Sneak Attack Post

Hey y'all,

I know I said I wouldn't be going back to Red Wolf for a while due to a vet-shadowing commitment this Saturday and then vacation the next two weeks, but I ended up going out today anyways. My little friend from last week snuck a box turtle into his bag when I wasn't looking. We talked about why it is important to leave these turtles in the wild, and how it is actually illegal to take turtles from the wild in Indiana. With this new knowledge, my buddy gave me the turtle back and so I made a special trip to return him to his home. I named the turtle Nascar for fun. He was very happy to be returned to his home in the wild.

Before I go on to the rest of today, let me quickly recap yesterday. I shadowed a veterinarian at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. His name is Dr. Greg Levens. I just followed him around on his morning rounds and then talked to him a bit about what it is like to be involved in zoo medicine. The morning wasn't too busy - we stopped by to check on a new antelope that wasn't walking very well, then on to a zebra who had bruised himself banging on his door whilst trying to get at a female zebra in heat, and then some sort of mongoose-looking creature that I can't remember the name of but had some serious hair loss and skin irritation.

After rounds, we talked about how competitive it is to get into zoo medicine. Dr. Levens is concerned that the residency programs in zoo medicine, while really nice, may be flooding the market with zoo vets when there aren't enough zoo jobs. This was good information to know. I really enjoyed shadowing him, but I still think I would prefer doing wildlife veterinary medicine. He discussed some pros and cons with me about this particular field. For instance, with the human population growing as it is, he fears that conservation biologists/veterinarians often feel like they are banging their heads against a wall as they try to conserve species on continually shrinking lands. He gave me a lot to think about, but luckily I still have some time to sort through all of that. 

Back to today. I took my mother out with me today, and we had a grand old time. The morning started with puppy time, as always. 

The pups are fighting off a touch of the GI bug, plus it was super hot and muggy today, so they were pretty lazy. All they really wanted to do was nap or cuddle, and I can't complain. 

After spending time with the wolfies, we visited with Otro. He's the Barred Owl that RWS has been working to get socialized to be an ambassador bird. Both my mom and I held him for a while and he just sat there as chill as could be. 

After some lunch, we said hello to Rosie. She wasn't terribly excited to come out of her tunnel with the weather being as hot and disgusting as it was. So I took a few pictures of her and even snapped a picture of her shy enclosure-mate Axel and then left her alone to nap away the afternoon.

The next order of business was to see if we could find the fawns and say hello. They had already been fed that morning, and they can be hard to coax out of hiding without the promise of milk. Luckily, Wallace can't resist coming out to just make sure that we didn't have any bottles hidden away, so we got to say hello to him.

 That was pretty much it for the day. I gave Paul the portrait of Yuma I'd been working on for the last week or so, and then off we went to go home, shower, and watch the final match of the World Cup!