Posts Tagged ‘kimberly’

by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.

Red Wolf Pictures

May 24th, 2013

I finally figured out how to use the zoom on my phone. The wolves are difficult to snap good pictures of without a zoom.

The female, 1287

The male, 1414

the female

The male is the one facing the camera

photogenic 1414

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.

Emergency Training: Making Darts

May 20th, 2013

Do you ever wonder what we do on closed Mondays?  (Today, we’re cleaning the bear pool).

We do several Emergency Training Drills a year and a closed Monday is the perfect opportunity. I recently wrote about lemur tracking, we also do full on drills that include fake animal escapes and or damage due to storms or trees down, you might recall when Leslie played a bear. Today’s post is about making darts.

We would potentially use a dart to sedate an escaped bear and maybe even a wolf. Our dart bags are labeled well but without practice it’s a very nerve raking experience. Here you can see several people in different stages of making darts. We of course use water as our “drug” during drills and depending on the size of the animal we would be darting, the amount of “drugs” vary. So we practice making lots and lots of darts, for all the potential animal sizes. Afterwards we go outside and practice shooting them into a target- no not one of Sherry’s stuffed animals. In the event of a real emergency there always has to be two people making darts together. So during practice we pair up in teams.

Several of us making darts, can you pick out the non-keepers in the picture?

Sarah and Maya making darts

Marilyn focusing on her darts

Annie, Katy, and Jessi

You can see the back of Mike in this picture practicing with us

 

Next, we went outside and practiced shooting our darts into two targets.

We make a radio call alerting all staff of our plans so no one accidentally walks out or wonders what in the world we are doing.

Oops Jessi missed the target

 

 

 

 

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.

Nap time

May 17th, 2013

Godzilla, one of our bearded dragons, is famous for napping in random positions.

Check out this previous post about his strange napping habits.

This particular sleeping position was excitedly pointed out to me by one of our latest interns Jamie.

Check him out:

 

Godzilla has no issues getting comfortable

 

 

 

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.

Lemur Tracking Drill

May 15th, 2013

We recently had a Lemur Tracking Drill. Sherry informed us that two “lemurs” were hidden around campus and we had an hour to find them. Off we went…

Me, Sarah, Kent, and Aaron begin Lemur tracking

Sarah picking up a strong signal behind the Donkey/Goat yard

Aaron went into the woods between alpaca and pigs to see what he could pick up on his tracker

Duck was curious about Aaron in the woods

As was Max

We then decided to go out to the parking lot since our signal was pointing us in that direction.

Quickly there after,  we found the first lemur in a tree.

The first lemur was found in a tree

After feeling successful about finding the first lemur so quickly we decided to split up at the boardwalk. Sarah and I headed to Explore the Wild and Aaron and Kent headed to Catch the Wind. Shortly there after,  the guys radioed us to meet them at the Into the Mist exhibit. Kent had spotted the second lemur on top of an umbrella!

With both lemurs found we headed back to the building

Successful Tracking

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  1. Kent looks thrilled about getting cuddled by Aaron.

    Posted by Ranger Ro

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.

10 mins with the Ring Tailed Lemurs

May 10th, 2013

After lunch everyday we head out to our respective areas and do afternoon checks. The ring-tailed lemurs have been enjoying their outside exhibit. I snapped some pictures during check recently. Sometimes all they do is sleep and sometimes they are climbing trees this is what they were doing on this particular day…

All 3 ring-tailed lemurs resting on top of their climbing structure

Still hanging out on the structure, just further apart

Lycus stands up…

for a nice stretch!

And sits back in a buddha pose for some nice sunbathing

Satyrus and Lycus, checking out some browse

Here you can see Satyrus in the back sunbathing while Lycus lays in the front

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.

Rummage Sale is tomorrow!!

May 3rd, 2013

Come join Zookeepers and Volunteers from The Museum of Life and Science, Carolina Tiger Rescue, and Duke lemur Center for their annual Rummage Sale.

From 7 a.m. to noon under the picnic dome at the Museum of Life and Science

Great prices on a huge variety of stuff! And all proceeds benefit our local Piedmont AAZK.

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  1. hope it was successful!

    Posted by sherry

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.

Silly Times

April 29th, 2013

The beginning of Spring brings all kinds of changes to the Animal Department. The bears are up and playing, the Ring-Tailed Lemurs get to stay outside in the yard, and the Wetlands explode with activity. One of our tasks for Spring includes removing the hay in the bear house. We put a good amount of hay on both sides of the bear house for the winter. It gets changed during supercleans and then removed completely once Spring arrives. There are 3 of us on the Explore the Wild team, Marilyn, Jessi and myself. We always try to work hard and have fun. But sometimes we butt heads. Below will be photo evidence of one of those times.

Marilyn was determined to get all of the bags of old hay to the compost in one load. Jessi and I were totally fine with making more than one trip. So we let her do what she wanted and I took lots of pictures.

 

First she tries to sit on the bags and immediately slides off the Mule

After several minutes she decides to hold one of the bags while riding in the back of the Mule

We drove from bears to lemurs before two bags fell off the vehicle, at this point Jessi and I are cracking up laughing!

We finally arrive at compost and Marilyn was successful at getting all the hay there in one load as well as making Jessi and I laugh for at least 15 minutes straight

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.

Black Bear Paws

April 27th, 2013

Black Bear paws are used for many things:

Walking

Rooting around looking for food

Scratching

Marking trees

Climbing trees

Swimming

And as plates

Virginia using her paw as a plate for her nut shells

This last use is one of my favorites and all of our bears do this. Sometimes they will place a piece of food on their paw and raise their paw up to their mouth. So cute and functional.

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.

Join us May 4th for the AAZK Rummage Sale

April 19th, 2013

Mark your calendars!!

4th Annual AAZK Rummage Sale

Saturday May 4th, 2013

7am-12pm

under the picnic dome at the Museum of Life and Science

433 N Murray Ave

Several of us keepers (Jill, Sarah, Jessi, Katy, and myself) are part of the NC Piedmont Chapter of the American Association of Zoo Keepers, along with keepers and volunteers from both the Duke Lemur Center and Carolina Tiger Rescue. This is our biggest fundraiser of the year and we invite you to browse our large selection of cheaply priced items. There will be a wide variety of items to choose from. Anything from clothes and furniture to books and electronics.

AAZK promotes the continued development of animal caregivers and the welfare of animals through encouraging excellence in husbandry, supporting continued education and collaboration between professionals and promoting conservation through fundraising and stewardship.

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by , Keeper
I'm extremely excited to be working at the Museum since October 2010. My favorite part of this job- besides working with the animals- is listening to all of the Keeper stories, I hear a new one each day. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, belly dancing, and vegan cooking.
I work Sunday through Thursday. I can be found mostly behind the scenes or training the Ring Tail Lemurs.

Zookeeper or Hair Stylist?

April 5th, 2013

Our current interns have been mentioned a few times. One of my favorite things about having interns is when they have been here awhile and really relax and let you see who they really are. (actually I think these two were relaxed from day 1)

I walked into the office the other day and witnessed this…

Jessica Intern

Wait for it…

Jamie Intern is quite proud of herself!

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