Animal Keepers | The Animals & Keepers Blog

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This Web page has a virtual pipe plugged into the new MLS Animals & Keepers Blog! When the Museum Bloggers add a new Blog Post, we get an instant update. It's the Science of the Internet bringing you the daily life of the Museum's animals — written by the great team of specialists that cares for them. To see more of these posts, visit the blog here!

 

This is the MLS 2.0!
With photos, videos, and their own observations, the MLS Animal Department gives you a glimpse into their world of caring for animals — lots of them.

And you're all invited to share with us. Please, send us your photos, videos, and observations of the life and science happening all around you. Ask us questions. This is a conversation about Science. Jump in ...

• Wednesday, July 1, 2009

  A Bear of a Week

  You know about the "extra" bear we had to deal with Saturday. We're still processing and reviewing the situation. I'll be meeting with all the Keepers together tomorrow, as thus far we have only talked about it in smaller groups, many times.
  
  
  This is a cast that we took of his paw print that we found in the mud around our perimeter fence- where he climbed onto Museum property. (sorry I don't have a photo of the bear- I was busy doing other things.
  
  
  
  
  What else happened Saturday is that at 5:30, the keepers found Gus, our youngest bear, lame on his right front foot. Back in December he was lame on his back left foot, which was much better the next day. We gave him some anti-inflammatory and pain meds and locked him in the house overnight to reduce his activity level.
  
  
  Sunday morning he was putting weight on his foot again, but we kept him in the house an extra day to be sure, and keeper Katy let him out of the house Monday afternoon.
  
  On Tuesday she noticed a small patch on the top of his foot, about the size of a dime, that was missing fur. I went down and got a good look at it, and to my surprise, his foot was a bit swollen and there was one puncture wound. Together, Katy and I were able to keep Gus still. (Katy has been working on operant conditioning with the bears and was able to get Gus to stand up and "stay". We offered him syrup to keep him steady for awhile). We were able to move around the fur and see a second puncture wound.
  
  Yup- it is likely a copperhead bit him! He seems to be doing fine, but he is still on his pain meds, as well as some antibiotics to prevent infection.
  
  
  He's doing well, but there's always something, and when it includes a bear, it's always interesting.

  

  
  Posted by Sherry at 12:41 PM
• Monday, June 29, 2009

  Another Bear at the Museum

  I never thought I would be running around Museum grounds after a bear that wasn't a pretend bear that was part of an emergency training. And, if a bear was on grounds I would of assumed that a storm had come through and knocked out some of our bear fence and I would need to catch one of the Museum's bears.
  
  Saturday I was paged and on my beeper the emergency code showed up. I live around the corner from the Museum and was over in a minute. A minute later I was up by the farmyard looking directly at a bear: a wild bear that had made its way onto Museum property.
  
  My guess is that it was maybe around 160 pounds and likely 2-3 years old. We had it cornered by the perimeter fence by the Farmyard while Animal Keepers prepared darts. The bear took off running through Loblolly Park (over the slide, through the large culvert pipe, and back behind the pipes and dustpans to bang on).
  
  What a bizarre day, but what an exciting day. The keepers handled themselves brilliantly, as did the rest of the Museum staff quickly getting people inside. About an hour after spotting the bear and moving people inside, we felt it safe to re-open the outside portions of the Museum. We lost track of the bear but felt confident he was not in the area and was not interested in being around people (we did have staff stationed in all outdoor areas though just to be sure).
  
  I learned this morning of a bear hit by a car in Hillsborough. I assume it was the same bear. It makes me sad that (s)he didn't make it back to the woods away from people and roads.
  
  If you have questions, please leave them in the comment section. I am happy to answer them.

  

  
  Posted by Sherry at 7:48 PM

The articles above are recent blog posts from the MLS Animals & Keepers Blog, click the link to see all the previous posts going back to October 2007.

 

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