Ocelots and elephants, oh my!

We had a pretty interesting day at the zoo today. We aquired a new animal: an ocelot who used to belong to a local outreach company. He's tiny and dark and not at all fearful. Really, this guy is only slightly larger than a housecat, but quite lithe and sleek. I only saw him from a distance and now he's living in Quarantine, but there will be some interesting battles over who gets to be his trainers. With 6 animals, I've ruled myself out already for this semester, but I may ask for him come fall. Very cool.

We also had a presentation by Kari Johnson of Have Trunk Will Travel, an elephant company here in California. They've done most movie and TV elephant work, inluding "Larger Than Life", "Operation: Dumbo Drop", "George of the Jungle", "Ace Ventura", and a little show called The X-Files ;) It was a fascinating presentation, and they obviously take stellar care of their 8 elephants. Even more exciting, we will be visiting their facility next year when we go on a field trip up north. I can't wait!

In more ho-hum news, turnovers are going well. I've taken over feeding days for Salsa and Goblin, and the rest will follow soon. I can handle Salsa, walk Julietta, and put Nuez back after shows. It's really quite exciting and will only get better in the coming weeks.

For now, though, I have a paper to write, so back to your regularly scheduled programming ;)