The phrase you're most likely to hear upon telling people that you work for Franklin Park Zoo is "Wow, I remember that zoo, I haven't been there in years!" (the second most likely phrase is "Isn't that where the gorilla escaped a few years back?").  This is rather unfortunate, as it indicates that people who once used to patronize our zoo no longer ( Read more... )

One of those odd paradoxes of my job.  Our wetlands "exhibit" is supposed to have a mesh covering over it to keep the wild fly-ins from freeloading off our duck feed and outcompeting our collection ducks for food.  The storm about a month back wiped that out, so the duck pond is wide open.  Now every day we curse all mallards to the depths of hell ( Read more... )

- You really don't realize how many locks you have on any given exhibit (ie, 10 locks to put the leopards on exhbiit, 13 if you keep them in holding and give them access to their outdoor holding areas for the day) until every, single one of them is frozen solid and must be defrosted before opening and again before relocking.  At least twice a day.

- ( Read more... )

Earlier this week, I was weeding the wetlands exhibit, which was overrun by purple loosestrife.  Among the purple were a lot of eye-high plants with grass-like seeds sprouting out of the top, which I simply noted in passing as "Hmm, those look interesting, I wonder what they are, I haven't seen them anywhere else around the zoo..."

Upon proceeding ( Read more... )

 You win some, you lose some.  Just have to remember the times you've won when you're in the midst of losing.  Love you, my Addy cow.

The Sea Music Festival at Mystic Seaport was amazing as always, even better with my random Cornell girls there!

I think the late night pub sings become more and more my favorite part of the weekend.

But the percussion jam session in the basement of the pub beats it all.   Bodhrans, middle eastern drum, bones, claps from those without instruments, ( Read more... )

I had such a trainer's moment today.

We recently got two miniature horses transferred in from Stone Zoo (our "sister zoo" up north of the city). One of them has been absolutely obnoxious about picking up his front right hoof for cleaning or examination. He got away with it a few times and now rears and does a "ro-day-o" (as they'd say back in the ( Read more... )

I would like to make a public servie announcement to all zoo visitors ( Read more... )

So, my observation for today is that we should start giving the parrots squishy things to chew on for enrichment as well as hard things they can crack.  Because I'll tell you, that umbrella cockatoo was chomping the flesh of my wrist with far more glee than any wooden block I've hung in her cage previously ( Read more... )

Thanks to the local book group I've been poking at, I've been sucked into the Goodreads site.  Having played with it for a few months now, I've decided it is a rather addictive plaything.  So any of you reader-types out there, go join!  It's social networking -- but with books!