Trash anyone?

Anyone who has been in the animal keeping profession knows that part of the job includes the unfortunate task of pulling trash out of the animal exhibits. On some level it is expected that a random object will occasionally be found in an animal’s enclosure, due to a visitor accidentally dropping something and not being able to recover it (please don’t try to retrieve the item yourself!). However, we have noticed the amount of trash in the exhibits increase significantlyRead more

Yona on ice

With the cold weather we’ve been having recently (especially in the evenings), the moat in our bear exhibit has frozen over sooner than usual. We always expect freezing of the moat to occur in late January and through February, but this winter it has happened in December! Even with temperatures now getting warmer during the day and typically melting any ice or snow on the ground, the warmer weather doesn’t necessarily thaw the ice in the moat because it doesn’tRead more

Big Word of the Month: Fimicolous

My wife Sandy, also a lover of big science words, passed along this month’s feature. Fimicolous is an adjective formed from Latin roots that mean “to inhabit dung” and is used to describe organisms that live in, on, and with animal waste. As animal keepers we spend a lot of time dealing with poop and you might be amazed at all the living things that utilize poop. Perhaps most famous are the dung beetles, a group of scarab beetles thatRead more

Big Word of the Month: Cyanobacteria

The warmer temperatures of summer stimulate the growth of an ancient life form in our local waters. Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, have been pumping oxygen into the environment for billions of years. Their buried remains contributed to the formation of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. Cyanobacteria live in almost every ecosystem in the world as well as living in symbiotic relationships with fungi to form lichens. You can find them in the ocean, in saltyRead more

Quikpost:Signs of spring

Signs of spring at the museum: Turtles hatching and moving towards the wetland But officially, spring starts when you see Sherry zipping around the bear yard aerating and planting grass seed. Afterward, the bears had fun playing in the cut grass.Read more