Feather Zone

The Carolina Tiger Rescue is overrun with black vultures. It makes sense with all the dead animals, leftover food, poop, etc., but it can be a bit of a pain. They swoop everywhere, have no fear of humans, crap in the water pans and in general are a nuisance. Luckily, every now and then we find something worthwhile that comes from them... Today that was their feathers. A couple of bamboo mobiles, some feathers and a few squirts of Calvin Klein perfume later (lots of pheromones), the other interns and I had cat toys to hang from the top of the enclosures of the small cats.

Most of the day was spent with the two male interns, Josh G. ("the hunk" according to many of the volunteers, who does indeed want to run a zoo) and John (who wants to be a veterinary neurosurgeon). We cleaned a whole bunch of small and large cat enclosures, scooping poop and dead food animal remains (including the maggots that accompany them), and moving around the objects in their enclosures to shake things up. We also hooked the mobiles onto the ceilings of the enclosures while we were in there, and after unshifting the cats into the clean sides, we got to observe them batting, leaping and rubbing on everything around the mobiles. The Calvin Klein was definitely a success, and the feathers helped to stimulate their natural bird-hunting instincts.

I took some really great pictures, but unfortunately my phone died halfway through the day and it somehow lost them all! I think I might need a new SD card.

I also helped to put up some fencing for one of the new enclosures today. The rescue is always taking and moving big cats around, and they have lost a rather large amount of animals in the last year just due to old age. This makes openings for them to rescue from closed-down private zoos or exotic pet seizures. But they build their fences very sturdy and to last, with huge enclosures, and the 15+ foot chain link fences that I mentioned earlier. To get the panels of fencing up, they have a pulley system with ropes running from men on the ground, over the enclosure poles and to the top of the chain link fence, which is then hoisted off the ground and adjusted into place, then affixed to the poles and cemented in to the ground. Due to the weight of the fencing, you have to do it in 20 foot sections or it is unmanageable. So today they got two more panels up, and my job ended up being the one weaving the panels together to keep them sturdy- all the way to the top. It was very interesting to be a part of and to see the painstaking detail and strategy taken to get everything ready.

But most of my day, morning and afternoon, was spent just cleaning enclosures- not all that exciting but very, very necessary. The cooler also got fixed today, which was absolutely fantastic.

My evening ended with making dinner for the boys. Josh was out at an ultimate frisbee game, but Bill and Geoff were home and enjoyed my famous chicken marsala. It takes about an hour to make, but it is worth every minute of it! Maybe I am bragging, but I enjoy my own cooking. :) I made enough for at least 5 people and there was barely a serving left (they saved it for Josh so he knew what he missed out on). If anyone wants the recipe I am happy to share!

I am definitely going to miss these guys though- after two weeks of spending quite a bit of time with them they have become good friends, and I have enjoyed getting to know them in all of their older-brother teasing attitudes.

Anyway, that's all I got for today. Pretty tired after all day doing physical labor in the sun!

~Rich With Life~

And Then Came the Storm

This morning started out as a bit of a mess. Josh (one of the interns) called out, and Rachel (another intern) also called out. Josh was sick, Rachel just decided to stay at the beach an extra day.

So I headed out with Kristin to feed the binturongs, and was supposed to then head down and clean a tiger pool at the very far end of the compound, which was supposed to have cleaning tools dropped off for us. Me and Kristin got all the bints fed and their fish oil capsules dispenesed, headed down to Bali's enclosure and there was nothing there. Now we all carry radios on our belts the entire time we are in the compound in case we need to get in touch with a keeper, volunteer, intern, etc. Bali's enclosure is in a hole of sorts where no reception gets through. So after messing with the hose and trying to get it even close to the enclosure, looking everywhere for the supplies and in general wasting a good half hour of time, we finally got some reception on the radio and called in to find out what was going on. We were then mildly berated for not re-checking the schedule after we fed the bints, because we were actually supposed to clean another tiger pool... Apparently no one had seen fit to radio and tell us that the plans had changed. Nice. We finally got directions to do Nitro's pool, so we cleaned it, filled it and finally got something done. By this time it was already 10:30 am! Most of the morning gone, and in a stressful state.

I then did some enrichment with the tigers. Spraying some perfume on crumpled newspaper and tossing it into the enclosure- easy enough. But unfortunately it was like 90% humidity and 90+ degrees, so no one was moving or wanted to even check it out. This meant that my enrichment (which would normally take .5 hours or more if the tigers were interested) only took me like 20 minutes. I guess I kind of made up the time I lost? I did get to spend some time with Bali again, which I enjoyed as I quite appreciate his personality. He is a handsome fellow with a cleft/scar in his nose (not sure the story there), a big boy with a big attitude. When I walked up today he was giving me the biggest "I'm a tiger and I'm going to eat you" face that I have ever seen. He then grunted, groaned and growled at me, and we played a little predator and prey- I crouched down and hid behind some grass making distressed animal noises and he rushed the fence and tried to scare me (I played along). He looked so happy with himself at my feigned terror (though my heart did race- it is impossible not to be at least a little bit scared when a huge creature with fangs is running at you)!

The handsome Bali. The cleft on his nose can be seen on his right side.

The rest of the day was mostly finishing the dewormers (just the three that turned their noses up yesterday), and then fixing shift gate handles with broken wood, loose bolts or wires sticking out. Yay power tools! In the middle of this we were all interrupted by a huge, random thunder storm that shook the buildings with it's force. The compound closes down whenever lightning is seen, so we all ended up cleaning the keepers' "cage"- their office was absolutely filthy. Jared considers this all "slave labor," but I consider it part of the experience... you have to take the good with the bad- the vet exams with the physical labor. I enjoy it all, and am happy to lend my hands where they can be of use.

Anyway, I did really enjoy getting to know Kristin a little better today. I find it fascinating to learn about other people, their lives, personalities and character facets. Kristin is also pre-vet, about a year or two older than me, went to community college for two years, is engaged, and just a very nice person. She also has worked in a nationally famous genetics lab, is a vet tech for a sport's medicine equine vet, vet techs at a small animal hospital, has a job as a waitress, another job working in the Bio department at UNC, and is in the intern program at Carolina Tiger Rescue... WOW. I was very impressed... and also became very worried about my own vet experiences... I have around 400 hours of equine/mixed medicine experience, about 5 hours of small animal (I will be working on this when I get back to MD)... and that is it. No exciting research experience or shadowing with world famous vets. One of the friends I have who is in vet school interned at the Baltimore Aquarium and drove like an hour and a half to get there every day! Is it that I am just not committed enough to drive that far, that I am too afraid of failure, that I just lack the ambition to go for it? I am not sure... It did definitely solidify my desire to help out at a local spay and neuter clinic, and to apply for a pre-vet paid internship with the FDA in Rockville, MD next Summer. And cross my fingers that I get in. I am going to have to step up my game this year if I want to make my dream happen!

~Rich With Life~

Day 3: Flyspray, Mice and Vet Visit!

Today was quite interesting... Started my day with fly spraying the tigers. That's right, fly spraying. Flies apparently love to eat the tiger's (and lions) ears, so every day someone has to go out and tempt them over to the fence and then fly spray their ears. So I walk out to the food prep building (a little smelly dinky shack with a cooler, some tables and knives) and grab a hunk of rancid pork, chop it up and throw it in a bag (they love any meat, but the smellier the better). I then went in search of the fly spray and was surprised to find that they use bronco- the same stuff I put on my horses. So then I got to get up close and personal with each and every one of the tigers, feeding them off of treat sticks and spraying their ears while they are distracted. They don't really mind but won't come up to the fence without some tempting tidbits. My favorite couple of tigers are Rajiji, Kizmet and Mona- Rajiji can be very temperamental but he just has these very deep eyes and always talks to you. Kizmet and Mona both always come up to the fence and rub and chuff at you affectionately. Here is Kizmet:

In the den house behind her you can see one of her enclosure mates- Max, who was one of the few tigers who would not come out. I pride myself in that I got all but three of the big cats today, which is a lot more than usually refuse to come out- I'm sure that was more due to the rancid pork than me...but I can still pretend they like me. :)

So after the flyspraying was done, I got to do some enrichment with all of the small cats. This was tying a dead mouse (donated from one of the local laboratories) to the end of a string attached to a bamboo pole- a fishing pole if you will. I then dangled it outside of their enclosures, trying to tempt them into running, jumping and attacking it as they would in the wild. Interestingly, only one of the caracals was even slightly interested in it, while almost all of the servals and ocelots LOVED it. I had some really excited cats, including Renee, the three legged ocelot,who chased me around the enclosure and did a fantastic job getting the mice off the string. One ocelot, Magoo,was more interested in the string than the mouse- he would get the mouse off, drop it safely inside the enclosure, and continue to grab the string and play tug of war with me until he lost his grip. Too cute!

Unfortunately, dead mice smell kind of funny, and after spending a couple hours with them, including occasionally tearing them into bits for the cats and tying them onto strings, my lunch meat sandwhich was just not appetizing... all I could smell was mice, and kept imagining that my turkey was mouse meat... yum. Needless to say, I am starting to understand why the keepers are vegetarians! About lunch time I realized how badly my poison ivy had gotten... both my arms are covered, though my right arm is super swollen and rashy. It started to creep farther up my arms as the day went on, and it also showed up on my face.

So I am pretty itchy! If you look on my wrist you can see these two really nasty bug bites I have which are pus-y- the other interns looked at it and thought that it might have been fire ants. After talking about these, of course we jinxed someone. Unfortunately that someone was Geoff (the guy whose couch I am staying on). He got attacked while on a tour near the end of the day and went into mild anaphylactic shock, had to go to the hospital, etc. Poor guy... I ended up driving him home.

After lunch, the vet came out! Every Wednesday the vet comes out, drops a couple of animals and does physicals if there isn't any sort of emergency to be checked on. Today they did physicals on Mary Stewart (a caracal) and Oliver (an ocelot-Renee's enclosure mate). Knowing that most of the interns/externs are pre-vet or very interested in exotics, they make sure we all got to at least watch some part of the process, whether it was the dropping of the animal or the physical itself. Luckily, they called the interns: Josh, Kristen, Rachel and Melanie, and myself to come watch, and help with, the physical on Oliver. This was incredibly cool. Since they don't have any fancy medical equipment, they take heart rate, respiration rate and temperature every 5 minutes to monitor his process- the interns and I got to do this, which was awesome. For anyone who is interested, the temperature was right around 100, heart rate between 90 and 100, respiration rate around 35/40. The vet used a combination of 3 drugs to dart him and put him under, though I missed the exact names.  They then inserted a needle into his bladder to try and get some urine, took a blood sample, checked for any stiffness in the joints or unnatural growths, took the weight, checked his ears and teeth, gave him advantix (for large cats (LOL)), a rabies shot (the cat version- nothing has been studied or tested for exotics so this is the best there is), and a second vaccine whose name I unfortunately missed. On a side note, the vet did tell me that they gave ferret distemper shot to the tigers, because the ferret version of the vaccine is more stable than the dog version- all three species get canine distemper. Anyway, she then gave him another drug to bring him out of anasthesia, and they popped him back in the dog crate before he woke up.

We are all feeling how soft his coat is, and pulling out fleas (ew!).

More flee catching. The vet is in the back, and the three upfront are Rachel, Melanie and Kristen.

They let us take temperatures, heart rates and respiration rates. Josh is taking the heart rate. Lenore (a keeper) can be seen on the right, as well as the vet (blond).

Needless to say, this was probably the coolest experience of my life. I got to pet and feel an ocelot! The rest of my day was much less exciting- I climbed up on top of one of the enclosures and cut down as many branches as I could get from the two HUGE tree limbs which had fallen on top of a servals cage. This was the serval I had a picture of yesterday- Santana. He was pretty wigged about me being up there, but behaved himself well. Unfortunately the two big limbs were embedded in the chain link and without a chain saw, they were not coming out! But we did get all the rest of the weight off of the cage, which made the enclosure much safer.

We cleaned up everything, I drove Geoff back, made him some dinner (he is still feeling pretty bad from all the drugs they gave him), and am now relaxing! Going to call my sun and stars ASAP. :)

~Rich With Life~

Carolina Tiger Rescue- Days 1 & 2

So many things to write about! First of all, I made it to North Carolina alright! I met the guys I am staying with- Geoff, Bill, Josh and Justin (though Justin is actually just another temporary person sleeping on the other couch they have). They are all really nice guys, though a few of them are pretty far from my normal crowd... Geoff works at the tiger rescue, Josh is a high school science teacher, Bill is looking for a job doing something I haven't quite figured out, and Justin is a cinematography guy- he wants to get into doing PR for indie races. Some of them actually met each other the day they moved in, so it is a pretty interesting dynamic. Most of the time they are playing Call of Duty or Rockband!  I feel pretty okay here, though just kind of an imposition, for they are in a small townhouse and I had to pile all my crap in a corner. It just isn't really a bid enough place for 5 people! But for now it will do...

So now a little about the last two days:
Monday- Day 1!

I left at 7:45 to go get gas (I used all but the last little bit of my tank getting down here) and head to the rescue, which is about a 20 minute drive on 5-lane highways. I started work at 8:30 am, and was pleasantly surprised that the keepers remembered me. The three keepers are Ed, Lenore and Lauren. Lenore is definitely my favorite- she has a very upbeat personality in a 5'4" body, and loves to help out, give direction, answer questions, etc. She has amazing patience. Ed is a very stoic guy, as opposite of Lenore as you can get! He is 6' something, with red hair and a slight beard, and I have never seen him smile. He is always serious, but always nice. Lauren I have only briefly met, though she is the oldest of the three, probably in her late 30's, whereas the others are late 20's, early 30's. I started my day helping with preparing the food for the day. Binturongs (more on them later) are primarily fruit eaters, though they get some meat protein and vegetables, and they all have to have fruit and meat cut up for them every morning.

These are the binturong trays.

 I then loaded up in the back of one of the really beat-up pick up trucks that the rescue has. Almost everything they own is donated, including the vehicles, freezers, and power tools, so it keeps life interesting. Anyway, feeding basically involves going around to all of the small animal cages (ocelots, servals, bobcats, binturongs, cougars and caracals) and putting chicken thighs, breasts, legs, etc. through their feeding slots and into the inclosure. Each animal gets a piece injected with vitamin syrup (mostly glucosamine) about once a week. They all get different amounts of food based on their size, breed, and activity level. The keepers monitor them very closely and track exactly what they eat, how much, what is left in their enclosure, that sort of thing.

This is a binturong hanging out by his feeding tray.

 Now for the tigers (of which there are many) and the lions (of which there are three), they get whole chickens, anywhere from 1-3. They have to be "shifted" into different parts of the enclosures via shift gates, which have a handle outside the cage for people to move them easily and safely. The shifting keeps them from fighting with each other over the food or gulping the food down too fast. The shift gates also allow for easy and safe cage cleaning. Almost all the tigers are on at least 1/2 acre of land, which is fantastic. Their enclosures contain den boxes, trees, large water tubs for bathing, and sometimes other tigers/lions if they have proven to be social animals. They also have 15+ foot fences surrounding their enclosures, and most of the big cat enclosures do NOT have feeding tubes... which means whole chickens have to be flung over a 15+ foot fence. I am not exactly a strong person, and chickens tend to be both slippery and hard to find an appropriate lobbing position. Needless to say, I beat a lot of chickens around the 10 foot fence mark, and made a lot of really hungry tigers pretty pissed off. Ed took pity on me and helped me fling a couple, and Lenore (who has the same problem I do most of the time) decided to drive the truck a little closer to the fence when possible so I could chuck them in from the fence bed. We finally finished feeding all 66 of the animals on the compound and headed back to the main house/building. At that point in time I was covered in chicken blood and juice, and tons of fruit goo. And getting really hungry.

Kizmet eating.

Anyway, lunch came at 12:30 after Lenore gave me a run down on the enrichment they do at the rescue to stimulate natural behaviors and keep the animals from getting too bored/domesticated. They try to do enrichment with each animal at least every other day, in either scent (hidden food, perfumes, animal musks), taste (different textures, treats and foods), visual (mirrors, stuffed animals), auditory (playing recordings of other animals, either in pain or challenging) or physical (new objects- tires, kegs, toys). I scarfed down the only food I had brought with me that was a quick fix- tomato soup (and choked it down, I was miserably hot already) and some granola bars. After lunch I got to do enrichment, which was incredibly fun. Lenore gave me a stuffed black leopard and a mirror and sent me out to all the small animals on the compound to use one or the other with them. Most of them had little to no reaction, some coming up to the fence to say hi to me (though of course I cannot touch them) but not having any interest in the mirror or leopard. One of the caracals, Savage, had the best response to the mirror, stalking up to it and staring extremely intently at his reflection, looking very spooked to see himself there! Others however, like Collins the bobcat, went nuts over the stuffed toy and chased me around the perimeter of the enclosure (whilst I was cavorting like an idiot, making the stuffed animal appear to be running, and making growling noises). Two of the three cougars also had a similar reaction- they stalked, leaped and ran all around the enclosure trying to catch the leopard (me). The cougar thing did freak me out a little bit, as I spent a lot of my life in Colorado where cougars are really bad news (and they do not make good pets!).

Star, the smallest of the three cougars. She is rubbing affectionately on the fence near me.

That was really the rest of my day- at each enrichment interaction, I had to mark down what the animal did, how they reacted and on a scale of 0-3 how much they responded.  They then have a database that each interaction gets placed into- this tracks each individual animals likes/dislikes and what they best react to.  Once the day was over, I went back to the apartment and played rock band with the boys, and then went to the first bar of my life (they convinced me) to go play Trivia. I didn't know the answer to a single question and felt pretty awkward the entire night, since it was like 15 people that I didn't know. I slept like the dead on the couch though!

The following are some random pictures I took of the animals.

One of the servals, Santana.

An ocelot napping in a tree.

Two caracals, Gabe and Savage.

Today was a lot more physical- I started out preparing the food for the binturongs and kinkajous (adorable evil little monkey-cat-creatures), and then went out with one of the interns, Melanie to feed all the binturongs, including the fish oil pill they get to keep their coat and skin condition optimal. We also fed pills to Rajaji, a tiger, which he managed to drop out of his mouth while eating every single bite of chicken. We then had to repeat this until we got the pills down! Next came a tub cleaning- me and Melanie shifted Rajaji out of his main enclosure and dumped, scrubbed and refilled his HUGE swimming/bathing tub. The tigers like to poop in their water, so it got pretty nasty! Tiger poop does not smell very good. Now Rajaji is probably one of my favorite tigers, because he is super talkative. He loves to "chuff" at people, and if you "chuff" at him (by blowing air out and making your cheeks vibrate), he will talk back. He has beautiful eyes, and is a favorite on the tours. Once the tub was done, I did enrichment for 9 of the tigers/lions by placing meat in boxes and throwing them into their enclosures, and seeing if they could/wanted to hunt them down and rip them open. The tigers I got to interact with were Kizmet, Christan and Max (who are all together), Rajaji, Mona & Moki, and the lions Sebastian, Tarzan and Sheba.

I know this is getting long, but I promise I am almost finished!

I helped pull down a tree off of an enclosure (it had fallen a couple weeks ago in a storm) with a handful of the summer-long interns- melanie, kristen, josh and katie, and some volunteers. After that we ripped the rotted boards off of the top of Rajaji's den box, after cutting through tons and tons of poison ivy vines which covered it. I wore gloves that went up to my elbows and washed my arms at least 6 times today, but I am sure tomorrow is going to be awful... It was very hot (though not as bad as yesterday), and I was soaked with sweat by the time we were halfway finished just clearing the viens away. We cut some new boards for the top, and got on all of 3 before it began to downpour. Of course we had all the power tools out, and clippers, saws, hammers, etc. all around the enclosure, and they had to be removed from being out in the rain, so all four of us that were working on this got soaked to the bone, and had to ride back to the main house in the rain. The compound closes down when it is lightning outside, so that in case a tree falls, damages an enclosure and an animal gets out, no one is inside to be compromised. So we all hung out in the entry way, wringing out our clothes. Once the rain stopped, we went back out to our projects, which is where the end of the day found me. The roof is only about 1/3 of the way done, so I assume I will be working on that tomorrow- though it seems like many projects here are started and less are finished.

I was very ready (and smelly) for my shower tonight! The boys just left for a movie and for the first time since I got here I get some alone time and some peace and quiet. And thanks to the fact that they got internet today, I can update you all (and do some work on my part-time job).

Off to bed for me!

~Rich With Life~