We Will Miss You Chengdu!

Name: Taryn Chudo

Year: Junior, Class of 2018

Location: Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

Internship: Chengdu Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding, Animal Research

Wow! I can’t believe that we aren’t in Chengdu anymore. These last two weeks went by so fast, especially since Ju wasn’t with us for most of it. A lot of the time that we had left was spent collecting data on the cubs. Combined, we gathered over 100 hours on the cubs! It doesn’t seem like we were there long enough to get that much! During our lunch break and after work each night, we would spend a decent chunk of time entering in the day’s data, but we made sure that we also filled the last of our time with tons of fun activities and lots of good food!

It rained quite a bit, but we didn’t let that stop us. We had lots of restaurants to eat at and not enough time to do so! We had dumplings a couple more times and we made sure to have hot pot as many times as possible. We also were missing Ju while she was in Thailand, so we made sure to eat there one more time.

Not only did we have lots of places to eat, but we also had a lot of sightseeing and souvenir shopping to do! One Friday night, we went to the Sichuan Opera. It was amazing, my favorite parts were the hand shadow performance and this skit about an older married couple. Although we had no clue what the performers were saying, we were still able to understand it well enough. The next day we went to the art market for some shopping. We got lots of folding fans and some small sculptures. We then walked around Chunxi road, which is lined with all kinds of shops and shopping centers. 

That following Sunday, we traveled to Sanxingdui, which is an archeological site similar to Jinsha, which we had visited a few weeks prior. Sanxingdui exhibited many artifacts of the ancient Shu people, including a sacrificial site, and giant masks with large ears and protruding eyes. These two features are thought to be representative of their god who can hear and see everything.

During our second to last week, James took us into the red panda enclosure to observe and even help him with training. The enclosure that we went entered had two males and one female, Xiao Bai. James worked with one of the males in order to make catching and transporting him easier. We then worked with Xiao Bai on ultrasound and blood draw training. She did great and it certainly was an experience of a lifetime.

Our last week was definitely interesting. On Monday, we had to take the day off to meet with University staff to figure out all of our move out details. After that was figured out, we went to Jinli for more shopping and tasty street food. As we were walking around, Kelly found a stand that sold various types of insects for food. She decided to try the scorpion!

On Tuesday we were back at the Panda Base. It was raining and we had taken the later morning bus, so we hung out in the lab and worked on entering and organizing our data. That night we went and had our favorite stick style hot pot! On Wednesday, we collected our last sessions of data. That night we went to wide and narrow alleys. It was weird to think that these were the last times that we were going to be there. Thursday was James’ birthday and our last day at the panda base. In the morning, we helped with red panda training and then in the afternoon, we observed giant panda training. We then took James out to the Thai restaurant for dinner. On Friday we souvenir shopped and then met Ju in the evening when she landed. She spent Friday night in Chengdu before leaving for the States the next morning. Before we met her, James took us to an archery place near his apartment. We had a great time and Kelly channeled Katniss Everdeen for most of the time. We all went to dinner that night and had all kinds of local Sichuan food.

On Saturday we met with Eldora and several of her friends. They taught us how to make dumplings and they made all kinds of food. While we cooked and ate we watched Forrest Gump! 

After that we went and had dinner with Yang, one of our friends from the Panda Base. He took us to a new kind of hot pot which was delicious. He also took us to try some local snacks. Kelly and I tried pig nose, and Kelly was adventurous enough to try the rabbit head, a Chengdu specialty!

Sunday was our last day. We went to have our favorite hot pot one last time and then traveled to Chunxi road again and walked all throughout the center of Chengdu. We then ended up at Wenshu Monastery and then had snow ice before heading back to the room to pack. The next morning, we started our long journey home. 

We had a great time and we both want to be back in Chengdu so badly. We will miss the panda cubs that we have come to know and love and we will miss everyone that we got the pleasure to work with. As I am writing this, I am making hot pot, dumplings, and bing fen (a sweet gelatin dessert) in an attempt to share Chengdu food with my family. Hopefully, we will both be able to travel back to the beautiful city of Chengdu and visit our pandas in the future!

Welcome to Toledo!

Name: Amber Wuersig
Class/Year: Class of 2018, Junior
Hometown: Port Clinton, Ohio
Location: Toledo Zoo, Toledo Ohio
Internship: Animal Behavior / Ambassador Animal Intern

What a summer this has already been! A few weeks ago Molly, Nathan and I moved into our apartment in Bowling Green. It didn’t take much time at all for the three of us to get accustomed to living with each other and work out our daily routines. Luckily, we are staying less than a half hour away from the zoo, which makes the morning commute through construction a little more tolerable. We have even discovered a couple of favorite spots to stop for ice cream on the way home!
My first few weeks at Toledo Zoo have passed in the blink of an eye. I have the privilege of splitting my time between two departments; Animal Behavior and Ambassador Animals. I spend my mornings with the Ambassador Animal department, assisting keepers with husbandry and any odds and ends tasks they ask of me. Their department has a collection of about 140 animals who certainly keep everyone on their toes. So far I have been trying my best to get to know the personalities of as many animals as I can which has been quite the challenge!
I work closely with keepers and other Ambassador Animal interns and fortunately for us, we all seem to enjoy each other’s company. We are finally starting to get into a morning routine. As interns, our main responsibility in the morning is to assist the keepers with the husbandry in three areas; the goat and pig barn, the Education Animal Center and an area called Nature’s Neighborhood. We try to rotate who is working in each area as best as we can so that everyone gets an equal opportunity to learn.
After this is all done, it is usually time for me to head over to the Animal Behavior Department. My duty here is to coordinate enrichment for ambassador animals. To do this, I make a calendar of enrichment which I will make and deliver to the ambassador animal department for the keepers to give out. I primarily focus on four species (pigs, goats, groundhog and black vulture) but occasionally will make enrichment for other species. I will also be evaluating the enrichment that I have made.
The behavior department is a very small department and we work in close quarters of one another which has allowed all of us interns to get to know one another pretty well. Since we all work in the same area, I get to see what some of the animals in other departments are receiving for enrichment which is really cool.
In addition to making enrichment, all of us behavior interns have a weekly discussion with the department staff where we get to learn some pretty neat things about animal behavior. Recently, the topic of our discussions have been training. We specifically have been focusing on positive/negative reinforcement. We even attempted to train one another using reinforcement which was a really neat exercise (I trained Molly to jump in the air with her hands up ).
I am looking forward to the rest of my summer here in Toledo, it has already been a fabulous experience!

P.S. This is me at Lucas the elephant’s 5th Birthday ready to teach the world about his enrichment!!

Welcome to Texas: Dallas Zoo Vet Hospital Edition 2

Name: Eliza Hanes

Class Year: 2018

Hometown: Vestal, NY

Internship: Vet Hospital Intern

Location: Dallas Zoo

One of the Cougars at the Dallas Zoo

As I get ready for week seven of my internship here at Dallas I have a lot to look forward to yet! Upcoming, I get to shadow the cat row keepers for a day, the reptile keepers for a day, and I get to present my project to the staff in the vet hospital. When I shadow the keepers on cat row, the species that I will get to see are the cougar, the bobcat, and the ocelot. While in reptiles I am not entirely sure which species I will be working with, but I am super excited for all the information that I will learn. I am still working hard on my tiger project and as the date for presenting gets closer and closer, I am getting excited to present the final project. 

Earlier this week, I got to shadow the keepers in the Savanna. Abigail and I switched internships for the day so I spent the morning in the giraffe barn. I worked with Chris and Allison, and got to clean the feed yard (where the

An albino crocodile in the reptile building

giraffe feeding occurs), North Donga (one of two yards for the warthogs), and the giraffe holding yards. After cleaning those, I got to watch them shift the animals on exhibit that day. That day was the first day that the lechwe were put on exhibit with the giraffe. I really enjoyed being able to see this introduction between species occur. The animals that were on exhibit that day were the greater Kudu, lechwe, ostrich, giraffe, and guinea fowl. After the animals were on exhibit, I went back to the giraffe barn and helped Allison and Chris clean the giraffe barn. We finished that right at lunch time, and since Abigail is in the registrar in the afternoon, I left the Savanna to go work on my project. Overall, I really enjoyed the time that I got to spend in the Savanna.

The vet hospital has been pretty exciting lately with a new vet student that started and a few visitors. The vet student is a fourth year student from Brazil, and I have really enjoyed getting to know about what their school system is like as well as what their zoos are like. She is a super nice person and I have gotten the opportunity to work closely with her as she and I work together to set-up for and take down procedures, as well as we both accompany the vet techs for treatments.

Me all ready for a procedure

This week we also had a visiting vet student come from Fossil Rim. Fossil Rim is a wildlife center that primarily has hoof stock species. We had an exciting big cat procedure on Thursday this week, so Fossil Rim’s vet department arranged for her to be able to be here for it. She is a second year vet student and was super excited to be there for the procedure. Just before lunch, I was able to give her a tour of the hospital, as well as take her into the zoo to see her favorite species, the African Elephant. This was the first tour of the vet hospital that I had given, and while it was not completely smooth, it turned out okay.

That day we also we visited by Dr. Kramer, the Otterbein alumni who set up this internship, and an

old Dallas Zoo board member. As you can imagine, with all of these visitors, the hospital staff, and the carnivore staff, radiology (the room where we do most procedures) got pretty full. Even though it was a rather full room, I learned a lot through that procedure, and I helped where I could. Mostly I just filled out the anesthesia sheet for the techs. This sheet consists of tracking the anesthesia, the oxygen level, heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, and medications given to the animal. This is something that I am asked to do during many procedures to free up the techs, but every time I fill one out, I learn something new.

An Aoudad at Fossil Rim

This weekend, Abigail and I went to Fossil Rim. Fossil Rim is a really cool place to go and I highly recommend it to anyone who travels in the area. It was a bit of a drive for Abigail and I to get there, but it was definitely worth it. When you purchase your ticket to go in, you can also purchase a bag of food to feed to the animals. They ask that you do not hand feed anything but the giraffes, rather throw the food on the ground for the animals. While on our trip, we saw many hoof stock species, some friendlier than

Abigail was super excited to be this close to a zebra

A gemsbok at Fossil Rim, a more stand-offish animal

others, and of course also got to see some of the Texas driving that we are now getting accustomed to. Some of the animals at Fossil Rim are very bold and will walk right up to your car and may even stick their heads in your window! Others are more timid and will be more stand-offish than that.

On my last blog I touched on the Dallas weather that we see here. While it rains a little bit less now, all the weather still stays the same, hot, but not quite 100, and when it rains, it rains. This time I shall touch on the Dallas drivers. Honestly I think it is seen throughout all of Texas, but I have not traveled far enough to say for sure. When Rachel and Lauren, the Otterbein students who were interns here last year, warned me about Dallas traffic, I was expecting never ending traffic jams. While we have

As seen on the right, passing a vehicle on the shoulder

seen a fair amount of traffic jams, I now realize more of what they meant. Half of the time when I make it back to the house I am relieved that my car, Abigail, and myself are all safe. Dallas driers are very aggressive and do not always follow the rules of the road. Abigail and I have seen cars merge across four lanes of traffic without looking, pass another vehicle on the shoulder of the road, and pass another vehicle using the turn lane. As you can imagine, driving like that can cause a lot of accidents, and that is the truth. Every morning we watch the news, and there is always at least one, but typically two or three car accidents in the Dallas area before we even leave for the zoo at 6:25AM. Dallas driving is definitely crazy, and while I will miss a lot of things when I return to Columbus, the traffic and driving are definitely not on that list.

Excitement in the Savanna

Name: Abigail Smith
Class Year: 2018
Hometown: Troy, OH
Internship: North Savannah/Registrar Intern
Location: Dallas Zoo

Hello all from Dallas again! Things are moving right along as I enter my seventh week and temperatures continue to climb. These past two weeks have been exciting!

One of my latest achievements is learning how to identify all ten of the guinea fowl, which are named after candy. We have two species of guinea fowl: Helmeted and Vulturine. The helmeted are all female and their names are: Pez, Razzle, Skittle, Red Hot, and Zotz. The vulturine are all male and their names are: Goober, Reese, Buttercup, Twix, and Nestle. I also was trained to test the hotwire in our main exhibit. It’s pretty simple, we go out into the exhibit and use a device to make sure it is working and the voltage is in an acceptable range for the safety of both our guests and the animals themselves.

Vulturine Guinea Fowl (phto provided by dallaszoo.com)

Helmeted Guinea Fowl (photo provided by dallaszoo.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Testing the Hot Wire

This past week has been very exciting for the North Savanna (my section), as they are introducing the lechwe for the first time to other species in the savanna. So far they have been introduced to ostriches, giraffe, greater kudu, and guinea fowl. Little aggression has been seen between the species, which is what we were all hoping for. At some point we will introduce the zebra, but currently we are letting the current species get assimilated with each other.

On Tuesday of last week, I got to be a Hospital Intern for one day and Eliza took my place in the North Savanna. We had a morning meeting at 7:30 where we discussed the plans for the day and also celebrated Dr. Reins’ birthday. That morning we had a procedure on a large cat and I got to be in charge of recording it vitals at certain intervals and also keeping track of the anesthesia used. I enjoyed seeing the whole process of transport to the hospital, the procedure, and then transport back to its enclosure. Afterwards I got to help clean up and put things away.

Tree of Heaven

Sometimes on days when we have extra time in the morning we go out onto the exhibit to pull weeds and toxic plants. The main toxic ones we look for are Tree of Heaven, Nightshade, and a vine with heart shaped leaves. Tree of Heaven is identified by its symmetrical leaves and also it smells of peanut butter.

On Friday of last week we had to postpone shifting ostrich and giraffe to exhibit because of severe thunderstorms. Jeremy (animal behavior specialist) took the opportunity to tell us a crazy story. This is not an uncommon occurrence with him, haha.

Story Time

I got the opportunity to take an animal behavior class for interns taught by Jeremy. We learned all about training, what to do and what not to do. Most of this I had learned previously in my classes at Otterbein, but it was a good refresher! Also I got to hear all about Jeremy’s adventures from when he was a trainer at Sea World in Florida.

This weekend Eliza and I ventured to Fossil Rim after hearing nothing but good things and we were not disappointed. It is a drive through safari park that has over 1,100 animals, most of which roam freely on the 1,800 acres. We saw everything from giraffe, to rhinos, antelope, and a ton of deer. Most of the animals there are very accustomed to people and will come right up to your vehicle. Overall it was very worth the drive and I would recommend it to anyone visiting the area!

European Red Deer

Ostrich

Aoudad

Livin' up the last days

Year: Senior, Class of 2017

Location: Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

Internship: Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding- Animal Behavior Research

            After our great Emei trip (yes I finally got to see a monkey and almost cried of happiness), it was back to work for us! We took the late bus in and spent the day entering in data as well as helping with the red panda poop samples again! A lot of our time lately has been spent watching the pandas, recording what they do, and then entering in the data. Although it may seem repetitive, there is something new that happens every day with the cubs. Sometimes they fall and make VERY loud noises, other times they curl up next to another panda and fall fast asleep. It makes data collecting always an adventure! :)

            Last week Taryn found a new way to open lychee fruit at lunch. We were all so mesmerized by it! That same day Ju, Taryn, and I went ahead and tried hot pot all by ourselves! We went to this place just near our university where you cook the food on sticks in the hot pot. It was so delicious, we absolutely loved it!

            That weekend we went to the black bear center with Sarah, her interns, and Alex (their guide). There we learned all about the bear bile farms that happen in China. The black bear center rescues bears from these farms, which only have the bears to collect bear bile from them. We took a tour and saw a huge yard with all of the saved bears they had. We also heard about the stories of Alex, Oliver, and Rupert. It was very touching and moving to hear about all of the work they have done!

            We also did a lot of shopping! We went to Chunxi Road to get some souveneirs for our families and friends back at home. Chunxi Road is one of the largest shopping areas in Chengdu. We stopped in front of the IFS building and took a bunch of pictures in front of the giant panda climbing up the side of the building. Afterward we hopped on over to Wide and Narrow Alley to buy some more gifts. I also went ahead and tried some stinky tofu that weekend too! It was actually very delicious, although it was a little smelly. :P

            On Monday, we went to eat hot pot with Ju, Sherry, Joy (one of the other red panda interns), and Chen (Sherry’s husband). It was my favorite hot pot that I have had so far! The broth was actually a beef based broth where the broth melted inside the hot pot. We tried a bunch of new foods, from fish to rice noodles. After the hot pot, we walked around the city at night, which was breath-taking. The city is so pretty at night, with all of the lights flashing everywhere. A half hour later, Taryn and I took the bus back to campus.

            It almost seemed as though the week flew by from that point. We spent most of our nights eating various dinners with Ju and walking around where she lives. The weekend came before we knew it, and next thing we knew we were out shopping again! Saturday we went with Lan (one of the interns from the panda base), his girlfriend, and Ju. First, we ate at Wenshu just outside the temple. Lan ordered a bunch of different kinds of noodles for us to try and they were very delicious! After we found a few stores which we popped into and looked at things to buy. Jinli was the next stop for us, and the five of us headed over there. From trying lots of food to buying lots of souveneers, we had a blast just hanging out around Jinli. :)

            Sunday was our last day with Ju before she left for Thailand. Taryn and I had bought her a stuffed animal alligator which she absolutely loved! The three of us went to do some more shopping at the art market as well as Wide and Narrow Alley. We met James for dinner that night and went to a delicious fish restaurant. Ju always tells us how great the fish eyeballs are, so I decided to go ahead and try one. It was realllly squishy! I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it, but my reaction was nowhere near that of the durian (see Taryn’s previous posts) :P After dinner we went and walked around a bit. Taryn accidentally fell into a pond and we all had a great laugh for a while! We ended the night by getting boba (of course) and said farewell to Ju.

            It is crazy how Taryn and I have less than two weeks left in China. There is so much left I want to do, yet so little time to do it! I already miss Ju dearly, and know I will definitely miss China as much, if not more, than I did last time I left. I cannot wait to see what adventures Taryn and I have within these upcoming days. Here’s to livin’ up the last days! :P