Incoming open day!

The dates for the WHF Open Days were finally announced last week. As WHF isn't open to the general public in the traditional zoo sense, we instead open the doors once a year for a few days over the Summer. I've never been to one before, let alone work it! So it should be an interesting experience. 

It was quite a success last year with over 7500 people turning up on one day! Needless to say this was not expected and the roads around the site were overwhelmed with tailbacks of 10miles or so (not the best for country lanes). As a result this years event will be a pre-booked over four days this year. Thursday July 18th - Sunday 21st. Tickets are on sale via the WHF website here.

It's bound to be a great day out, and one I highly recommend. It's only £10 (suggested donation) with all the money going towards building the cats a better, more comfortable life at WHF and a lot going towards conservation charities. If the cats weren't enough there will be fun activities like face painting for the kids (and young at heart), arts and craft stalls and much more!

I'll be there on Saturday 20th, and possibly some of the other days (work dependent), so hopefully see lots of people there :)

Enrichment part.1

An important aspect of looking after the cats at WHF is the inclusion of enrichment, in an attempt to bring out the cats natural behaviour. Enrichment can be in many forms, and varies between species and individuals, but can be commonly placed into the five categories (Hosey, 2009).

Target training (cognitive)

1. Food based; creating interesting and challenging methods of presenting the food to the animal, often in such a way to encourage investigation, manipulation and also to make them work for food as they would in in-situ.
2. Sensory; stimulating the animals’ senses: visual, olfactory, auditory, tactile and taste. This can include the use of herbs and spices, other animals’ bedding/hair, recorded sounds, videos, textured toys etc. 
3. Structural; enhancing the environment by providing opportunities to express natural behaviour such as climbing, swimming, jumping etc. This can be through the use of pools, swings, risen platforms and beams. 
4. Social; particularly important for animals that naturally live in groups, such as lions. This gives them the opportunity for interaction and provides the chance to express a larger range of natural behaviours, such as allo-grooming.
5. Cognitive; offering animals items such as puzzle toys that can be manipulated, promoting exploratory and investigatory behaviour. This type of enrichment also includes training, which can also then be used as a veterinary/husbandry aid.  
   

Food lures (food based and sensory)

 
Over the next few weeks I shall be looking at each type of enrichment in more detail, and showing examples of how we use such enrichment at WHF. Obviously the types of enrichment available are quite limited given that there are only cats on site, however the range of different enrichment items is quite vast. 

Scented plants (sensory and structural)

 Hosey, G. et al, (2009). Zoo Animals: Behaviour, management and welfare. Oxford University Press.

Bruno and Padmini

This is only a very quick introduction to two of the most beloved tigers at WHF. I've been run off my feet recently with my work at WHF and starting a new job besides the voluntary bits. I will be adding to this as I can! 

Sleepy Bruno

Bruno and Padmini (affectionately known as Pads) are two of the eldest residents at WHF, and well into their retirement. Bruno was born into a circus life and was fortunately rescued when he was still young, so didn't have to perform in one. As such, he is an unknown sub-species (hybrid) and was and could never have been bred from as part of the conservation effort. His companion Pads is a Bengal tiger, and the only Bengal at WHF.  

Padmini

Bruno is well known amongst staff and visitors alike for his party trick... if Bruno is around stay well behind the splash zone! Boys will be boys and if he takes a liking to you, then you can be sure to be sprayed. Not the nicest present to be given let me assure you. 

Pads on the other hand is a lovely old lady who unfortunately is beginning to feel her age. She can still stick up for herself, but needs some time away from Bruno - especially at meal times. 

Feeling artistic

It's been a long time since I've picked up a paint brush, but I had the urge to be creative so I dusted off the pallet and paints and had a go. This was the result... a very loose warm-up painting. The subjects are one of the Pallas Cats (fast becoming a favourite) and one of the young Amur tigers at WHF, currently just under a year old and growing fast! I will probably be doing a few more of these as I really enjoyed it... 

Pallas cat (fast paint - acylic)

Amur tiger cub in acrylic

Maintenance day...

It's not all fun and games with the cats every day... some days it's just maintenance tasks and making the site look better. I spent a large portion of the day painting enclosures and checking for damage. I won't kid you... this is a lot less fun than doing the usual feeds and cleans, but on a nice sunny day it's kind of enjoyable, plus it's a very important task. Ensuring the enclosures are painted keeps them in good condition, prevents rust and the obvious escape risk. 

It was fun to see the cats' reaction to us painting and the paint itself.  Climbing on top of the den roof to reach the higher parts of the fence whilst there is a curious male lion looking up at you is a little daunting. Discovering one of the lions has a fascination with the newly painted doors resulted in a rather green-faced Tiny. The quantities he managed to rub off on his face were not high enough to be harmful, but just enough to be a distraction to the photographers that were in later that day. 

The enclosure now looks very green and like new, and I have a wonderful green speckled complexion that just won't budge. Nice to be out in the sun all day though! 

The day was topped off with a visit from the vet team - more to come later on that. Nothing too serious, one of the Amur leopards needed an exploratory operation in search of a possible foreign body in his foot. Strangely enough I had been through a similar operation with my Jack Russell last summer - grass seed above his eye. Fascinating watching the operation on a larger cat, and privileged to watch a vet team at work... but yes, I'll go into that more later on. 

Meet Yazhi

I thought Yazhi would be a good cat to start with because she has so much character. Yazhi, I am told is the Native American word for "little one." She is one of four pumas (cougar/mountain lion) at WHF, a total of three females and one male are currently on site. She was hand reared at our sister park, Paradise Wildlife Park, when her mother rejected her as a cub, and therefore she is one of the friendliest cats on site, loving cuddles and walks in the morning and her recently discovered vocal talent has given her some internet fame already. We were considering entering her for Britain's Got Talent.... Incidentally, she is not being hurt or injured, and is not angry in the clip, she is in season. It's possible she's so vocal in this clip for a few reasons: a) there is a male puma not too far away in another enclosure; b) if you listen closely there is an echo (usual for the area).

I hadn't had much to do with Yazhi until the beginning of this week. I witnessed a morning walk in which she decided to plonk herself down and sing away (as per previous clip) and bluntly refused to budge. Funny for those watching, but perhaps not so funny for the keepers who were trying to coax her back into her enclosure. The reluctant feline had to be carried back in the end. She didn't stop singing the whole time, then as soon as she was placed on the floor again she trotted off with a backwards "ner" glance as she went.

They're incredibly soft cats, I was expecting them to have coats very similar to lions, but was surprised to find it silky and soft to touch. She quite happily allowed a tickle through the bars, and we even found her "tickle spot" ... the spot all animals seem to have. The spot where once found the back leg involuntarily needs to itch. Very funny seeing it in a big cat. I also had a game (more commonly initiated by the servals) of "catch the feet under the door." My feet that is not hers... I was waiting for one of the keepers to return with the keys, and busying myself by watching Yazhi inside when this happened...

No feet or paws were harmed in the making of the video! She is a great cat, and certainly one I'll enjoy working with over the next few months. I'm sure there will be more tales to come.

A day in the life...

To give you a rough idea of what i've let myself in for I thought I'd break my "normal" day down. Every day is however...different. As cliche as that sounds it is very true for animal care, and life at WHF is no different.

"Ingenious" hiding place take 1

AM - 
Head to meat room to prepare feeds (a scary amount of flesh and blood)
Add numerous vitamins and supplements to meat
Put in wheelbarrow/back in fridge if for PM feeds
Prepare cleaning wheelbarrow: fresh straw etc
Head over to first cats of the day - usually one of the tigers or lions
Lock cats in - go poo and bone hunting (and remove)
Put meat in "ingenious hiding place" 
Add some extra enrichment - such as scents/boomer balls/boxes etc
Lock up and double check locks
Let cats out who discovered "ingeniously hidden meat" in 5seconds
Curse and try to think of more ingenious hiding place for next time
Lock cats out - clean beds by removing wet straw and wash/disinfect as needed
Check waters and change /clean
Lock everything
Move on to next cats until PM

PM - 

Nice clean tiger beds

Target training with cheetah (Mia) or sometimes lion (Manzi)
Feed any remaining cats, and clean enclosures in and out
Head out for small cat feeds
Play "quail on a rope" with servals and lynx (mood dependent)
Clean inside and out of small cat enclosures
Play mind games with male North Chinese Leopard
North Chinese Leopard ALWAYS wins - sulk a bit then eventually beat him and watch temper tantrum unfold
Feed/clean remaining
Head back to meat room and tidy up
Head to visitor centre for meeting/news

Cheetah target training

Of course things like broken enclosure "furniture" takes priority if it's found, as happened a few days ago when we discovered a rotten support in the female jaguar enclosure. This sort of thing gets dealt with as soon as it's found so the cat can get back to it's outside area as soon as possible. Also general maintenance of enclosures and surrounding areas as we go, so I've been doing some painting and bailing of water to keep things looking good and swamp free too.  I'll eventually go into my detail about all these jobs, especially things like enrichment, which you could quite easily write a phone-book size book about. 

WHF also have some members of the public coming to the site for tours, ranger days or big cat encounters (meet the cats - private tours etc) which are run by pretty much all members of staff and volunteers.  These are done on a more ad-lib basis, and although I'm not fully trained to do them yet, I will eventually (a scary thought!).