Big Cat Rescue internship: 2012

Monday, August 6, 2012

Interns with Khan and China

Khan and China were laying together being cute but of course when we try to take a picture with them they get up and move around. Cats will be cats!

I know the video quality isn't very good but at least I finally have a recording a a lion roaring. It is amazing to be standing in front of him. His entire body shakes and the force of it kind of slams into you. A lion can hear another lions roar up to 5 miles away. Us humans with inferior hearing can only hear it up to 2 miles away.

Apollo and Zeus: Siberian Lynx

Apollo and Zeus get a little cranky when they are hungry. Turn up the volume and listen! I like to call them the hufflepuffs! They huff and puff but the house never falls down :)

Reno climbs his tree to get his zebra

All summer there have been kids on site for summer camp. Two interns and a teacher spend four days teaching the kids about cats and touring the sanctuary. On the last day we give the cat of their choice a big enrichment item that the kids made. They chose to make a zebra to put in Reno the leopards tree. The kids did a great job, and Reno does too! Sorry my filming skills are lacking.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Finally "Operant Conditioning"

Natasha

Nirvana

Thing

Monday, July 2, 2012

Nirvana: Ocelot, only the first 35 sec. are good

Cameron

Sasha

Natasha and Willow: Siberian Lynx AKA-my girls

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Signs of captivity shadowed on this magnificent black leopard

Vaccination lessons

Yesterday I got to learn about ways to vaccinate the "big cats". One of the methods used is by giving vaccines via a blow dart pipe. We were able to practice putting toether the darts and even shot them at a cardboard box with a picture of a tiger, drawn by me! We had so much fun!

Building a tiki hut for one of our Bobcats

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Cleaning cat enclosures

Tomorrow will be my final sign off for cleaning the cats enclosures. So I thought I would share the process. And I thought it would be fun to use pictures.

We start by getting our buckets together. We use these.

We use a trash bag that we clip on one half of the bucket. The other half has a small white container to hold my "tools". I fill the bucket and white container with a splash of bleach. My cleaning tools go into my little white container and my poop collecting tool goes into the bucket. Water is added to dilute the bleach.

Our enclosures look like this.

We never ever ever go in the enclosure, unless the cat is not there. So how do we get the poop out everyday. It's easy really! First we walk around the enclosure to locate the cat. This is also how we spot the poop. Each cat is different but most have a "poop spot". So my first tool is a pole with a curved end to pull the poop to the wall of the enclosure.

Next I use my tongs to remove it. My hands never cross through the fence.

I pick up the poop with the tongs and put it into the trash bag. The tongs go back into the bucket. Next I go over to the "lock out" that we feed the cats in. This is where their food plates and water bowls are. I use the tongs to pull out any remaining food. Then I use these tools to clean bowl, plates, and stone. A stone is in each lockout, the food dishes are on the stone.

I use a hose to rinse everything, fill the water bowl and I am good to go!

Any abnormal feces or large amounts of food left over are recorded in our animal logs. This is what we do first thing every morning. Even in a tropical storm. :)

Monday, June 25, 2012

Tropical storm

Working in a tropical storm gives you a new appreciation for the term "soaking wet". It rained non stop for about 36 hrs. Of course that doesn't stop us from taking care of the cats. While cleaning enclosures yesterday morning it felt as though someone was dumping buckets of water over my head. The cats were hiding from the storm as best as possible. When we clean we must make sure we locate the cats. This can be tricky when its dark out and they are hiding in a den. So with flashlights we made sure to find them all. This morning the rain has stopped and it allowed us all a break. There are lots of branches that came down, and cleaning that up was our morning task. But first every volunteer and intern was searching every enclosure to find our cats and make sure none were harmed in the night. This was much easier than yesterday. Almost every cat came out to say hello this morning. The cats in the sections I am responsible for all came to the fence to greet me. I think they also wanted to chat about the crazy storm, or at least that is what I assume they are saying. They seemed to be as happy to see me as I was to see them. My fingers are crossed, hoping that there will be no more rain. The weather channel says there is a 90% chance of more rain this afternoon. My house also flooded last night. I shared this with the cats so they would know I feel their pain.Thankfully I do have the day off, I have lots of small rugs and loads of towels to wash and dry. If we get more rain I have nothing left that is dry and can absorb more water!!!

This is the field behind my house. This is also the back of the sanctuary. It is usually a grassy field but is now a pond where the ducks can swim. If we get more rain it will be deep enough for me to swim in!