"And don't look away. Father will know if you do."

Q: Why am I sticky?

A: Horse blood.

We played a game of Cards Against Humanity at the intern house last week. One of the black cards was: Why am I sticky? And the winning white card that was played read: Horse blood. Which was mine (thank you, thank you). It was picked purely because of the appropriateness to our daily jobs. In the carnivores/cheetah department, we do feed our cats raw red meat, so it's still pretty bloody (they love it). So, that's that.

And now I know you are all dying to know the answer to the obligatory blog question of the day/week/month/year, Why do tigers have whiskers?

Tigers have whiskers because when they are biting the necks of their prey, their whiskers can detect the pulse of their prey so they know when they are dead. Wow, cool story, Tanda. Tell it again!

The last few days at Safari have been pretty interesting. A typical day in the life of a Wildlife Safari Carnivore intern looks like this:

Start trucks and check fluids. Check in with keeper staff and grab keys, radio, etc. Open lion drive through and clean up drive through exhibits. Then kick out lions, and clean their holding space.

We leave lions, and drive through the park to QB (quarantine barn) which is where we prep diets and enrichment for our animals. We pick up morning enrichment for the bears, and head back through the park to bears. 

We pass black bears on the way to brown bears (and we check if they are still sleeping - they haven't really come out of hibernation yet). We get to bear drive through and unlock the gates. We drive in and set up the morning enrichment around the two sections (ring and island). Usually enrichment for them is like frozen fruits, peanuts, salads (with yogurt and dressing and fun things). Sometimes we have toys or boxes for them to play with. Then we go into bear huts and kick out bears. We usually end up cleaning bear huts right away since it takes a while to dry the floors.

After that we sometimes go do training with the lions and/or bears, otherwise start prepping PM diets. The carns/cheetah department have arranged for Costco and Walmart to donate produce that they would otherwise just throw away. So, usually we have a docent or volunteer who can pick this up for us during the week, except for Sundays when the interns do it! We take all the donations and sort them based on what we can use for bears first and foremost (we pick up and sort, so we get first dibs! Plus, we have 11 bears, and they eat a lot!), then we ask other departments if they want anything, and we see if we have it for them. Then we sort the rest and usually end up putting the bulk of it into compost (which we sell to local farmers!). So, doing Costco is fun, but also kind of gross (rotting produce sludge, yum!). But its also great because we don't have to buy bear diets!

We usually sort after lunch, and then finish up bear diets. Then we go out and train if we didn't in the morning, check for any encounters, and set up huts for the night. Then once we get the call for last car, we follow them through the park and close gates, and put animals away for the night. And that's about it! Sometimes we get to do fun things, like take cheetahs on walks!!!!!

Yep, that's right! I guessed the lucky number and got to be second on a cheetah walk (which means you get to be the second barrier, the first being the keeper). Probably the most exciting win ever. This is Khayam.

On that note, I leave you with this photo of brotherly love (of frozen elephant poop!!):

Enzi on the left, rubbing his face all over it, and Tsavo on the right, licking it.