care of the rodent/cricket room. I found out that I am better able to handle working with crickets when I am wearing rubber gloves. I didn't have time for a full cleaning, but I did have time to clean out dead crickets and make sure they had enough cricket quencher and food. By the time I cleaned up that room, I was one of the last workers to leave the building.

Day 10: Salads!

This morning all of us interns were out in the house woking on cleaning the glass. We were almost done with the whole building when the custodian came in and told us that all the glass was cleaned already. No wonder the glass wasn't as finger printed as normal! After that confusion, it was time to start preparing salads for the day. I started off cutting up the bananas, sweet potatoes, etc. that would be fed to the giant tortoises and a few other turtles. After the vegetables and fruit was cut up I started making the various salads. This morning a few keepers took out eggs from the False Gharial exhibit. The eggs were unfertilized so they let us look at them. The shells of the eggs were amazingly hard, to the point where if you bumped two together it made a sort of clinking noise. During morning break we were talking about a tortoise tour that was coming in for the morning and realized we didn't have any large carrots. One zookeeper quickly put an order in for large carrots while the other intern and I went to the tortoise exhibit to do a quick hose down of the exhibit. There wasn't any salad that needed to be picked up today but there was some hay and some tortoise left behinds. We got the exhibit to be as good as we could get it for the time being right before the tour came. In the few minutes that we were waiting for the tour to arrive a few of us were waiting in the outside enclosure. One visitor was joking around with us that he was looking at the exhibit of humans in their natural habitat. The tour group today was a group of girl scouts who had brought presents for the snakes (such as logs and other enrichment and enclosure items). When the head zookeeper asked them why snakes out of all the other animals, one girl replied, "Because no one ever thinks about snakes." It's true. Snakes are underrepresented and often misrepresented as horrible and mean animals. On the contrary they are anything but that. They bite out of instinct of feeling threatened and to eat food, not just for the sake of bitting. They are amazing creatures and are quite beautiful. I got to help out with the tortoise encounter which was fun because of seeing the kids get excited about being in there and feeding them. After the tour I helped make a few more salads before lunch time. 

After lunch I helped finish up the salads and then distributed the salads to the whole building by myself.   Before, I had only picked up salads, I had never had to lay them out. It was a little confusing at times to figure out what specific salad in which sized tray went to which animal. When I was giving the Pancake Tortoises their food, one of the zookeepers asked if I wanted to handle a snake. I then learned how to correctly pick up the snake and guide it back to its enclosure. I worked with a Black Headed Python, which is really pretty. This snake is pretty docile so they use her for a lot of keeper chats and interactions with the public. It was so cool to be able to hold it and feel how solid and heavy the snake was. I eventually figured it out which salads went where and felt really accomplished when I had all the salads delivered to the right animal! I then went over to the Gila Monster exhibit to help the other intern shovel out more sand that was in there. After the afternoon break I did some sweeping, throwing out trash from the salads, and cleaning of the salad bins. I went into the radiated tortoise exhibit to restock their salad trays and then put the rest of the salad in a bag for one of the other zookeepers to use. I then cleaned out food and water bowls for some McCord's Box Turtles off exhibit. At the end of the day I did the dishes and helped to gather trash from around the building. It was another very full and very busy day, but it went fast!

False Gharial

Black Headed Python

Radiated Tortoise

Day 9: I'm a Gila Monster

Today I got to meet another one of the house interns and some new hellbender interns. This morning there were so many people in the break room it was quite crowded! The other intern and I started going around the building to collect salad trays. We also fished salad scraps out of the aquatic turtle tanks in the atrium of the building. After that I got to climb into a Jamaican Boa exhibit in order to clean the glass from the inside. While I was cleaning the glass another keeper was watching the snake just to make sure it didn't get upset that I was in there with it. I then changed some water bowls and newspaper linings in a section of the building. After the morning break, the other intern and I went to clean the giant tortoise exhibit. It was so nice having help this time! We had the outside door open to the enclosure while working in order to get some cooler air, but that excited one of the tortoises. The whole time we were working one tortoise was pushing against the gate trying to open it. If it hadn't been locked she would have opened it herself! Every time we needed to get out or into the enclosure we had to really watch the tortoise who was at the gate. At one point we had to move her aside in order to get out. They are ready for some fresh air, but the temperature at night needs to be warmer and more stable in order for them to be outside for the summer. Once again some of the tortoises came over to say hi and get a neck rub!

After lunch, I finished taking out salad trays from the rest of the building. That didn't take too long so I then went to help the other intern with the crickets. Maybe by the end of this summer I won't be as freaked out by them...maybe. What is worse than crickets though is cockroaches. In the corner of the wall near the ceiling there was the largest cockroach I had ever seen in my life. It was there for a while but one time when I glanced up it was gone. Needless to say I was a little uneasy after that. Today we had gotten a cricket shipment with all different sizes of crickets from pinheads to adults. If needed we had to clean out the tanks and then we put the new crickets in the tank. We then cleaned out a few large bins that were used to hold the salad from yesterday.

Raja

On break the other intern and I went over to River's Edge to see the new baby elephant!!!! Her name is Priya and she was born on April 26! She is sooooo cute! She has thick fuzzy hair  on her head that made her even more cute! She  was staying close to mom but was exploring too. Her older sister was out in the yard as well and some of the other women elephants were nearby. In another enclosure Raja, the father, was outside. Since we were dressed in the normal zookeeper uniform we kept getting asked different questions about the elephant. I was lucky to have some background knowledge of the herd in order to answer a few but for some we had to admit that we were herpetarium people and didn't know the answer. It was definitely a fun break!

Baby Priya and mother Ellie

Older sister Maliha on left

After that we grabbed some dust pans and went to the Gila Monster exhibit that is under renovation to help remove sand. There are a whole bunch of holes and pits that sand and rocks had gotten into (and not to mention a lot of sand was in the exhibit to begin with) so it took some time to get it all out. We wore face masks since it got dusty with the sand but they were so tight and thick is was a little hard to breathe through them. While in the exhibit people kept stopping to look at what we were doing. Basically it felt like we were on display. At one time a kid knocked on the glass and waved to me. I kept thinking that we must look like the weirdest Gila Monsters ever! Once we got most of the sand out I helped finish up the dishes right before we closed.

Gila Monster

Jamaican Boa

Day 8: Herpetarium or Insectarium?

This morning we had two vets come in to do some medical work on a Reticulated Python that has been sick and not shedding properly. It took five zookeepers to hold the snake and the two vets to give various shots and some sort of IV to the snake. It looked like the five zookeepers were doing everything they could to keep the snake still but it was still able to move them at times. I picked up salad trays from some exhibits in the house and also from a room of animals off exhibit. I changed the water bowls for the Giant Haitian Galliwasps again as well as for the Pancake Tortoises and various lizards. When there was clean water, clean newspaper bedding, and the salad bowls removed, I went on to letting the desert tortoises soak for a few minutes.

Fly River Turtle

I finished the last few enclosures of desert tortoises after lunch and then did the dishes. One of the house interns started today, so I was able to be on my own for some things while he was getting trained on others. After dishes, both of us interns were taught how to clean the tanks for baby alligator snapping turtles. While the other intern practiced at that, I cleaned the black worms. In the same room as the alligator snapping turtles we cleaned out water bowls for some McCord's Box Turtles. They can reach adult size in about 4-5 years which I find amazing. I then learned how to backwash a sand filter for a few tanks with water turtles in it. I got to see the Fly River Turtle (Pig-Nosed Turtle) up close again, which always brings a smile to my face. In one of the other tanks there are two Red-Bellied Short-Necked Turtles, which really do have a red/pink colored plastron!! I also learned how to correctly hold an alligator snapping turtle and why/how you have to hold common snapping turtles differently (they have a long enough neck that they can swing around and bite your hand if you are holding them at the top of their shell. Alligator snapping turtles have a shorter neck and cannot reach your hand).

After break, the other intern and I got an in depth tour of the insect and mouse room. We had to clean water bowls for a few mice and then learn how to clean bins of....crickets. I avoided the insectarium for a reason... I understand the huge importance of having a healthy food source for your animals, but crickets still freak me out at the moment. Thankfully, after admitting my dislike for crickets, the other intern stepped in for some of the closer handling. Some of the crickets are fed food called a 'gut bomb' which adds nutrients and calcium to them so the animals that eat them can have a better food source. Evidently, crickets are very sensitive to too much moisture. They still need some moisture, so they are given 'Cricket Quencher', a gel-like substance, in order to give them the small amount of water they need. It was then time to gather trash, turn off the lights, and close up the herpetarium.

Reticulated Python

Red-Bellied Short-Necked Turtle

Day 7: Long Tasks

After cleaning the glass, I went downstairs to clean out salad trays and water bowls from turtles and iguanas. I then headed back upstairs to clean out the giant tortoise exhibit. It was a slow process again because every time I was almost calling it as good as it was going to get, one of the tortoises would stand up off of the salad they were on, leaving me with more work. There also was no water pressure, so having to clean the floor took a while too. At one point when I was on the far side of the exhibit, one of the medium sized tortoises followed me over. Later, when I was hosing down an area of the floor, one of the really big tortoises came over and stopped right in front of me, demanding attention. Of course they each got a little neck rub, but then I had to get back to work. At the end, one of them was laying right on top of the drain opening, which I needed to put the drain plug back in and fill up their little pool. So it took some coercing to get the tortoise to finally move! Finally I found some hay and put that out to finish.

I then was shown how to use the intercom system inside the building and was given a small pad of paper so I can be an official zookeeper. Before lunch I did the dishes. I bought lunch for the first time using my employee discount, which made it only a little over $3!!

After lunch I cleaned and filled water bowls for tortoises, skinks, and some lizards. A few of them needed their newspaper changed as well. I then cleaned the McCord's Box Turtle and Spotted Turtle cages like I had done last week. It was a good feeling to be able to do it by myself and know what I was doing. I then went into another area of the building to change out water bowls for Giant Haitian Galliwasps. I also got to climb into an exhibit of iguanas to clean the glass from the inside because there was a buildup of salt. There were a few more tanks to clean and then I ended the day cleaning more dishes that had been brought in.

Giant Haitian Galliwasp

Day 6: Turtle Mania!

This morning I was sent off with the task of cleaning the giant tortoise exhibit by myself!! I was able to scoop up most of the salad, but of course some tortoises were being difficult and decided to lay right on top of a salad clump and not move. I tried rubbing their neck, I tried spraying some water on the floor near them, but they would not move. On top of that, one of them decided to lay on the hose again. So cleaning took a while. Regardless, it was still fun because I got to give them a little attention and simply because I was surrounded by giant tortoises! Mid morning we had two tour groups come through of teen volunteers at the zoo. Everyone got three carrots to feed the tortoises and that finally got the few stubborn ones to move. It was fun seeing the tour guests interact with the tortoises. It was because of this tour last summer that got me the connections for this internship. There is a Galapagos tortoise, some Aldabra tortoises, and some Yellow-Foot tortoises. Between cleaning and the tours, I spent most of the morning with the giant tortoises! I'm not complaining! After that I learned how to clean tanks for baby McCord's Box Turtles :) One was newly hatched and was so small and adorable! McCord's Box Turtles are virtually extinct in the wild. Actually, their natural location in the wild was unknown until fairly recently. All records of them previously was from seeing them in the pet trade in Asia. When a survey was done in China only one turtle was found. So the survival of the species is now solely dependent on zoos and their breeding programs. It is really unfortunate how so many animals are exploited in the pet trade or killed for some body part. These animals share the world with us and need to be respected more.

After lunch, I helped change water bowls for some lizards. I was told that I should avoid one of them because she was a little feisty. I looked into the cage and when she saw me, she put up the frill of skin around her neck and hissed. I understand why I was told to not worry about her water bowl. I also helped to give some desert tortoises a soaking. Even though desert tortoises are adapted to a dry environment, they still need water and moisture to survive. Putting them in a shallow amount of water gives them some moisture, an opportunity to drink, and it even stimulates excretion. Most of the tortoises were Pancake Tortoises which are naturally found in Tanzania and Kenya. Unlike other tortoises, Pancake Tortoises have a different bone structure so their plastron (lower shell) is slightly flexible. When I was picking them up I could actually feel a slight bend of the shell. The flexibility allows them to press themselves between rocks to hide. Their carapace (upper shell) is suppose to be smooth but some of them had more of a bumpy carapace. I learned that the shell growth is determine by the humidity, moisture, and other environmental factors. The zoo keeper that was training me went to go take care of other things and let me finish going through the tortoises and letting them soak. It was a cool feeling to be left in charge of handling and caring for the animals again.

When I was done I was looking for one of the main zoo keepers to find out what I could do next, but they must have been in another part of the building, so I decided to take care of the dishes. After taking the afternoon break, I learned how to clean spotted turtle tanks. (Spotted turtles are also super cute!). Once the tanks were clean, the zoo keeper I was with had me watch while he candled a turtle egg. The egg was laid May 1, so the little turtle was still a small red blob. It was amazing that you could see where the head was, an eye, what would turn into the shell, and the main blood vessel that attaches to the yolk. Unfortunately, when looking at an egg from another species you could tell that the egg was already starting to decompose. Most turtle eggs are temperature dependent for the gender. As the saying goes "hot chicks and cool dudes". So the hotter the temperature, the more females; the cooler the temperature, the more males. In captive incubation, you have total control over which gender the egg will be. So the healthy egg was set at 80 degrees, meaning that for that species it will be a male. Every turtle species has different temperature parameters for the genders, depending mainly on geographic location because of different climates. What might be a perfect temperature for one type of turtle might 'cook' a different turtle egg. Interestingly enough, soft shell turtles actually have genetic determination of genders. With a little bit of time left at the end of the day and a few extra carrots from the tortoise tours, we decided to see if some of the other turtles and larger lizards would go for some carrots. One of the lizards had some interest but the other ones seemed unenthused.

I definitely learned a lot today and of course, I loved spending the day surrounded by turtles and tortoises!

Aldabra Tortoise

Yellow-Footed Tortoise

Galapagos Tortoise

McCord's Box Turtle

Pancake Tortoise

Spotted Turtle