Paige Pimental

Audubon Zoo Hospital Internship

Week 4 7/6-7/11
Mondays are usually good days since they are really like my Fridays,
but not this Monday. I volunteered to catch and hold the vulture that weve
had in the isolation wing for a while for him to be checked over before being
moved out to a bigger enclosure. The bad part was that no one told me how
mite and lice ridden vultures are and I was in for a big surprise when I caught
him and it looked like someone threw sticky crawling sesame seeds all over
the front of my smock. Luckily he was just fine and was able to go to his new
enclosure, and I got doused in scalex wherever I saw a bug. It really wasnt
all that bad; it just made my skin crawl for days later. The same day we had
heard that a baby Colobus monkey had been born the day before, kind of by
surprise since they thought she lost the baby in April- I still havent been able
to go see it.
After trying to construct a Hyacinth Macaw proof carrier, somehow the
birds department delivered us their blind Hyacinth who was in need of a
tumor removed from between the shoulder blades. She is NOT a nice macaw,
but Im still fascinated with the larger birds. Unfortunately, I wasnt in on the
day she got her surgery, it seems like most surgeries are on my days off
which is a real bummer because I would love to get back into helping out
with surgeries. They always let me develop the x-rays when we have them
to do, which Im so thankful for, and every day is a new animal. A baby hawk
or kite came in, (it looked like a fuzzy white potato) it appeared uninjured but
was breathing a bit labored so we did an x-ray on him which showed no
injuries. Later in the day since it had slowed down on wildlife calls and I had
caught up of most of the upkeep around the hospital, one of the technicians
took me and the other intern of the day along to try and get an x-ray of one
of the giraffes mouth. Never have I been so close to a giraffe to realize how
enormous they really are! And that was just from the outside of the barn
because he is skittish with too many people around. We hung around the
barn for about a half hour, not really being able to see anything but the chest
down of the giraffes so we were surprised when the tech came out and said
they didnt get a picture. Apparently he was too afraid of the blue lead
aprons to approach the platform; their keeper said he even gets nervous
when they wear raincoats, so they will have to work with him little by little to
condition him to know these things are alright. After seeing them up close
they are an animal I would love to work with someday, possibly more so to
do with training them since it seems like it could really make a difference in
the ease of their lives and keepers.
On Thursday I got to go on a fieldtrip across the river to the Audubon
Center for Research of Endangered Animals, which is on the site of the
Freeport-McMoran Audubon Species Survival Center. Right now they are in
the process of phasing out their African Wild Cat research project where they
cloned them and used domestic cats as their surrogates. We got a tour of the

whole facility, including getting to see the last three of the African Wild Cats
they have, two of which are clones, and the other is related somehow. The
last lioness from the pride that used to reside at the zoo is living out her days
out there, and apparently is much happier as a lone lady. My favorite part
wasnt seeing all the animals, which were amazing of course, but the talk the
hoofstock keeper gave us about the breeding program they will be starting
on the property in the next year. The Audubon Zoo has partnered with San
Diego Zoo Global for a first of its kind partnership to create a breeding
program for giraffe, bongo, okapi, pudu, eland, and sable antelope. Within
these enclosures, (the giraffe enclosure being 50 acres alone) will also be
large birds like storks and cranes since they also need large areas. By the
end of her presentation I was completely sold; I want to be a part of a project
like this, I want to be a part of the community that brings the bongo back
from a mere 100 animals. She said there will for sure be internships, and the
animals will be coming in next fall so anytime after then is perfect time. I
didnt think anything would have made me come back down into this heat,
but I didnt give the heat a second thought when I heard of this opportunity.
Going back to work after my fieldtrip made everything even more real.
I didnt let the heat bother me, because its true, eventually you get used to
it. Even in the developing room it isnt THAT bad. It must have changed from
Night Heron season to baby hawk (or kite, they are all under debate still)
season because in two days we got three babies. All babies needed to be xrayed including some follow ups on a mallard, a mockingbird, and a very
angry Red-shouldered Hawk who previously had his wing bandaged do to a
break. Back to back x-rays are something I love but it always seems like
were torn away from one thing to go get a wildlife case that someone has
dropped off at membership. This time is was six baby opossums that a dog
had gotten to the mom. They were barely bigger than peanuts and eyes
werent open, much too young to be out of the pouch so they had to be
euthanized. The week ended with another vulture, this time brought in by
someone who said it had been hanging around her yard so she began to feed
it. Once on the exam table it was clear to see that he had a badly broken
wing and although it was healing over already the broken end of the bone
was just a few layers of skin away from popping out of the skin and it was
decided it would be better to euthanize him as well. With everyday there are
ups and downs but I live for the ups; the baby opossums destined for
education animals are doing well, getting fat, and climbing all over their
cages