Good Times

Today has been a really good day :D I got up at 6:30 ready for the zoo and apart from a slight cold I felt completely better so knew I'd be able to cope with the rigours of a 9hr work day. I remembered my iPod so had fun times boppin along to music on the empty train carriage which is always better than just sitting there forcing yourself to not fall asleep. Once I got to the zoo there were actually two pieces of bad news (oh noes!) the weather took a turn for the worst and thanks to the wind not only was work going to be much tougher today but the zoo was to be closed to the public aswell. The other bit of bad news was that another Seal pup was brought in injured. Whilst the keepers are glad to help and would never leave a pup to die they can be frustrating things.

The main problem with them is the inability to feed. The vast majority of pups have to be force fed to begin with, this is incredibly stressful on the keeper and more importantly on the Seal but without food the pup would die. When I was last at the zoo there were just two pups neither of which were self feeding. Today I found out that there were 3 but thankfully the two that were there last week had both started self feeding and will now hopefully be released soon. Then later that morning another pup was brought in with a seriously bad cut to the eye. As bad as this was it was relieved considerably by the news at lunchtime. Whispa, the pup that was brought in only yesterday had started to self feed. It needed to chew first and spat up any fish it took tail first by mistake but very quickly it had gone through its 15 fish in its bowl and was onto extras om nom nom nom!

There was other good news such as the discovery of a terrapin egg in the reptile house and getting a lift back not just to the station but all the way to morrisons in Bangor which cheered me up greatly, but apart from the Seal pups feeding there was only one real highlight for me. As the zoo was closed most of the keepers were able to finish early so some of us went to watch the Alligator be fed. This you would imagine this is fairly standard and nothing to get excited about but you can never underestimate the hilarity of the look on a keepers face when they've just dropped not only the meat but also the grabber into a pool with a fully grown male alligator in it :D :P