"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good..."

“Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…”

Wait. This isn’t the Wizarding World of Harry Potter….. My bad.

Dear Miss Schmidt,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been offered an extension to your internship at Wildlife Safari…

That’s totally how the letter would have gone, had they need to write one. Instead, last weekend (by weekend, I mean weekend for normal people), we had our intern reviews. Our department’s intern coordinators basically sit us down and tell us what we are doing well, and what we need to improve on. After my review they told me that they wanted to offer me an extension to work as an intern during the summer session as well, should I choose to accept. Clearly this is good news, and that they like me enough to keep me around for another three months! I wasn’t the only one extended in the carn/cheetah department, but to protect the innocent, I will refrain from stating who didn’t get extended, or who chose not to extend (fools). SO I’M EXTENDING!!

Technically, they are not supposed to extend us, so to get around this, I will be labeled as a Cheetah Intern for the summer, though still mostly staying with Carnivores. This basically translates to being a swinger that can cater to either departments needs at the drop of a hat. So this is what those of us who extend get to do. “Switch departments”, and become swingers. To help this along, they have started cross-training us, which I am stoked about because I get to hang out more with cheetahs and with Saigon (the most handsome tiger I’ve ever met), while still getting to hang out with my lions and bears. It’s basically a win-win all around.

Now, I know you’ve all been wondering: What is the best way to tell the difference between black bears and brown bears?

One of the best ways to tell them apart is the hump on the backs of brown bears. Brown bears, such as our grizzly boys, are well known for their digging capabilities, and they have a hump on their backs, which represents their bulky shoulder muscles. They also have longer claws than black bears, which also help them dig. However, if you are close enough to see their claws, and you’re not at a zoo or wildlife park… you’re in trouble! Another way to tell them apart is by their size. Black bears tend to be much smaller than brown bears, but this is hard to tell if you don’t have them next to each other for comparison. Our grizzly boys weigh between 500-800lbs right now (Oso is the smallest), and our black bear kids are probably ranging from 300-600lbs (not sure the last time they were weighed).

If you said you could tell them apart by their color, you’re in for a surprise! If you noticed in my previous post, Takoda is brown black bear. Black bears come in lots of different colors, ranging from cinnamony-reddish brown to black, so judging by the color alone is not very helpful at all.

So now you know!

Since we have started our cross-training with the cheetah department, I wanted to share a cool story about one of our cheetahs and her slightly unconventional sister, an Anatolian shepherd dog.

(I cannot take credit for this photo)

Sanurra is a female cheetah born in November of 2005 at Wildlife Safari as a single birth. Singleton cubs are usually rejected by their mothers due to the high mortality rate of cubs in the wild, and the mothers generally weigh out their options and figure that one cub isn’t really worth investing all that time and energy. After 11 days, her mother rejected Sanurra, and the keeper staff stepped in and hand raised her. Worried that she would be lonely and bored, they decided to get her a puppy.

Ellie is an Anatolian Shepherd, born September of 2005, who arrived at Wildlife Safari in January of 2006. The Anatolian Shepherd breed was chosen for Sanurra specifically because of their use by the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) to save cheetahs in the wild.

The story is, that farmers in Namibia were worried that wild cheetahs were going to eat all their livestock, as cheetahs are considered pests. Cheetahs are very flighty animals, and would rather abandon a kill, versus stay and defend it from something bigger or louder than them. Enter the Anatolian shepherd: the dogs are able to protect the livestock merely by barking. The bark is enough to make the cheetahs run away, which eliminates the need for farmers to kill the cheetahs. In fact, the Anatolian shepherds have been so successful that there is a 2-year waiting list for farmers to get one from CCF!

So instead of bonding Ellie with livestock, we chose to bond her with Sanurra, to help spread the message of cheetah conservation. It really helps bring the connection between the efforts made in captivity to protect the cheetah (such as maintaining a captive breeding population to avoid taking cheetahs from the wild), to the conservation work being done in Africa to protect the wild populations.

These two, like sisters, don’t get along 100% of the time, but they seek each other out for comfort and enrich each other’s lives.

(I cannot take credit for this photo either)

Over 170 cheetah cubs have been born at Wildlife Safari since its’ opening in 1972. As far as cheetah breeding, WS is second in the world only to Africa (come on, it’s hard to compete with Africa!). Cheetahs are incredibly difficult to breed, because they are very high stress animals, and extremely flighty. Wildlife Safari has a great advantage over other facilities because it has a lot of space. Situated on 600 acres, this drive-thru park is the perfect setting for cheetah breeding away from Africa. Out of 19 cheetahs currently at the park, only about half of them can be seen in the drive-thru, while the other half are off display in the cheetah breeding areas.

I can even name all 19 cheetahs.

The girls: Sanurra, McHumba, Taini, Marlindi, Moyo, Moonfire, Kenya, Kira, Imara, Charo, Ronnie, and Zuri.

The boys: Khayam, Hulets, Dapper, Donovan, Frankie, Andi and Roble.

And now for the question of the week:

How many spots does a cheetah have? (**not the number of spots in the picture below)

Tune in next week for some fun cheetah facts!

"Mischief managed."