I'm going to the zoo!!!

[Tally]

I am going on a training course at the zoo!!!

 

It is all about enrichment, which is creating activities that simulate natural behaviours in captive wild animals. If you give your cat a toy ball to chase, this is enrichment as it simulates the hunt. As part of the course, we get to design and construct an enrichment activity and try it out on an animal in the zoo. From what I have learned about enrichment so far, there is normally firehose weaving involved!

[Tanya52]

I'm happy for you.

Always read your threads and find them interesting.

I guess it’s going to be fun: creativity, observations, discoveries, all positive learning stuff.

Good luck

[oxgirl]

Wow, great news. How did you find out about that? Is it London zoo?

 

~ Mel ~

[baddad]

Can we come too, too, too as the old song goes?

 

Hope (am sure) you will love it and hope you get to spend a good amount of time throwing balls for the big cats rather than scraping up elephant's cr*p...

If they suggest 'enrichment' along the lines of dressing you up as the front end of a pantomime zebra and seeing if you can make it to the other side of the enclosure DON'T take 'em up on it. The days of YTS when they could get away with that kind of thing are long gone!

 

L&P

 

BD

[Tally]

It's at Howletts and Port Lympne zoos. I found out about it on some zoo emailing lists. It said it was for students, but I asked about it and they said it would be good even if I am not studying yet. It's mainly classroom-based, but we get to build something too. So not too much opportunity for them to send me out for tartan paint

[Kathryn]

Have fun and don't get eaten.

 

K x

[baddad]

So not too much opportunity for them to send me out for tartan paint

 

If they do call their bluff - come back with a prostitute and some computer software.

[Tally]

I have even booked my hotel now. It was easier than expected, I thought they'd be booked out already!

[bid]

Sounds brilliant, Tally...have fun!

 

Bid

[Kathryn]

If they do call their bluff - come back with a prostitute and some computer software.

 

[Mumble]

That sounds really fun and useful to your intended career. I always wanted to play with the tyres and rope swings the monkeys got at the zoo. I suspect that on occasions my mother would have happily left me had I ventured in to play... :lol:

[Tally]

When I get back I will tell you how to make a monkey toy of your own

[Mumble]

When I get back I will tell you how to make a monkey toy of your own

Looking forward to it! Can't imagine my residence managers would be too happy if I start nailing ropes into the ceiling, buy hey... :bounce:

 

Just don't put any of that food frozen in ice pops in my monkey toy - the monkeys just look p*ssed off with them when all they want is the fruit - I wouldn't be too happy if someone hid my chocolate like that!

[Tally]

I am off to the zoo tomorrow!

[bikergal]

Sounds really exciting, can't wait to hear what you've been up to!

[Tally]

We had the first day in the mansion at port lympne, but apparently it's booked out for weddings the rest of the week so they have swept out a corner of the elephant house at howletts for us

[dee23]

I'd really like to go there. They were featured in a kids TV programme that was on when my daughter was younger, we always enjoyed watching it together. Seems like an interesting place, hope you're enjoying it

[Kathryn]

This would normally be the cue for all my elephant jokes but I think I've inflicted them on the forum before.

 

Hope it's going well

 

K x

[Mumble]

This would normally be the cue for all my elephant jokes but I think I've inflicted them on the forum before.

Yes. Several times.

[Tally]

I was a bit naive about the brown stuff splattered all over the ceiling. I thought it was mud! We made a hammock out of firehose yesterday for the gorillas. Today we made non-fraying rope swings for the monkeys, so they won't get their little feet stuck in them. And tomorrow i'm making an activity to encourage a snow leopard to make more use of his enclosure.

[Kathryn]

Not your normal 9 - 5 job then!

 

K x

[Tally]

I am back home now from the zoo. They did not confuse me for a gorilla and try to recapture me!

 

I will post you some photos of our classroom in the elephant house, poo-splattered ceiling and all

 

I have learned a lot from the lectures. It has reinforced a lot of the ideas I already had about what working in a zoo is like, so I feel more confident I am aiming for the right thing now, and that I have realistic expectations.

 

I have also learned some really useful practical skills like firehose weaving to make hammocks, and rope splicing to prevent fraying and make secure fixings.

 

It was great fun building an enrichment activity for the snow leopard. I was happy to settle for any kind of animal, but I did especially want to work with a cat. We made a few things, but our masterpiece was the big tractor tyre that we suspended from a beam and hung some bamboo sticks inside for the snow leopard to bat about and make a noise - but hopefully not too loud a noise that would startle him.

 

Another group made a spectacular climbing frame for some gibbons, which they suspended high in the enclosure. The gibbons were quick to investigate this and it was interesting to see how they were much less confident moving about on this than on the existing structures in their enclosure, so it will hopefully provide a really good opportunity for them to learn motor skills on an item which moves quite freely like their natural environment would. I found this very interesting because we learned about a re-release programme where gorillas bred at Howletts have been released into the wild and done very well. The enclosure where they were bred looks very artificial, brightly coloured like a child's playground, rather than natural trees, branches and vines. But if showed me that you don't have to make things look like the wild in order to teach the animals the skills they would use in the wild. And I saw that in action with the gibbons.

 

They wanted us to work in groups because they said teamwork is very important in a zoo. I know this is a skill I really need to learn as it's one I struggle with. They did say something that made me laugh, but which is probably very true. They said that many people who choose to work with animals do so because they don't like people very much - which can mean that you end up working with some very difficult people. So hopefully I can avoid becoming one of those!