My arctic wolf Cleo would be like Catherine Zeta-Jones if she were a person. Just like with the Sweetie-Megan Fox comparison, I don't actually know if Catherine Zeta-Jones is a mean person but I think her striking face has the ability to send people running for their lives if she made the proper “bitch” face. Cleo is the same way. She is beautiful and her eyes are piercing. And even though she's usually kind and keeps to herself, I worry about her ability turn on me.

My arctic wolf Brutus is like Shia LaBeouf because he's good looking but a bit clumsy and gives off a nerdy vibe. And like Shia, Brutus often ends up with girls much hotter than he would normal be able to get based on his looks alone. I'm not sure if Brutus would be with a wolf like Cleo if they weren't living in a zoo. Zoos don't have the space to try and pair animals based off of some hotness rating their species may or may not have, so if you're an arctic wolf female and we find you an arctic wolf male, then together you shall go. You're a lucky boy Brutus.

You can't just hop on ebay to find a rhino urine catcher, but there's nothing that a yogurt container and duct tape can't solve. Charlie is our super old White Rhinoceros. We monitor his health carefully and when our vet needs a urine sample, well, you can only hope you stay out of the splash zone.

It was interesting visiting another zoo after I had been working as a zoo keeper for a while. I saw zoos with totally different eyes. Captivity has become something totally different to me, but that aside there are other details that I noticed. A lot of people ask me the “whys” of our zoo design. Some of them even say “well at such and such a zoo it was like this,” and they wonder why we don't do the same thing. Here's some big differences I've noticed between my zoo and the zoo's I've visited.

1. Enclosure sizes versus display tactics. One thing that I noticed while visiting Seattle zoo was that their enclosures were rather small compared to mine. My animals had a lot more space than theirs. However, they had very cool ways to view their animals. A lot of their enclosures had both glass installments that allowed you, for example, to see into their bear's den. They also had decks over the enclosures so that you could look down to view the animals. This combination made it so you could almost guarantee that you would see an animal in each enclosure. It was definitely interesting to see how Seattle zoo used “smoke and mirrors” to cover for their lack of space. A complaint I often hear at my zoo that visitors can't see our animals because the enclosures are too big. I consider this a fair trade off and since my main concern is animal health and welfare, I like it this way.
   
   

   

   At least the Eurasian Boar in the South American Section like the mud.

   
   
   
   
2. Cement versus natural ground. Our zoo has cement floors in our barns but the outdoor parts of the enclosures are natural. When I visited Calgary Zoo I was surprised at how much cement their was. There were hardly any trees as you walked through the zoo and all of their enclosures were either cement or hard ground. As a keeper I can see positives and negatives to both methods. Our zoo looks more natural; provides our animals with a more organic setting; and allows the grass eaters to feast on some fresh grass, but it also means the ground is soft and that makes it hard to maintain animal feet. The wolves don't wear down their claws as much and any hoofed animal will need regular trims. The other down side is that in the winter, it's very muddy. At Calgary zoo, I can see that they are better able to clean every inch of their enclosures because they can hose them thoroughly and the hard surfaces will be better for animal feet. The down side is that it's unnatural and the hard surface may be detrimental to the animals' joints.

   

   Kaos straddling the divide between nature and cement.

   
   
3. Different stories and personalities. I love getting a chance to speak with keepers about their animals at other zoos. I've said before that many of the guests I talk to have a hard time believing that animals have different personalities, but I know they do so I like to ask the keepers about their little buddies. I met a gibbon at the Calgary zoo who looked so sad. He was adorable but very pouty. I later learned that he had lost his mate recently and the zoo tried to give him another female companion to spend time with, but he doesn't like her, so he sits there and pouts. I also learned that one of Calgary zoo's tigers enjoys spraying costumers just as much as my lion and jaguar do. The main thing that comes with different personalities is a different visitor experience. We don't have the same outreach animals as other zoo because, for example, our Maribo stork doesn't like people as much as San Deago zoo`s so we can`t use him to interact with the public because it would stress him out too much. It also the main reason that my tigers either more or less playful than other zoo`s tigers and so on. It really just depends on the collection of animals at each location.

Next time you visit a zoo, try to think about why zoos look so different from one another. No system is perfect, but we try our very best to give visitors a good experience while also ensuring the animals are happy. Make sure you ask a keeper about their animals, trust me we love to talk about them. I grantee you'll learn something new.

For those of you who have been to a zoo before, you may have noticed that the animals behave a bit differently when their keepers are around versus when we're not. Animals recognize our vehicles, our voices and the way we look. Some times they take changes in our appearance very seriously. A co-worker told me that she wore contacts instead of glasses one day and the marmosets she took care of threw a fit. They chirped at her and ran away, frightened by this new, no-glasses person that had entered their habitat.

For Halloween, I painted my face black, white and orange to look like a tiger and the baboons were scared of me all day. I have to lock them inside to be able to get into the outdoor part of their enclosure for cleaning and feeding in the afternoon. The first day I wore the make-up one of the girls, Babs, wouldn't come in so I couldn't clean up outside. Babs chirped and alarm called every time she saw me and the two oldest males charged the fence. I wore the make-up the next day as well. I managed to get Babs to come in but when she looked down at me and I looked up at her, she screamed bloody murder. Stevie was the last to come inside that day, and he's usually the first or second one in.

This was the face paint that sent the baboons running

When I visit my animals outside of work time, OJ, my black jaguar, instantly recognizes me. He ran along the fence as I walked to meet him. I tried to see my little monkey, Tuzzi, but I knew he would be acting shy. He didn't come out for a long time and when he finally sat facing me by the fence he refused to make eye contact. He eventually looked me in the eye and then started acting all tough and angry towards me. 

It entertains me when people walk up to the fence of Sweetie's (Siberian tiger) enclosure and go “here kitty kitty.” Trust me, I know this cat and she won't be coming to you any time soon. Some people call at the animals in a playful way and others are just plain obnoxious. I tell those people to cut it out. There's a difference between wanting a connection with an animal and just plain old harassment. Kids are the cutest when it comes to their desire to connect with animals. If the animal they called at starts coming towards them, their eyes get all big and they think they're the next Dr. Doolittle. I try my best to find time to interact with kids and if I can, I'll bring a cat with me. OJ (Jaguar) and Hana (Siberian tiger) will usually come up to the fence when I'm there, so I try to call them over. If the cats won't come I explain that these cats have personalities and need to be respected. When the cats do show up, it's wonderful to see childrens eyes light up. What I see there is a spark of connection, which I always hope will led to a respect for animals in their adult lives.

During the cat show in the summer, I feed the lions and tigers up by the fence where hundreds of people come to watch them eat. At our zoo we feed small pieces of red meat as a snack during the show. The lions are fed separately, either our male is out by himself or the two females are together. I get a lot of questions about why the lions are fed separately – it's a long story so I'll take some time to explain n detail.

Boomer, our male lion, was kept as a pet until he escaped from the house and was confiscated. You can read one of the new articles here. He's a hand raised cat and he's spent a lot of time around people. Mali and Kali, our two female lions, were born at our zoo. They were raised by their lion parents and have no interest in people unless you are giving them food... or becoming their food. Boomer came to out zoo in May 2011 after our 19 year old male lion (Mali and Kali's father) passed away in January 2011 from cancer. Every animals that comes to a zoo has to go through a one month period where they are quarantined. After Boomer finished his quarantine with a clean bill of health, we let him out into a holding yard which allowed Boomer to interact with the girls through a fence. There was a lot of aggression at first. The girls would roar at Boomer and try to scratch him through the mesh. As time went on the girls grew more accustomed to Boomer and the aggression seem to decrease. Once we had gone almost a month without witnessing any aggression between Boomer and Mali, we decided to introduce them face to face.

We started our lion introductions on October 7^th 2011. It was a very nerve racking day for me since it was the first time I had ever done something like this before. We choose to start with Mail, the more dominant of the two sisters, because she was the one that had shown least aggression through the shared fence for the longest amount of time. We gather a small team of myself, another keeper, two managers and our vet tech. We armed ourselves with a hose, a shovel to make noise, and a CO2 extinguisher. If big cats want to kill each other they'll do it in the first couple of minuets, so this really was a make or break moment.

We moved Boomer and Mali into their stalls. At first we pulled the guillotine door open slightly so that they could smell each other without too much contact and then we opened the door all the way. When the door was opened fully, Mali and Boomer instantly started fighting. Boomer released his scent glands and the whole cat house stunk - even more than usual. One of the keepers sprayed them with the hose and they separated shortly after. Boomer spent the rest of the time as far away from Mali as possible. We separated them after half an hour and called it a successful first day. The next few days were fairly uneventful. Boomer and Mali continued to stay in their respective stalls and nothing happened. We started to move away from them during their time together, hoping that our absence would force them to focus on each other. One day when I checked on them, Boomer and Mali had switch stalls silently and without any problems. We carried on this way for a week until we felt that there was no more progress to be made indoors.

The next step was to let them out into the holding pen. We would still be able to spray them with the hose, but it definitely left us with less control than indoors. Holding our breaths, we opened to doors and Mali took off with Boomer running after her. They fought for about seven minuets that first day. The days following, they continued to fight but their battles become shorter. Most of the battles later in the week were due to Boomer's stupidity. He would playfully stalk Mali until he got too close and she would choose to defend herself. Once Boomer and Mali seemed more comfortable with one another, we started to let Kali out into the large pen as well so that the sisters could see each other. They seemed much happier to be able to smell one another through the fence. I had to roll my eyes, since the introductions were no longer that 45 minuets a day at this point but when Kali and Mali were put back together they behaved as if they had been separated for months.

A few weeks later we switched the females. We brought Kali and Boomer into their stalls and repeated the procedure for the indoor introductions. The results were very anticlimactic. When we pulled the door open, there were no fights and Boomer just stood there looking at Kali. Kali didn't take any silliness from Boomer. She roared at him the second he got too close to her and Boomer was practically trying to climb the walls of his stall to get away from her. It only took a couple of days before we decided that it was time to let the two of them out into the holding pen. Once again, the result wasn't as dramatic. There were a few small fights in the holding pen but nothing like the ones between Boomer and Mali.

Our decisions to move forward were always based on the lions' behavior. With Mali, it had taken much longer for the fights to subside and for them to reach a standstill, but with Kali everything was much faster. The fights between Boomer and Mali resulted in sore hips for Mali. We tried to switch the girls every other day but it became apparent that Mali needed more rest that Kali so we gave Mali a few days off. Animal health is our number one concern and if there were any major health issues then all introductions would stop until we'd resolved the problem. Mali's hips healed and she started to look much stronger. Once we were sure that Mali was well enough, we decided to put all three of them together in the holding pen. We gathered a team of keepers and managers in preparation for what we knew would be a big fight, but when we opened the gate and all three of them were together nothing happened. The girls stayed inside and Boomer sat by the edge of the door and looked in at them. A couple of days later, the girls were out in the holding pen when we let Boomer join them. He went straight for Mali, would was standing a little ways away from her sister. Kali ran to her sister's rescue and a big fight ensued. Once they broke apart, the girls ran to one end of the pen and Boomer gravitated towards myself and our vet tech. I picked a claw casing out of Boomer's mane and comforted him through the fence. Being a hand raised cat means Boomer often behaves like a spoiled child rather than a lion. We felt there was no harm in providing him with some support while the girls were teaming up on him, but we've started to withdraw from Boomer since then and he's starting to become “his own lion” as a result.

As the days passed, we came to a standstill once again. The lions would fight occasionally and Boomer usually got the worst of it. We made the decision to let all three of them out into the big pen. This gave us much less control over their fights but it was time. When we let them out into the big pen things went well. Once, Kali even set down right next to Boomer but she nipped him in the bum shortly after and it started a big fight. Every time the lions are together, someone was always watching them. Once the keepers and our vet tech decided that it would be safe to leave the lions unsupervised we started to increase the time Boomer spent with the girls. 

It's been a year since all of this begun and we've definitely made some progress but things are far from over. Boomer spend 24/7 with Mali and they get along fairly well. When the three of them are together, Kali will behave for a while, but then she'll attack Boomer. She's taken a few chunks out of his tail, but nothing more than a lion can handle. While Boomer heals, we put Kali on time out. We keep Kali separate from Boomer so that she doesn't make his injuries worse and he spends all him time with Mali instead. The lions still aren't ready to eat together at the cat show. Captive cats still maintain their instincts and if the girls feel like they need to compete with Boomer for food then I know they'll fight constantly. Introducing lions is no easy task and we're hoping that the three of them can live together soon, but that all depends on their behavior – especially Kali.

As a keeper, I do my best to let animals be animals. However, I can't stress enough the importance of the bonds keepers have with their animals. When animals trust you it makes vet procedures and daily chores so much easier and less stressful for you and the animal. Building a bond takes time!

My Eurasian lynx, Ocean, is a kind and fun loving soul. I think if she were a person she would be like Felicia Day, expect blind (because as I mentioned in a previous blog entry Ocean is blind). Both Ocean's and Felicia's looks are beautiful in a non-overpowering way. Their beauty is easy on the eyes and easy to appreciate. I think if Ocean were a person she would be quirky like Felicia too since Ocean is definitely a bit of dork :P