annnnnnnd FIN

Yesterday was my last day at the aquarium.
I loved every second of it. I worked on my own in the morning, which is nice because I almost feel like an independent worker.

The afternoon brought the fantastic stuff, though. Really. It’s not that I’m trying to make you jealous or anything, but…um…I fed a tiger. How many people can say that they have fed a tiger?! I got to feel up a tiger’s paw pads (and was scared shitless when his claws extended ever so slightly), as well as the webbing between an otter’s toes. I worked loads of behaviors I hadn’t yet been allowed to work. It was like I was getting a jackpot for my semester of hard work. It was definitely one of my proudest moments as an adult (or something like it). (For behind-the-scenes photos, ask me to e-mail them to you.)

The trying questions keep coming, though. Has this internship confirmed that you want to do this as a living? Do you plan on getting another internship at a zoo, or volunteering somewhere? Are you going to stay in Denver?

 

What’s next?

 

To be honest, I haven’t a clue.

Things I can say with some assurance:

+ I am pretty dang tired of working for free.

+ I am fairly certain that the aquarium doesn’t really want me back…ouch.

+ I am going to see where this lighting thing takes me.

+ I am going to do a little research into zoos in foreign countries, mainly Spain, Australia, and England.

+ I am going to stay in Denver for at least a few more months and try to save up some money.

+ I honestly have no idea where my life is going, but I am also pretty certain that it is far-fetched that I will be working a boring desk job anytime soon.

Rush to finish

I’ve always been really good at procrastinating, even though it causes a little stress…so why should this be any different?

Project presentation is getting its final touches for the “happening” tomorrow.
Everything else also sort of feels a little rushed, too. Yesterday I started doing “swim” and “deck” with Blue. He’s pretty good at them but he is struggling to do turns in the water. Yesterday I also got to start feeding Wallace.

My last day is Tuesday, and I feel like things are going to be rushed to get me to do everything I’m allowed to do by my end date. Should be interesting.
Yesterday also meant some really cool stuff going on with the tigers and Neema. For photos and video, go to facebook.com/tessfalcone.

Tess the Reptile Girl?

I’ve never been much for herpetology. Never felt the need to go crazy about reptiles at all, really, because they were always a little creepy to me. I wasn’t really afraid of them, but freshman year of college when I saw someone feeding dead mice to his snake, I was turned off to them. Little did I know that dead mice as feeder animals would be pretty normal to me just four years later.

Tuesday I was allowed to handle Rocky, a male ball python. Handling a snake is possibly one of the coolest things I’ve done in this internship… The way their muscles move is so strange and I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it was pretty neat. Yesterday I was allowed to handle Lucy, a more temperamental female ball python (who is a lot smaller than Rocky). The reason that ball pythons are named ball pythons is because they curl up into a ball to be comfortable. To get a snake out of its enclosure, you have to let the snake know that you are intending to handle it by basically petting it (toward the tail– that’s important). Then you can slowly pick up the snake in its curled-up form, and as it gets more comfortable with you, it will open itself up. I thought that handling the snakes was so dang cool, I’d even consider getting one as a pet, now.

Targets, Turns and Reptiles (I lost track of the days…)

I have recently been fortunate enough to get back to work at the aquarium full time, and have been seemingly rewarded for doing so. I am now allowed to work targets with the chickens (so cute!) and to do turns with the otters (also super cute). Along with these new allowances, I was supposed to be gaining permission to handle Niles the Savannah monitor, but due to an unfortunate incident with one of the other interns where Niles became aggressive, I am not allowed to handle him. I have gained the knowledge of how to handle the snakes that we have as ambassador animals (two ball pythons), but I have not yet been given permission to actually handle them.

On top of these things, today I did my first otter chat. It’s fun to do a chat when no one listens to you. Especially when it’s the first one. Then you don’t have to stress about screwing up. Haha. I spewed out basic information about our otters (twelve years old, came from the Louisiana otter farm, a sanctuary for otters where their “owners” who had taken them from the wild took them when they decided that otters don’t make good pets, Blue and Slater, et cetera), and then talked about training and enrichment and the like. It wasn’t very difficult or nerve-racking, but it was new!

Physical Nature

I have always been a very active person. I’ve always tried to play sports and keep in good shape, and that includes always working very physically demanding positions. My work at the aquarium is no exception to this, as you can probably see by the chronicles I’ve posted here about my daily duties.

I recently suffered an injury to my ankle while playing an indoor soccer game and have been out of work for the past two days. I am believed to have just pulled the tendon that runs along the ankle, not broken it (thank God), but it is still very painful and I haven’t been able to drive or pretty much do any serious moving around since the injury two nights ago. I am hoping to get back to work at my paid job on Friday, and maybe even back to the aquarium by Saturday, but I’m not sure I’ll be super helpful.

The human body is incredibly fragile. Working it constantly is sure to put a lot of stress on it, while keeping it toned as well. I now realize that if I am serious about any of the jobs I am considering doing in the future (animals, concerts, theatre, etc), I need to take very good care of my body to keep it in good running order. If I don’t, everything can be spoiled very quickly.

Days 23 & 24, October 26th & 27th, 2010

It’s common knowledge that the only people who enjoy being evaluated are those that know that they are doing a good job.
The only reason I didn’t dread my evaluation (other than the fact that I forgot about it) was that I assumed I was going to be positively evaluated. I’ve very rarely been negatively evaluated, so I assumed I would be fine. I didn’t realize that I had screwed up and upset a trainer or two by playing know-it-all with power tools. Being in my situation is sort of odd. I have a lot of knowledge in a lot of different areas, and in terms of power tools and carpentry, I like to think I have more knowledge than the average person. Working in the shop, I was constantly working with people who had no clue what to do if someone handed them a circular saw or a mig welder. It was frustrating, but I got into a habit of just assuming that I was going to have to teach people more efficient ways to get things done. Not everyone is hopeless, though.

There have been a few instances at the aquarium where I’ve acted like my peers were incompetent when it comes to power tools and I looked down my nose at them. I had a poor attitude and now I realize what a jerk I was. It’s certainly something to work on. This was the main problem with my evaluation. I work fine and do the dirty tasks that I’m asked to do, but I need to check my attitude. I apologize.

On a lighter note, I have been allowed to work behaviors other than calm stationing with the animals lately! Yesterday I was allowed to do targets with the bunnies (a problem now because one of them isn’t doing so hot, so I don’t know when I’ll get to do more targeting with him/them), and today I was allowed to do targets with the otters. It is so freaking fun to work behaviors with them because they’re so well trained already that I feel like a rock star. They don’t really ever lose focus with their targets. It’s fantastic. Automatic success!

Christine has also begun working targets on the chickens and it is the funniest thing to watch. They will jump to peck the target but they kick their feet forward and so their heads and feet are both going forward, but their butts are sticking out…it’s totally cute.
Halfway through my internship.

Days 19 & 20, October 16th & 19th, 2010

I don’t even know why I bothered to take a shower today.

But to be fair, I wouldn’t have showered if I had known what was in store for me today. Let me put something out there: I got a bit destroyed today.

It was a normal morning at the aquarium. I cleaned parrot exhibit (basically rearranging all of their perches and changing out their enrichment) and Wallace’s enclosure (he hates me and certainly tried to peck at my head today) and then went to help in tigers. For the most part, tigers was already finished, so I just hung around until it was time to do something else. Next on the docket was finishing painting the brand new raptor mews. I wasn’t planning on helping with this but since I really don’t mind paint work, I volunteered to help out, which meant I was assigned waterproofing the cross bracing on the ceiling. This wasn’t very fun anyway without a Genie lift or some sort of moving height assistance (a six-foot ladder was all I had at my disposal), but two of the other girls were painting the inside of one of the mews and I tried to squeeze by one of the girls and got a bunch of grey paint all over my backside. Awesome. I was already covered in oil-based waterproofing, which sucked because I have cuts all over my right hand for various reasons, and now I had grey paint all over my singular set of clothing for working at the aquarium.

While I was bummed I hadn’t known we would be painting (and thus prepared by wearing painting clothing), I was used to ruining good clothing, so I wasn’t too ticked about the whole situation. After we finished painting, we ate lunch, and while we were in the office, Kyle (the horticulturist on staff) came in to tell us that we had received our sod. (Apparently we thought that sod was good enrichment, so we purchased about twelve little 3’x3′ squares of sod.) I helped second-semester intern Amy load the sod onto a cart, and we pushed it to the elevator and traveled to the second floor. We only needed two squares for the otters, so I decided it was a good idea to cradle a roll in my arms. When we got to otters, I set the roll down and surveyed the scene: My arms were a bit scratched up from the dirt, and I was just covered in dirt. “At least dirt washes off,” I said to myself. Karla went onto exhibit to clean up the otter poop before we were to put the sod onto exhibit, and I followed her with my roll of sod. She had missed a large spot of poop in the entry to the exhibit, so I took a large step over it and slipped, landing on my knees with this large roll of sod in my arms, and catching myself before I fell into either a) the poop that I had stepped over or b) the water that covers 2/3 of the exhibit. I scraped up both of my knees (probably bruised, too), furthered the dirt situation on my entire outfit, and got my pant leg wet in my attempt to stay above water. I stood back up and looked at the trainers, who were both laughing at me, commending me for not falling in, and making sure I wasn’t seriously injured. “I should just go home,” I said.

I didn’t go home immediately, because I at least wanted to see the fruits of my labor. The otters loved the sod so much that they pooped on it (actually entertaining because they have to shake their butts up and down in order to poop). We then moved on to tigers and made a nice sod carpet for them on the first floor of their exhibit. They, too, had to mark their territory on the sod, but seemed to enjoy it none the less.

Thank God. I would have been pretty pissed if they had all been indifferent to the sod.

Days 17 & 18, October 12th and 13th, 2010

Just as I was starting to get bored… I got to feed otters.

Now, for the average, run-of-the-mill person, this might not seem that cool. (Unless you’re Brian Jackson, who is probably ridiculously envious right about now.) However, this was the BEST day of my working at the aquarium so far. Mindy knew how much she was going to make my day by allowing me to do this, and for good reason– the moment that she handed me a latex glove and said “Welcome to the world of feeding otters”, my face lit up and I was a child again. To be fair, I wasn’t doing much. Just a free feed (which means there was no training involved in the session), really, though the otters are trained to come to their shapes when the shape is held up to the chainlink. (Blue has a green circle and Slater has a red triangle.) The otters are so damn cute when they eat. They make a cute nom-nom sound when they open-mouth chew their fish…so adorable. So so adorable.

This puts the number of animals I am allowed to free feed up to… (bunny x2, chicken x3, otter x2)…seven! Woo!

At some point, I promise you, I will be a tiger trainer.

Days 14 & 15, October 5th and 6th, 2010

Lately, I’ve been getting a little bored.

Maybe not bored, but I feel like my work at the aquarium is slightly static, and I’d love to get in some new responsibilities.

Possibly the best example that the aquarium is not static is yesterday’s encounters with Tempera paint. Mindy brought paint up to the tiger reserve and I was concerned. Paint? That doesn’t seem like safe enrichment… Little did I know that it is indeed safe enrichment, and quite possibly the coolest enrichment ever. Seriously. We put down green and black paint all over the front of reserves 2 and 3, and then some sheets of large drawing paper next to the paint. After we were all set up, the trainers basically led a training session…all over the paint and paper. The tigers are target trained so that the trainer could put a target near the paint and the tiger would put his nose on the target, and then the trainer would lead with a target over the paper. It was incredible. Large blackish green paw prints were all over the sheets of paper, and the tiger (Heran) was content to be covered in color. After we retrieved the paintings, we hosed off the reserves and Heran (who legitimately seemed to enjoy the entire process). We hung the paintings on the wall to let them dry and continued down to otters with yellow and red. The biggest downfall with the otters was that their tails just ended up covered in paint because they drag on the floor, so there were large streaks of yellow and red across all of our paintings. (I actually got to keep an otter painting, and I’m told we will paint again with the tigers so I can keep one of those.) Moral of the story, coolest artwork EVER.

Honestly, I haven’t been doing a lot of new things at the aquarium lately, so there isn’t that much to talk about. I have free-fed the bunnies and the chickens and the ducks, but I have yet to start actually training anything. Even the chickens. Come on. I think I’m good enough for the chickens. Please?

Day 11, September 28th, 2010

Holy wetsuit, Batman!

Not being dive certified is certainly a downside to my job (for many reasons), but today made me reconsider becoming dive certified. I was told to bring my bathing suit today and possibly tomorrow because I would be cleaning the windows in the otter exhibit from the water. I thought I was going to be doing this alone, so when the second semester intern, Amy, showed up with her bathing suit as well, I was quite excited to have a partner in this odd job. We went to the third floor (where all the dive equipment is kept) and found random wetsuits to wear. I’ve never worn a wetsuit before, but when I was watching our water quality lab technician getting into hers last week (struggling to get into hers), I was a little concerned. Of course, they have to be super tight-fitting in order to keep you warm, right? Well, not knowing what size I should be wearing, Mindy handed me a specific size and said that it might fit me, and if not, I should just find another one. I tried to get that one on for about ten minutes before failing miserably and actually getting stuck in it. It was a mess. I grabbed the next size up, and I’m still not sure that it was the correct size, but I made it work. It was the biggest struggle EVER. It probably took me about twenty minutes to get it on, and I still felt super uncomfortable in it. It felt like I was in a spring-loaded suit where every movement I made, the suit pulled me back to my neutral position. Trying to get used to the feeling, I walked with Amy back down to otters and we gathered our supplies. Wetsuits are funky because they’re super buoyant (yeah, I know that’s the point, but still) and it’s sort of hard to anchor yourself in the water. It was fun, though, because I enjoy being in the water. Cleaning the windows was pretty similar to cleaning the windows in tigers, except that we were in the water. No big. But make no mistake– I’m not in a hurry to do it again, even if it means I get to hang out with the divers…

Today I was asked to clean and feed shorebirds and the ducks by myself for the first time! When I was feeding the shorebirds, I sneaked a fish from the dish (ha) and hand fed the Caspian tern because I know he’s trained to eat from our hands. It was still pretty exciting.

Vocabulary that I’m learning or need to remember–

Superstitious behavior – a side behavior that an animal incidentally did when he/she was learning another behavior and which was reinforced so that the combination behavior is what the animal thinks is the complete behavior (i.e. if a tiger is learning to put his paws up against the cage and turns his head when he’s learning the behavior, and he thinks that the head turn was part of the behavior, too, so he continues to do it)

LRS – least reinforcing stimulus – ignoring the animal you are training for a few seconds because he/she performed the behavior incorrectly; a sort of ‘reset’ button

that’s about it for now… Haven’t begun working on my project yet, other than observing Blue and Slater (our otters) for about ten minutes today… they both do backflips out of and back into the water, over and over again and it’s almost sickening to watch. I would really like to do something about it. Here’s to hoping.