Monday this week was International Children’s Day. To celebrate this, the zoo was open. We usually close on a Monday, to do essential maintenance and to give the animals and staff a break from the visitors. They also considerably reduced the entrance fee, and I think it was actually free for children. The zoo was as normal, absolutely packed full – some of the food stands sold out of ice-cream! People here eat so much ice-cream, not just in summer but it’s a favourite all year round. There were games, activities and quizzes for the children, when the zoo has a special day, they really do it well.
There’s a new statue in the zoo – I think it is for International Children’s Day. It’s amazing – of a mother and baby chimpanzee. One of the carpenters at the zoo also is a metal artist and welds bits of scrap metal into incredible sculptures.
Steve had a bit of a bug hunt on Tuesday and found lots of interesting little beasties, we need to get an ID guide as the bugs are different to at home.
Today, as part of the elephant programme we decided to do a huge amount of enrichment for him – he wouldn’t usually get so much but we had some new ideas to try out on him (and the keepers). We dug up an area of his sand and piled it into a big mound, we dug another area out and filled it with water, there was a pile of wood-chips to play with, lots of branches to eat, we chopped his vegetables up really small and scattered them all around the enclosure and we put his hay inside cardboard boxes and smeared herbs and spices over the boxes for him to smell. We also scattered some seeds onto the concrete outside the enclosure for him to collect. When we let him out into the enclosure, he didn’t know where to start. He got the hang of standing on the boxes to open them or take the lids of pretty quickly, threw woodchips and sand over his back from the two piles and wore one of the boxes on his head for a while.
Steve gave the rhino another scrub down, which made the elephant jealous, he threw mud at us to make his displeasure known!
There’s a new statue in the zoo – I think it is for International Children’s Day. It’s amazing – of a mother and baby chimpanzee. One of the carpenters at the zoo also is a metal artist and welds bits of scrap metal into incredible sculptures.
Steve had a bit of a bug hunt on Tuesday and found lots of interesting little beasties, we need to get an ID guide as the bugs are different to at home.
Today, as part of the elephant programme we decided to do a huge amount of enrichment for him – he wouldn’t usually get so much but we had some new ideas to try out on him (and the keepers). We dug up an area of his sand and piled it into a big mound, we dug another area out and filled it with water, there was a pile of wood-chips to play with, lots of branches to eat, we chopped his vegetables up really small and scattered them all around the enclosure and we put his hay inside cardboard boxes and smeared herbs and spices over the boxes for him to smell. We also scattered some seeds onto the concrete outside the enclosure for him to collect. When we let him out into the enclosure, he didn’t know where to start. He got the hang of standing on the boxes to open them or take the lids of pretty quickly, threw woodchips and sand over his back from the two piles and wore one of the boxes on his head for a while.
Steve gave the rhino another scrub down, which made the elephant jealous, he threw mud at us to make his displeasure known!
Chimpanzee Statue
One of Steve's bugs 
Steve's Beetle
Investigating Sand Pile
First Cardboard Box
Second Box
Taking the lid off another one
Just finishing some branches
Collecting Seeds
Wearing a box
Steve making the elephant jealous
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