Cage cleaning!

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I´ve never really thought much about being eaten alive by lions but on a rainy Thursday afternoon standing in the middle of a lion enclosure, one male locked in one corner and three lions in another corner (two of which are in heat) there wasn´t much more I could think about. We had been assigned to cleaning out our neighbouring lions, involving clearing dead chewed up chickens and more poo but all I could think about was what would be my best escape route if a lion got out!

If the adrenaline rush wasn´t enough, we then moved on to carnivore feeding and the task of fishing out a dead chicken from the bears pond. Trying to persuade three hungry Pumas into their trap cages so that we can enter the enclosures certainly isn´t easy especially in the middle of a torrential storm. wever, it was certainly easier than trying to get a blind lion to sit in the right spot for her dinner to ensure her two mates didn´t eat it before she got there. Trying to lock trap doors, padlocks and chains you sometimes forget that you´re standing just half a metre away from some very big sets of jaws.

After, just the small task of entering the bear´s enclosure to get the dead chicken out after being told that Houdini has now learnt how to open his trapcage. It was a quick sprint I tell you!!

After a hard afternoon of work it definitely sucked that we had no electricity or hot water for the rest of the night so spent the rest of the night sportingly wearing our flashlights and smelling of chicken carcasses. Strangely fun in a way.

The rest of week involved some nicer tasks.... a new sloth arrived! 80% of Sloths die in captivity because their need of a special diet and environment. However, he seemed to enjoy being handfed twice a day with carrots and papaya and we practiced some good yoga positions trying to avoid his claws! We worked on the new owl enclosure for the owl with a broken wing who won´t be able to fly again, scrubbed clean three new tortoises, fed the Galapagos tortoises and continued with our weekly duties of feeding and cleaning over 100 animals.

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