yayitsducky
Member
It's my last week at the primate preserve, and today we gave our macaques & vervets some presents to unwrap! They're all full of hay, mini-marshmallows, and peanuts. I'm not much of a storyteller (I'm trying to be, but it's an art that I haven't learned yet) but I was able to take some lovely polaroids/phone pics of the celebrations!
The small cages are "guillotines", tunnels so that the vervets (the small ones) can move from one cage to another. We use those to shift them around for cleaning, giving medication, feeding the more territorial ones, and giving "enrichment"! (for example, even though vervets are small, the only reason I'm standing in the cage is because it's empty and the guillotine is "locked and pinned", because the vervets are very smart and will try to open it themselves to come in and bother me! They're still wild animals, even if they're very cute and look huggable.
I'm trained in "closed contact", which is working with them via their smaller "lockout" cages. The long term employees are trained in "open contact" which means that they're able to go into the bigger main areas (like the group shot I included).
My next adventure is off in Washington to be a ski bum for a few months! Wish me luck <3
The small cages are "guillotines", tunnels so that the vervets (the small ones) can move from one cage to another. We use those to shift them around for cleaning, giving medication, feeding the more territorial ones, and giving "enrichment"! (for example, even though vervets are small, the only reason I'm standing in the cage is because it's empty and the guillotine is "locked and pinned", because the vervets are very smart and will try to open it themselves to come in and bother me! They're still wild animals, even if they're very cute and look huggable.
I'm trained in "closed contact", which is working with them via their smaller "lockout" cages. The long term employees are trained in "open contact" which means that they're able to go into the bigger main areas (like the group shot I included).
My next adventure is off in Washington to be a ski bum for a few months! Wish me luck <3
