Monday at the Zoo

Today being my fall break, I was a little uneasy about going back to the zoo. When I woke up at 6:45 this morning, I was tired and not in the mood to drive 45 minutes to the zoo again this morning. Luckily for me, I had an amazing time today and I was able to have so many new experiences!

I worked in primate row with Jackie today. This was the first thing different about coming in on a Monday, because usually when I work with Jackie, it's in Africa! However, with different days of the week come different keepers at the zoo locations, so I jumped at the chance to work with Jackie in a new location. 

It was an interesting morning. We had lots of cleaning to do on primate row, including bleaching all of the dens. Thankfully, our cleaning was split up by some animal observation time, because we got to give the primate pumpkins today! We put their morning diets in pumpkins and got to watch to see how they interacted with the pumpkins. This was great enrichment for the animals and great fun for us! After finishing up on primate row, we headed to the education building. 

In the ed building, in addition to cleaning exhibits, we also got to weigh all of the animals! This was great because I got to interact with them. I held, moved, and weighed birds, turtles, and skinks! I also got to pet the chinchilla and kinkajou while Jackie weighed them. I love any and all animal interaction I get, and I appreciate the fact that the keepers trust me enough to allow me to handle the animals. 

The best part of the day happened in the afternoon when we went to weigh the lemurs. There are 4 lemurs, and it can be a difficult task to get weights on all of them since they all want attention and snacks (they get food rewards to stay on the scale). So, today, my job was the distracter! I got to distract the other three lemurs while Jackie weighed the fourth one. Essentially, I got to hand-feed lemurs raisins for ten minutes, so needless to say, I was thrilled. They were so cute and gentle when I put the food in their mouths!

I'm so glad that I came in to the zoo for an extra day this week. I got so much animal interaction and had an overall great day. I'm thankful to the staff at the Greenville Zoo for trusting me and allowing me to help care for the animals and I'm thankful for this amazing experience! I can't wait to share next week's "tails" with all of you! Until then, stay wild!