Week five marks the second to last week of my stay here at MZIB. It has been a fun stay… and I still have one week to go! During week five I did the usual clean-up, diet, enrichment, clean-up, dishes, assist training, and(guess what?) clean-up. I was also in charge of determining which of my enrichments were effective and which were not, and whether they should be improved upon or chucked.
I also found a large orange buoy in the hay shed… with the approval of the manager and my supervisor Erin, we made some minor adjustments to the buoy and hung it from Ray Ray’s zipline. After a few minutes of Ray Ray not having any idea what in the world to do with this weird orange object floating in the sky he finally seemed to catch on… and for the next few hours the little man did nothing but play with the buoy! A success if I ever did see one! The cardboard idea has been rejected as unsuccessful, however, everything else caused Ray Ray to be more interested in his environment and brought a little variability to his otherwise normal stall and holding yard (and feeding habits!).
This means that all that really is left to do, other than the hard every day work, is my paper about Ray Ray’s enrichment. It’s almost disappointing. Work here at the Zoo has been pretty fun (though hard!) and I love all the keepers and supervisors here. They’re great fun to work with, patient and hardworking and passionate about their jobs. It’s something that I’ll miss when I’m back at Unity!
Though the heat and humidity will be a blessing to say goodbye to…
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