The recent heat wave that just passed was the last teetering of a very enjoyable and busy summer here at the Isle of Wight Zoo. Summer is always the peak time for any zoos in the country and I'm sure the visitors, staff and possibly even animals (well maybe the primates) have many fond memories of the Summer of '11 and the stories to tell. So where have the blog posts been?!
Well the essence of this particular blog is to share the daily life at the zoo and of the animals right from where the action happens at the keeper's perspective, and indeed the lack of posts gives an insight into a keeper's perspective - summer is an extremely busy time for a zookeeper!! And so now that the summer is over, the blog is enjoying a little mini relaunch and we will endeavour to maintain frequent updates from here on end.
So here we have a nice and hefty post to kick things off. To share a little secret, the blog relaunch was inspired by Lola. This shot was captured this morning as we were watching Lola trying out a new enrichment feed, and though we treat and view all our cats equally, Lola has to be the best looker! She needs to be on the front of a magazine and I needed to share this image - what a beautiful animal. She's coming up to her 14th birthday at the end of this month and we are happy to report she is still in great physical health.
The official first 'Wallaby Encounter'
Meanwhile today at the zoo we had the first official 'Wallaby Encounter'. The Isle of Wight Zoo acquired 6 male Bennet's Wallabies from Woburn Safari Park in August as a new way to bring visitors closer to animals through providing a close encounter interactive experience with these animals. For the past few weeks since their arrival they have been enjoying their new living space, a large enclosure that served as a tiger enclosure here at the zoo for over 30 years (don't worry - no tigers are still living in there now! Chandru was the last tiger to occupy the area and he has now moved to an improved enclosure in the Tiger Sanctuary part of the zoo), and getting settled in. The keepers have been bonding with them and have earned their trust. With the acquired trust has come a sigh of relief from the keepers as well, as the task of getting the wallabies in for the night has shorted from a hour long uphill battle to a shorter 10 minute endeavour.
Today was the first time we let members of the public volunteer to come in and feed the wallabies their favourite 'marsupial browser pellets'. It went very well and the wallabies seemed to be happy to come up and grab the pellets from the hands of strangers. We are hoping to be able to have this as a permanent fixture of the zoo soon, so do come visit over the autumn and winter weekends to have a perch on a bench and feed our wallabies!
Today was the first time we let members of the public volunteer to come in and feed the wallabies their favourite 'marsupial browser pellets'. It went very well and the wallabies seemed to be happy to come up and grab the pellets from the hands of strangers. We are hoping to be able to have this as a permanent fixture of the zoo soon, so do come visit over the autumn and winter weekends to have a perch on a bench and feed our wallabies!
Over the past few weeks, our maintenance team member Paul has been working hard turning what was an enclosure with an absurd amount of unused space to a new environment for 3 species of lemur and giving much improved living space to 6 individuals. Previously only one pair of lemurs had access to the enclosure space and they probably only used ~ 5% of the enclosure. So a redesign was always on the cards. At the same time, we needed to give improved accommodation to 2 other pairs of lemurs we had, so with the unused space we have divided the enclosure into 3 different enclosures and will showcase different lemur environments found in Madagascar. This will also give visitors the opportunity to see 4 lemurs the Isle of Wight Zoo held, but were not on show to the public. I personally, speaking from the cat team, am very much looking forward to walking past the enclosure and seeing all these new characters enjoying their new living space.
Today the physical revamp of the enclosure was completed, including the division of the enclosure into three and the necessary access tunnels that the lemurs will hopefully venture down!
Here are a few photos of it's development in progress:
1st September 2011 - Digging out the old enclosure
15th September 2011 - Putting up the framework
29th September 2011 - Putting up the mesh, with help from a volunteer group from the Navy!
6th October 2011 - Putting on the finishing touches. Now work will be done putting in the vegetation and details to create the 3 different environments. Well done Paul!
Future Plans
And to finish off, an update from our veterinary schedule. Zena, our one-eyed white tiger (she lost her eye to glaucoma in 2006) is scheduled to have a check up on her remaining eye in the very near future to see if there is anything we can do with the cataracts she has in this eye. We hope to have a professional look at this remaining eye very shortly and we will keep you updated.
Zena's eyesight is limited currently with the cataracts, but she is certainly our most popular cat with the visitors. On the cat team we are happy to see Zena perk up back to top recently from from a bit of a lull caused by an illness that seems to have been improved with the course of medicine she received. Additionally we will be giving Zena a new health check up imminently. To celebrate her being back at a 100% here is a photo of her looking very lively from a few days ago on the 4th of October. This look was created when she looked up in response to call from a keeper and of course she came over to the fence to give an affectionate hello once this photo was taken:
Ben Thompson - Big Cat Care Team.
We came to the zoo recently and loved every minute of it. it was nice to see Casper settled in, he looked really content. I loved to see all the big cats. we will be back in may 2012 cant wait to see all the changes.
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