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This week's mammal was the chimpanzee. An education staff member led us in making enrichments for these primates. We then went to the preserve, where the keepers taught us why enrichments are so important to chimps. To illustrate this point, we learned to "forage" for candy inside of a box filled with paper strips. We used binoculars to observe the chimps on the islands. We also made a special chimp craft during craft time and played a chimp game.
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First, we made enrichments for all the parrots under the supervision of an education staff member. Then, we visited
the Animal Theatre, where another education staff member introduced us to the two Amazon parrots, Eddy and Twizzler. Eddy is a double yellow-headed Amazon, and Twizzler is a blue-fronted Amazon. Some of us had our photo taken with these parrots. After that, we candled eggs with another education staff member, and then held the baby chicks. And at craft time, we made a parrot craft to take home.
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This week's reptile was the iguana. We met one of the education staff members at the iguana moat and learned all about these fascinating reptiles. We watched them eat, and we were able to touch the realistic iguana model which looks and feels like the real thing - without the sharp claws! We made our own iguana to take home during craft time.
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The commissary keeper prepares the diets for all of the animals in Safari World and Las Pampas (the first section of the preserve). This keeper also cleans and feeds all of the education animals in the commissary building. So, we helped to clean the exhibits of the chinchilla, ferrets, ball pythons, and skink. Some of us had our photo taken with one of the education animals. At craft time, we made a special craft to remember our keeper day.
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We took a walk to look for butterflies, and
our counselor told us about metamorphosis - how a butterfly goes through 4 different stages: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly. We also made a cool butterfly craft to take home.