Week Five: Lab work and Strikes

Name: Ashley Uselmann

Class Year: Junior

Hometown: Carmel, IN

Internship: National Pretoria Zoo

Pretoria, South Africa

Our group at one of the national heritage sites in Mokopane

These last few weeks have been packed. Every day Tia and I get up and go to the student research center to start our day. This last weekend was a blast with I, Tia, Marriane, Dr. Jeff, and Dr. Michelle going to the Mokopane park once again. Dr. Jeff is another current resident in the accommodations house that Tia and I stay at. He is an American vet from Florida. Dr. Michelle also brought her family along, so we had a packed house. However, we had an amazing time going on a safari through the park and exploring the national heritage sites of Mokopane. We saw an array of animals on our trips. We saw giraffe, zebra, bushbuck, roan antelope, eland, nyala, kudu, springbok, monkeys, wildebeests, baboons, mountain hyrax, mongoose, and bush babies. Back in the states, we don’t have many large, wild antelope species. It was a beautiful site seeing these large animals in the wild. We also visited a national heritage site in Mokopane. This national heritage site consisted of a vast array of caves. Each with their own story to tell. One cave was an old limestone mining operation that was halted after the discovery of bones fossilized in the rocks. Another cave was a hideout for native Africans when they started a war with one of their neighbors. We found out that the chief survived the war and actually faked his death, and later the area was named after him. We finished the great weekend with a Bri, or a barbecue as we know, and made our way back to the zoo.

While Tia and I love working with the vets, we still have work that has to been done in the lab. Thankfully, I have been making great progress with the bushbuck microsatellite project. Dr. Sonia has been a patient teacher in helping me understand microsatellites and what are the best techniques to use in a lab setting. I give a big thanks to all my lab courses, because these last few weeks I have been micro pipetting… A Lot. These last few weeks consisted of me, under the watchful eye of Dr. Sonia, extracting DNA from bushbuck samples, combining said DNA with the experimental microsatellite primers, putting them through PCR, and analyzing how these said microsatellites interact with each other after amplification.

This current week has been interesting to say the least. Due to a recent change of management, the Pretoria zoo is in the middle of the transition. As a result of the transition, many promised changes are slow to happen. Apparently one of those changes was creating equity among the workers’ wages. Since that promise has not happen yet, many of the zoo’s staff decided to go on strike… Tia and I did not see that coming. Because of many keepers becoming part of the strike, the zoo enlisted the research center to help out in keeper duties. On the first day back, my fellow roommates and I were also enlisted to help in keeper duties. The first day of keeper duty was hard work. Jamie and I were assigned to the penguin enclosure. There are about 50 African penguins in this enclosure. Each of them have their own name and identification tags. The first part of penguin duty was quite the work out with us cleaning out the penguin pool. Imagine a small drain on one side of the pool that you are trying to push water down. Even if you pushed a lot of water towards the drain, most of it would miss the drain and bounce off the wall. It took an hour for me, Jamie, and one of the keepers to brush and fully clean the pool. It took rounds of soap and bleach, to fully clean the pool. I would take scooping my cat’s litter box over this any day.

Me cleaning the penguin enclosure

 The second part of penguin duty consisted of de-thawing the fish and stuffing supplemental pills in the gill slits. After we are all done, there are two buckets of fish. One bucket has all the supplemental fish with pills, while the second bucket has regular fish. Each penguin has to have one from the supplemental fish, but can have fish from the other bucket if they are still hungry. The penguins have three feeding sessions a day. If one penguin does not feel like eating at one session, they can try another session.In order to properly account which penguin eats, the keepers hand feed every penguin. The keeper sits down with a clip board and records every penguin that gets a fish, how many fish, and at what time. It was incredible that the keeper knew every single penguin by just how they look and ate. The last part of penguin duty consisted of us gathering lavender that the zoo grows and depositing it in the penguin enclosure. Apparently, they like to use lavender as nesting material and when we came back the following day, all the lavender was gone. 

The sweet African penguins that I was assigned to

Another section that our group was enlisted to help was the seal section. There are about 18 seals in this section. 13 of the seals are South American fur seals, while 5 of them are Cape fur seals. The South American fur seals are smaller than the Cape fur seals, but don't let their size fool you. Both the keepers and the seals themselves have demonstrated how much personality they have, especially if they don't want to do something. Seal duty was a little more extensive than penguin duty. The day starts similar as the penguins with de-thawing the fish. However, seals have a more intricate diet. They get two types of fish, squid,and gelatin. Each seal gets different amounts of all food based on their species and size. In addition, the seals are also given supplemental pills inside their fish specific to each seal. After the food is prepared, the seals are called in their respective, smaller enclosures. The seals are than let out and fed one-by-one based on personality. You have to let out the seals with the dominate personalities first, so they do not get competitive with other seals. Once the seal eats all its food, the keeper yells, "All done, [insert name]", and open the door to release them into the bigger pool area. If the seals do not follow the command and decided to wander the feeding area, you are directed to ignore them until they decide to follow the command. If they don't gain anything, they won't want to stay in the area. The head keeper, Elsie, also works with each seal on training. While feeding the seals, she uses the food as positive reinforcement when giving commands. These training sessions prepare the seals for vet visits. The importance of the gelatin was something I didn't know before. The seals actually require a great amount of salt in their diet for a healthy seal. The gelatin contains salt and is fed to the seals along with the fish. In addition, the seals require salt water to swim in. One of the common health problems in these seal species is blindness. The blindness is a greater risk if the seals don't regularly swim in salt water. This internship has been a dynamic time. I have been with the researchers in the lab, in the enclosures with the keepers, and in the operating room with the vets. No one knows how long the strike will continue, but one thing is true, you really don’t know what to expect here in South Africa!