Your Friendly Neighborhood Construction Worker

I cannot wait to sleep in a bed again. I mean a real bed- not the couch, the floor, some cushions. Being 5' 9 1/2" and sleeping on a 5' couch is totally fine for all of four days... after that it becomes torture, literally. I spent my night sleeping in fits, interrupted by charlie horse's and shin splints. I woke up with my legs aching from the muscle spasms all night, and I proceeded to torture my legs all day.

The day began innocently enough at CTR. I was handed a bin of fruits and veggies and was given the task of sorting them into bins by species (is that the right word?). Easy enough, and I got to hang out in the very pleasant cooler. I then waited around for a volunteer to arrive until nine- she was supposed to be my partner throughout the morning. Turns out she had called out and word just didn't get around to the keepers... So I then got the task of mixing and pouring concrete by myself. Kizzy, Max and Christian had got a new platform and the bottom of the poles needed to be solidified into the ground. Their enclosure is on "Tiger Hill" at the top of the compound... the 80 lb bags of cement, wheelbarrow and shovel were on the far end of the compound. Needless to say, I had to bring them up. Uphill. The entire way.

One pole got fixed into the ground, and I then got a call to head down to the new enclosure to help raise panels again. Being the monkey that I am, I was up and down the ladders helping weave fences together and get everything set up...for two hours. By this time I was hot, irritated and hungry, and I just really, really wanted to get the second pole fixed into the ground. It really only takes maybe 10 minutes to get concrete mixed and poured, and it had so far taken me over three hours! With an hour to spare till lunch I finally got back, got my cement poured and all my tools cleaned up (And while this sounds easy, the fact that I was wheelbarrowing around an animal enclosure and kept slamming my shins into the wheelbarrow every time I hit a root made it a little bit more difficult). I had just enough time to get a new platform into Nakobi's (one of the cougars) enclosures before lunch.

The rest of my day was spent fixing shift gate handles again, and helping out with the fence. I am naturally a clumsy person and was just exhausted, so I tripped (and fell) twice, and almost fell off the ladder. Yay me! By the end of the day I was physically shaking every time I tried to pick anything up... I am so out of shape. It all needed to be done though, and I am glad that I could help to expand and improve the rescue, even if it is just in that no one will stab themselves on the wires when shifting cats anymore!

In a very cool moment, I did get to sit and observe the leopards for a few minutes today. One of them (I don't know if it was Shadow or Smokey) was growling and rubbing himself on things in his cage. The way his tail curled and kinked reminded me of my kitty Simian, but his big yellow eyes told me he wanted nothing more than to eat me. He rolled in the dirt, belly up, jumped up into his den box and groomed his brother/sister. I don't know if any of you have ever heard a leopard growl, but the sound is fascinating, tantalizing and terrifying. I think if I were out in the wild and heard it I would know that my time had come. People who keep them as pets are nuts!

Jellybean- the resident white tiger. This is why people should not own tigers... I mean really, Jellybean??

Another view of the pretty boy.

Julio, one of the most striking-looking ocelots here. He is under one of the shift gates between his two pens- his favorite spot to be.

Unfortunately Geoff really needed to get home by 5, so we actually left the rescue half an hour early, and I missed saying my goodbyes to Melanie and Kristin-neither of whom work tomorrow. I did run into Lenore who gave me a huge hug and told me how impressed they were with me, how they will miss me, and hope that I come back some day. She was very sincere and I was very touched. I know they get a lot of people in and out of there and a compliment from any of the keepers is never frivolous.

Tonight I will be packing everything up and loading what I can into my car. I am both very sad and very excited to be going home! I will certainly miss the animals and the amazing adventure that this has been. There is nothing like spending your day surrounded by tiger chuffs and growls, the "meow"s of servals, ocelots and caracals, the calls of lionesses talking to each other across the distance, and the growling of angry leopards.

For those who wanted my recipe (yes, Gael that is you :)) It follows:


Chicken Marsala:
1-1.5 lbs Chicken Breasts
1 t. Pepper
½ t. Thyme
¼ t.  Garlic Powder
¾ t. Salt
½ t. Oregano
½ t. Parsley
¼ tsp. Marjoram
Olive Oil
1/3 c. Butter
2 t. Shallots (or onions)
2 t. Garlic
¼ c. Marsala Wine (Cooking wine works just fine)
1 container of mushrooms, sliced (can be any kind- Baby Bella’s or Buttons are personal favorites)
2 t. Corn starch (or flour if corn starch is not available)
1 c. Cold Chicken Broth
2 T. Heavy Whipping Cream
1 t. Parsley

Directions:
Combine first 7 ingredients. Coat chicken lightly with oil and coat with spices. Fry chicken in olive oil until completely cooked, remove to covered plate. In saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add shallots and garlic and sauté until garlic is lightly browned. Add marsala and simmer 30 seconds. Add mushrooms and cook about 15 minutes or until mushrooms are at desired tenderness. Dissolve corn starch in broth. Add to saucepan and simmer until sauce is thickened slightly. Add Parsley and heavy cream, simmer 3-4 minutes.

It serves great over spaghetti, and you can always increase the amount of sauce.

 ~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~

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 4 (!) Compound Cleanup Day!

Today is Thursday, a fact I was quite surprised about this morning! My days are so short and my itch-filled nights so long that time is flying by. Today I started off my day with learning how to do waters for the animals. More or less this consists of opening a metal door, pulling out a water dish, closing the door, scrubbing the water dish, replacing it and filling it with water carried around in 5 gallon buckets. The entire time you are opening a paw-sized hole into the enclosure, and so you have to wait around till the animals decide that you don't have food and therefore aren't interesting and walk away, before you can begin. The spickets luckily are set all around the compound within easy access to each group of enclosures, and this makes things a good bit less painful than they could be. I was set out with Josh, a summer-long intern from Rutgers university, who drove down from NJ to come here. He is education/pre-vet/Biology something or another- he wants to either run a zoo or a school- when he told me I wasn't sure which he said and I can't quite discount either possibility down here!

 (On a side note, the interns are a different program than the one I am in. They are half-summer programs and there are 6 of them. They have "class" once a week where they learn about the life of an animal keeper- whether this is vet "class," animal feeding/nutrition "class," animal cleanliness "class," etc. They also have a specific section of the compound assigned to them, and every day they check and record on those animals on their "rounds" as they are called. They also write 2-page papers weekly on various species-specific subjects, and have to come up with a novel enrichment to try out on their section each week. Overall it is a really cool program- if I had the time and ability I would definitely do it!)

Shadow (one of the black leopards), next to her water dish.

Anyway, whilst we were out doing waters, we had reached the far tiger enclosures and I set off to do the waters for Emerson and another tiger, and Josh went to do Bali-who I think is the biggest, most majestic of the tigers here. I heard some angry roaring and Josh called me back over since Bali was in some mood and wanted nothing to do with him. Well I had got him to come up to me yesterday so I hoped I would have better luck- and I did. He let me approach his water dish and only stood a little protectively over it, his ears back and making some grunting noises, but no growling or roaring. With some baby/tiger talk and friendly chuffing I got him to calm down enough to safely change his water. But boy was that a good reinforcement of how dangerous and unpredictable these guys can be. Bali is in the far back part of the compound because he is considered one of the more "wild" tigers- unlike the ones on the tour route who will come up to the fence and rub. I almost wish they would put these guys on tour though- I feel like that would help the message of CTR to sink in more- that these guys are not pets. I also got to meet the leopards, Smokey and Shadow, for the first time.

After waters, I accompanied Josh on his rounds (since he has my favorite tigers in his section) to see what exactly the interns do, and then I started on the grossest, most smelly tasks of my life. Remember how I said that everything at CTR is donated? Well that includes the freezers and coolers. The cooler crapped out last week, and the freezer has been dying for awhile, so that it is now a cooler. Local restaurants have been kind enough to let CTR store food in their freezers. The animals on the compound mainly eat chicken, unless someone donates a cow, horse or deer, and a large amount of chicken is kept on hand in the cooler/freezer, or was never moved from the freezer once it started to die. That being said, my job today was to sort out the good and bad fruit and veggies, and afterwards with the help of Melanie and two volunteers, to sort out the bad meat from the good meat. After today, I WILL NEVER EAT CHICKEN QUARTERS AGAIN! They turn green, then begin to putrefy. This is accompanied by the fowlest smell I have ever, ever had to experience. It sticks in your nostrils, on your clothes, etc., and when you open up a bag of chicken and the smell explodes at you, it makes all sorts of stomach contents re-emerge. Nasty! It also made lunch really unappetizing.

After lunch I joined in on the Compound Cleanup Day, which happens once every quarter, and is where all of the staff and many volunteers come out and beautify the compound. Today that included taking revenge on the fire ants by pouring boiling water around and on the mounds (luckily not my job) and taking down some old enclosures (my job). With Lenore, Maree, Josh and Jessie, we dug out the concrete at the bottom of some old enclosure panels, then knocked the panels over and sledgehammered the concrete off the bottom so we could re-use them. I learned that I definitely should not try to sledgehammer ever again in my life. I could do all of ten swings and then I was done... After three hours, we had gotten three panels done (much quicker than the previous pace of one every 4 hours) and had a system going.

Finally we all called it quits at three, when the interns had to present their papers, and I got to go out and see if the cougars liked to be sprayed with water (they didn't). However, I did find that the biggest male, Nakobi, really likes to play. My healthy fear of cougars was somewhat reinforced and somewhat lessened at the same time as I played hide and seek with the cougar, and we chased each other up and down the fence line. I am proud to say that he ran out of breath before I did. You would never know it, but cougars can actually purr! After hiding around trees, and he around his den box, leaping out at each other and chasing one another, he laid down next to the fence and began to purr at me, rubbing his face on the wire. It was both endearing and sad- knowing that this guy had been raised by humans and had become so much less than he would have been in the wild, and also that he may even have liked humans, but would never again be touched by one (not that that is a bad thing!). I wrapped up my day with fly spraying a few of the tigers, and even got the biggest male lion, Sebastian, to come out and get sprayed (I missed him yesterday so he really needed it). I did lose my knife today, which I am kind of upset about, as it was a gift from my grandfather and was really, really nice... hoping someone stumbles across it on a tour or just around the compound- I know I lost it along one of the main causeways so that at least is good news.  Anyway, I took a really cute picture of Kizmet, Max and Christian, right before Kizmet got annoyed that I wouldn't feed her anymore meat and sprayed me (sort of like peeing, but more hormones/pheromones than urine). Geoff says it smells like buttered popcorn, but luckily my nose was so shut down after the chicken that I couldn't smell anything.

Kizmet is to the left, and Max and Christian are lying down right next to each other, after some really cute face rubbing and chuffing.

Finally, we got back to the apartment and the washer and dryer had been fixed, so I got my clothes in (thank god), and everything is getting unsmellified.

An update on my poison ivy: My mother overnighted me some Ivy Dry, so I will be very happily using that before I go to sleep tonight. It has spread up my shoulders and onto my chest, as well as onto my stomach. It is also all around my ankles which are swollen and stocky and now look like "cankles." There is also some on my knees and creeping up my legs (which I don't really understand). My face has gotten a little worse, as it has spread across my cheekbone and some appeared on my chin and ears today. Basically, I look like one giant red, bumpy rash. Yay! I also found my first tick today (ew) which embedded itself on my upper thigh. I cut it out to make sure I got the head. Fun times! Hoping to actually sleep tonight.

~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~