The Zoo Experience Day Two

Melissa, Big Bear Alpine Zoo curator, Bob Cisneros, and Kelly
with items from today's bio facts box.

BIO FACTS, MEALS AND SPECIAL GUESTS

Two of the coyotes were rescued after being kept as illegal pets
and the other coyote here was rescued near death at
only a few weeks old, due to multiple problems.
Photo by Melissa Ellis

Did you know that wolves are able to glide over snow due to a more even distribution of their weight on each of their paws? This allows them to catch up to animals such as deer who have hooves that sink into snow. This sinking causes them to lift their legs high in order to escape, which takes a lot more work than gliding like the wolves do. Learning this was the most interesting part of today, along with being able to educate zoo guests using this information and more from our bio facts lesson. Today we focused on canids, which include wolves, foxes, and many other canines. We showed the guests different paw prints and canid skulls while also sharing the importance of their jaws and paws while hunting.

Noelle, is a female wolf, born at the zoo in 2009.
Photo by Melissa Ellis

In the morning I was able to watch the many animal diets being prepared, which was very cool because of the variation in each animal’s diet. One of the diets consisted of this special meat mixture that they feed to the carnivores. This mixture has a large variety of all the proteins that they require in their diet. After this I was able to see a skunk named Manson who is gentle, crate trained, and currently being trained for other behaviors.

Today was filled with many different experiences including an amazing talk with two San Diego zookeepers, learning about bio facts, and seeing all the different diets for the animals.
Melissa Ellis

TRAINING DOGS IS DIFFERENT FROM TRAINING ZOO ANIMALS

Blair is a male wolf, born at the zoo in 2009.
Photo by Kelly Mount

This morning, Melissa and I, along with the rest of the zookeepers, watched a presentation by two San Diego Zoo zookeepers, Nicky Boyd, curator behaviorist husbandry, and Kim Caldwell, animal trainer supervisor. This presentation was about how to train the zoo animals. These women talked about positive and negative reinforcement and different ways to train animals besides using food. For example, instead of just hitting a dog on the nose when it goes to bite, the zookeepers want to move away from these habits. If an animal does something wrong, the zookeeper will stop what they’re doing and move onto the next command. This is safer for the animals and the keepers. Instead of using food like you might for a dog, the zookeepers will use targeting. Targeting is when you give the animal something and you put a target for the animal to go to.

Speedy, a male tortoise, was born 1994, and donated to the zoo in 2002.
Photo by Kelly Mount

The zookeepers from San Diego also talked about how the animals need to trust their zookeepers and vice versa. When working with my zookeeper for the day, Ashley, she talked about how there were some animals that she’d love to have a better connection with and to have them trust her more. I believe that the two zookeepers from the San Diego Zoo helped Ashley learn how to get a better connection with the animals she works with daily.
KellyMount

Thank you to Mountain Munchies for providing lunch for the students, mentors and staff.