Welcome to Texas: Dallas Zoo Vet Hospital Edition 3

Name: Eliza Hanes

Class Year: 2018

Hometown: Vestal, NY

Internship: Vet Hospital Intern

Location: Dallas Zoo

It is the beginning of week nine, which is bitter sweet since I am only here for ten weeks. While I am really sad to be leaving this wonderful internship that I have greatly enjoyed, I am looking forward to these last two weeks. Coming up in these two weeks I will get to do a switch day where I go to tigers, I will present my project to the hospital staff, and of course I will be able to observe more procedures, training, and treatments.

While at the hospital, I have gotten to see a lot of training sessions with animals. The vet techs have a regular schedule of training sessions so that they can have a relationship with the animals to do some routine procedures such as blood draws, injections, and hoof trims. This makes it less stressful for the animals since it completely voluntary. The animals that I have gotten to see blood draw training on have been tigers, snakes, cougars, anteaters, and emus. I have gotten to see hoof trim training with giraffes and okapi, and injection training with okapi. During my switch days I have also gotten to see husbandry training on ocelots, lions, and cheetahs.

Acid Fast Staining

On a slower day, I can find myself in the lab on occasion. The techs do a lot of work in the lab to monitor animal health and to keep the hospital running smoothly. In almost every procedure there is a blood draw and the techs run a CBC (complete blood count) and a chemistry analysis on the blood. The animals that are trained for blood draws also have blood samples submitted to the lab for the same reason. Keepers will also regularly submit fecals to the lab to be examined by the techs,

Rufus!

who will then do both a direct and a float analysis of the fecals. Routine water collections also occur around the zoo, and the techs process these water samples to make sure that the water chemistry is what it should be. During my time, the techs have taught me how to do some of the lab work. I have been taught to set up fecals, set-up and read the water sample testing, and I have learned acid fast stains, which tests for the presence of bacteria in the genus mycobacterium. When I am in the hospital, if the techs find anything interesting in their tests, they show me what it is that they see.

Lakai

One afternoon, I got to go on a tour of Barn 8, which is located in the Wilds of Africa. Barn 8 holds the incubator room for bird eggs. This makes it so that if an egg gets rejected, the keepers are still able to give it a chance by providing

supplemental care. Barn 8 also holds some of the breeding pairs of birds that Dallas zoo houses. This allows the Dallas Zoo to create optimal breeding environments for the birds, and reach many achievements such as being the first institution to successfully breed saddle bill storks under human care.

 I love cats, so my “hospital mom” Diana set up a switch day where I went to cat row for a day. This was so much fun for me as cougars are my favorite animals, and they are housed in this section of the zoo along with ocelots and the bobcat. Cat row itself is a historic building which means that it cannot be torn down, nor make it drastic modifications. The cougars are named Apollo and Lakai, and they were originally from Canada where they were found abandoned. The bobcat is named Rufus and

Lina and Jasari

the ocelots are Malagre and Joaquin. In the morning, I got to observe Malagre’s primary keeper, Libby, train Malagre. Currently she is working on getting Malagre to open her mouth for husbandry purposes. After that, the diets were fed out and we cleaned the exhibits before we cleaned the back holding areas. After finishing cleaning, Libby and I went over to the carnivore building on the other side of the zoo to help the lion staff with the demo (predator encounter). The cheetahs were the ones that were coming into the demo yard to be trained. The Dallas Zoo only uses positive reinforcement which means the animals have the choice of
whether they want to go into the training session or if they want to give the behavior, and if they don’t, there will be no consequences. The primary carnivore keepers opened the demo yard for two cheetahs, Bonde and Kilima to come in, but only Bonde chose to participate in training.  After the demo, I went to the anteater building for a little bit to see the work that is done there, and then we went to lunch.

Otter at Sea World

Orca at Sea World

Azul

 After lunch, we went across the zoo to do another demo. This time the lion sisters, Lina and Jasari, were invited into the demo yard for training and they both came in! While they both came in, only Jasari really felt like participating in the training. After the demo, we headed back to Zoo North to feed PM diets at Cat Row. In the middle of feeding PM diets, Diana came to do blood draw training with the cougar boys. This training is set up so that the voluntary blood draw can be a less invasive way to monitor the health of the animals. After the training, we finished PM diets and then cleaned the dishes before heading home for the day.

Not only do I have a passion for felids, but I also am very interested in herps. Due to this,

Live oak at the Alamo

Riverwalk

Diana also set up a morning where I got to go to the reptile building. In this switch morning, I learned so much about reptiles and amphibians by going section through section through the reptile building. I starting in section one and the keeper and I fed chameleons their diets, and then went and misted the other reptiles in his section. After that I went to another keeper’s section where I got to many amphibians including the large collection of dart frogs that the zoo houses. When I finished with that I went to yet another section and I got to see a large group of non-venomous reptiles that included the reptiles that are held by volunteers and during the keeper talks. This section also housed the zoos Texas Horned Lizards. The zoo has been successful at breeding these native lizards and wholeheartedly stand behind them. Then I headed off to my final section of the day that housed a large number of venomous species. This is not that surprising as the Dallas Zoo houses the largest venomous collection housed in a Zoo in the Unites States. This section houses king cobras, spitting cobras, and

Ducks at the Riverwalk

Riverwalk Duck

argentine racers. Other venomous snakes housed at the zoo are eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, Ethiopian mountain vipers, and my personal favorite, bushmasters. In this last section I got to learn a lot about antivenom, snake venom itself, and the process to become a venomous snake keeper.

Riverwalk

While Dallas is a great city, I have developed a fondness for the city of San Antonio. Abigail, Myra and I spent a weekend in San Antonio and we went to Sea World San Antonio, the Riverwalk, the Alamo, and Downtown San Antonio. This was the first time that I had been to Sea World and I was really impressed by all the training that they have completed with their animals. The relationship that they built with their animals was great. The shows were really cool as well, with my personal favorite being Azul. Azul included a combination of the animals performing the behaviors they were trained to do, and aerialists and divers putting on a spectacular show. The Alamo was a great stop as well. It was super pretty and there was a lot of history built in. After that we also wandered around downtown and did the Riverwalk. The Riverwalk may have been one of the prettiest things we have seen all summer. As a Zoo major, I of course spent half the time looking at the wildlife while being sure to look at the surroundings as well.

The view from Reunion Tower

Riverwalk

Abigail and I also went to Six Flags and to Reunion Tower. These are both things that are located in Dallas County and are definitely worth the trip. Six flags had a lot of great rides and we had so much fun. Reunion tower was really exciting as well. It started out with a light show to announce the baby elephants name, Ajabu, and then the Zoo set up the opportunity for us to go up in the tower. Thanks to this, we got to get and aerial view of the city at night which was a spectacular sight to say the least. We are definitely living up our time in Dallas and I am sad that it is coming to an end. 

Downtown Dallas at Night

Out and About in Texas

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

Rounding the end of my eighth week here in Dallas things are picking up speed. These past couple of weeks have been very busy. I got the opportunity to go on a tour of Barn 8, which is where a lot of breeding pairs of birds are housed. We learned all about what goes into raising baby birds from getting the right two parents together to caring for them post-hatch. We also got to see how they “candle” the eggs before they hatch. This is the process of putting the eggs up to a strong light source to see into them and make sure they are in good heath i.e. positioned correctly and heart beating.

July 21^st was Dollar Day at the Dallas Zoo. We had over 20,000 guests admitted to the zoo for just a dollar each. That seems like a lot, but last year was over 40,000. This day was almost a normal day for me, except we accelerated our work in the barn so we could take shifts monitoring the public. This mostly involves just walking around and making sure Tebogo doesn’t try to eat any of the guests' belongings out at the giraffe feed platform.

This past week we also got two more helmeted guinea fowl added to our collection: Nerd and Twizzler. These were returned to us from Barn 8, which I mentioned previously. This means we now have 7 helmeted guinea fowl. When they were introduced back into the confusion, or a group of guinea fowl, I was tasked with observing them for a few hours to make sure they were having positive interactions. 

On Tuesday of last week I got to spend the afternoon in the savanna (I normally only spend the mornings there). I got to help prepare the giraffe diets for the evening when they come off exhibit and we put up browse in the barn for their enjoyment. The afternoon is the perfect time for training because there is less going on. I got to observe the training of Katie, one of our female giraffes. She was asked to walk into the GRD (giraffe restraint device) voluntarily to be weighed. They asked her to walk in and out several times to make sure they got an accurate weight. She was also then asked to stick her tongue out to make sure it is healthy. After she performed the behaviors correctly she was rewarded with a piece of her favorite browse.

Sea World

Outside of the zoo Eliza, Myra, and I have been very busy. We went to Sea World, the Alamo, and the Riverwalk in San Antonio, all in one weekend! Sea World was great. We got to see several different shows including Sea Lions and Otters at Play, One Ocean, Azul, and Sea Lion High. My favorite show was Azul because there were amazing acrobats and divers doing amazing stunts way up above the pool. We left Sea World in the afternoon and headed over to the Alamo. I imaged it to be way out in the middle of nowhere like the pictures show in the history books. This was not the case; it was located smack dab in the middle of downtown San Antonio. After the Alamo we wandered (literally) to the Riverwalk, which is essentially a small canal with a whole lot of shops and restaurants on either side of it. The canal was really beautiful and I’m sure it would have been even more so if we could’ve stayed late enough to see the night-lights.

Alamo

Riverwalk

Speaking of night-lights, the zoo announced the name of the elephant calf I have been observing, by a light show on Reunion Tower. We all went to see the light show and learn the baby’s name: Ajabu. After the show we got to go up into the tower and look out on the city all lit up.

View from Reunion Tower

Virtual Reality Gear

Also this weekend Eliza and I satisfied our appetite for thrill at Six Flags Over Texas. We got there before the park opened at 10:30 A.M. and stayed until it closed at 10:00 P.M.. We rode all ten “top-thrill” rides, some multiple times, and a few of the “medium thrill” ones.  We got the pleasure of riding the new virtual reality coaster. Before you get on you are handed a headset which is basically a phone strapped to your face. When you pull it over your eyes all you can see is that you are sitting in  a fighter jet in a hangar. The ride starts going and the jet starts going, most of the ride is you flying in the jet crashing into things and blowing them up. Overall it is actually pretty realistic. The best part of the day was when we got off of The Riddler at 9:50 P.M. and ran to ride our favorite coaster, Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast, one last time before the park closed. We arrived just in time to get on the last ride of the night. When the coaster got back into the station, the operator announced that he would let us ride again if I beat him at rock paper scissors. Unfortunately I met my match; fortunately he let us ride again anyway. So we got to ride our favorite coaster a total of three times in one day! What a great way to end the night.

Name: Molly Kukawka

Year: Junior Class of 2018

Hometown: St.Clair, MI

Internship: Animal Behavior/Arctic Intern

Location: Toledo Zoo, OH

Greetings from exotic Ohio! Nine weeks have gone by in quite a blur. Amber, Nathan and I have an apartment in Bowling Green, which makes it about a 20-minute commute to Toledo. We are all getting living routines and cooking nights in order. Turns out even the simplest meals like grilled cheese can be difficult so I think they all dread my cooking nights.

I am part of a group of 5 interns that each participate in two departments. We all are Animal Behavior interns and we also aid in one other department. I myself intern in the Arctic (we’re cooler than cool, we’re ice cold!!) and I spend the majority of my time there. The Arctic has 4 grey seals, 2 harbor seals, 4 polar bears, 3 cheetahs, and 3 grey wolves. My main job is help maintain enrichment for all of them. (For the polar bears that is 4 times a day!) I organize the week’s schedule into calendars and I am in charge of maintaining it and ordering supplies for the next week. This involves a lot of ice, fish, and peanut butter. Additionally, on Mondays I help some of the Zoo Educators (ZooEds) with polar bear enrichment talks. Keepers toss enrichment to the bears and visitors see and get to hear the background thought process and other interesting enrichment facts.

I also assist in seal training twice a day. I am working with one of the harbor seals, Chloe, and sometimes with one of the grey seals, Pattie. I am helping with basic cues and behaviors. The seals are trained for body and mouth exams, practice blood draws, and other potential medical procedure techniques.  

Another bonus experience is helping continue a 15-year activity budget study of the polar bears. We use an ethogram with about 15 different behaviors and we observe the bears for three 10 minute sessions a day. This paired with enrichment evaluations helps me see how effective my enrichment is and how often/what times to give it out at. Ultimately this internship holds the best of both the keeper and behavior worlds. Can’t wait to see what happens next. 

Crystal and her cub Hope

Crystal and Hope

Me with some of the keepers I work with. (This picture is a keeper hehe)

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.