Mouse Guts!

Morning began with food prep  for the binturongs and kinks (on my own this time). A very sad thing happened this weekend... Carmelita, whose pool I cleaned on Friday, was doing much worse. On Friday she had been very lethargic, refusing to move for more than a few feet, and was bleeding and oozing. Yesterday the vet came out to look at her, and once she was tranquilized, they found that her cancer had begun to spread...She was very uncomfortable. I am not sure what other health issues they found, but I know they mentioned her respiration was off. The decision was made to euthanize her at that time, and upon her necropsy (animal autopsy), they found that the cancer had actually spread through her chest, into her longs and have even attacked a wall of her heart. She would probably not have survived or been comfortable even another week. Carmelita has always been a favorite of many volunteers, tour guides and workers, as she was a grunter, chuffer, talked and overall goofball. On Friday I had actually grabbed a picture of her, where despite her pain, she was rolling and tiger grunting at us:

She will be missed.

The rest of the morning I got a chance to do something I have not done before- clean enclosures. As I mentioned earlier, they have shiftable enclosures, and most of these are what are classified as Level 2's (small cats) or Level 4's (big cats). When you begin to clean cages, these are what you start with, as you are not actually going in with a cat, but are moving them out of the enclosure and then cleaning, looking for bones, dead animals, vomit, poop, loose/damaged platforms, holes/damage in the fence, that sort of thing. You also place enrichment in the enclosure. Normal enrichment for the small cats fits through the chain link holes or feeding shoots, but when you go in to clean you can put in big boxes, new structures, or other large objects which are quite fun for them. So I got to work with two long-term volunteers, Evan and Susie, and my favorite intern, Melanie.

After lunch, I was the only non-volunteer there, and only two volunteers came in, so it was a very quiet day. Lenore let me do something I quite enjoyed, which was to give all the animals their dewormer- Ivermectin. So I got to interact with almost all of the animals, injecting the dewormer into chicken for the Caracals, into mice bellies for the Servals and Ocelots, bananas for the binturongs, and into steak for the Tigers. Male tigers got the most dewormer (at 0.65 mL), Bint's got anything from .3-.5 mL, female tigers got .35 mL, and little cats got .05 mL- quite a difference between the species! As I went around, I tried to snap some good pictures of the animals, for, as Jared says, my blogs are really long and don't have enough pictures for the normal people out there!

Collins, the crazy bobcat (who is my favorite bobcat). The end of my stick has a mouse on it, and he is about to pounce!

Rajaji staring at me over the corner of his newly-cleaned pool.

Christian munching on a chicken carcass.

Renee, our 3-legged ocelot, and her cagemate Oliver, sharing a gentle moment.

Renee again.

Kizmet enjoying a drink.

Overall my day was really restful, which was great. I wore long sleeves all day to protect my poison, and that seemed to do well. It was really humid, but not incredibly hot, so this wasn't too uncomfortable. I stayed a little later than normal tonight, as I was talking with Ed about the ethics of hunting. See, since I was one of the only people there, and had more experience than both the volunteers in the afternoon, I got some more one-on-one time with the keepers. I DID actually see Ed smile, and learned that he really likes puns, as well as just has a quiet sense of humor about the animals... The other two keepers are vegan/vegetarian, but Ed actually hunts, tans his own hides, processes the skulls, and uses every bit of the animals- which is awesome. Lenore is in the process of opening her own rescue for food animals- she is very against the food processing industry, and wants to take in cattle, chickens, hogs, etc. that are past their "use" on farms and might just need some veterinary care rather than being put down as often happens. While I agree that this is a sad thing, I also don't think this is a reason to stop eating meat- in my family we hunt deer, get our meat from a local butcher shop (of whom  I personally know the butcher and their practices) or pick one out of the field of a local farm. Our pork is from kids 4-H projects, our eggs are from my own chickens. I have helped butcher a deer, watched a hog and a cow being butchered, seen an animal's last moments. I understand what I am taking, and the price that it comes at... and I value it. The animals that I consume have had a free life, or if not free, at least comfortable. Many have been loved and given excellent care. Personally, if I were one day eaten by an animal, I would consider it part of the food chain, and my place in the life cycle. It is just a different way of living than the average American, who do get their meat in impersonalized packages and don't think where it came from or what type of life it had.

 It is all shades really, the spectrum of life and the interactions of man and beast.

One of the things I was thinking about this morning and did not have the chance to express was the personal trip it took me to get down here... It was a very scary thing for me to take a gamble on this two-week adventure, to live on the couch of people I have never met, to drive 8 hours to get to a place I had only been once, to spend money (quite a lot for me, the thrifty/cheap money-hoarder) on food and gas which I will never get back, and to at times put my foot down to everyone else who was worried, all for an experience I might have hated. But I got lucky, and instead of telling myself that it was too much, too scary and unfamiliar, I made myself go through with it, pushed through the doubts and the uncertainties, and I have grown. More than just learning about the animals and people here or finding an interest I never knew I had in exotic animals, I have learned about myself and what I can do on my own. For the first time in a long time, I found courage, a sense of humor, responsibility, leadership skills, and confidence in greater quantities than I ever thought I had.

Take a gamble, you never know what you might learn about yourself in the process- good or bad.

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~