Vodka, Bears and Elephants

A Tribute to Boy

2010-05-13T20:18:00.005+03:00

I was asked to write a tribute/obituary to Boy for an internet based zoo group. I've never had to write an obituary for a person, let alone an elephant. It was difficult to write about Boy and I can't begin to imagine how much it hurts to write about a person that you care about.

The photos at the end were taken by someone at Kyiv Zoo on the day before Boy died.

Boy was an Asiatic Bull elephant, born in approximately 1970. The records don’t say where, but we speculate that he was wild caught. He moved to Kyiv Zoo in the early 1970’s from Rostock.
Although Boy had been on his own for quite a few years, previously he had two female companions, he bred once with the first one.
Throughout the years Boy was at Kyiv Zoo the country of Ukraine changed greatly, notably it experienced the tragic nuclear disaster at Chornobyl, and also Ukraine became independent, leading to the problems associated with becoming a new country and the changes from communism to capitalism. As a city run zoo, these changes affected Boy, the zoo staff and all the other animals.
Boy was extremely special to the people of Kyiv; he grew up alongside them to become probably the biggest Asian bull in Europe (3.45 metres) and was a firm favourite with many, including the Mayor of Kyiv who was his Guardian and funded many of the recent developments to Boy’s enclosure.
Boy had a reputation as an aggressive dangerous animal; he killed one keeper and injured a few others.
He was plagued with health problems following tusk extractions due to breaking them. His feet were also of great concern. Because of these factors vets and other elephant experts travelled around the world to assist and provide advice, many giving their time and skills voluntarily. Boy had a great many friends and I’m so grateful to all of them.
When I first met Boy he wasn’t doing so well. The zoo was in financial trouble due to the economic crisis and other political issues. He needed help with his behaviour, nutrition and foot-care. I asked the elephant zoo community for help and it came flooding in. People gave me their time and expertise freely to help me redesign Boy’s enclosure, develop an enrichment programme and take him from a non-contact situation into a Protected Contact Operant Conditioning programme. Boy and his keepers took to this new system like ducks to water.
Boy was a special animal to me, I found him to be quick thinking, hard working and great to be around. He made me learn an awful lot about elephants. There’s just something wonderful about tilting your head up and gazing into the eyes of a huge animal and knowing that you both understand that when he puts his head or foot on the target stick he’s going to get a big reward.

Boy collapsed and died in the morning on Monday 26th April 2010. His death seems to have been very quick. Initial signs indicate poisoning, and known animal rights activists are suspected, a necropsy will be carried out.

The End

2010-04-26T20:47:00.002+03:00

I recieved a very sad email today from Kyiv Zoo.

Boy is dead.

He died early this morning, very suddenly.

The vets suspect that he has been poisoned.

I would like to thank all the wonderful people all over the world who helped me change Boy's life. We gave him a happy end to his life and I wouldn't have been able to do anything without your assistance and knowledge.

People gave their time freely to me, answering questions, sending photos and ideas for enrichment, helping me with the designs for the enclosure modifications, and the generous donations that helped me go to Elephant School in Hamburg. You all made it possible to do something wonderful for my elephant.

Boy had a difficult life, he was lonely and had some health problems. Despite all this, he was willing to work and train with me. I think he craved attention.

Boy helped me a lot too.

He was an amazing animal and I miss him.

London

2010-03-07T22:33:00.000+02:00

It’s been ages since I last wrote anything. Things have changed tremendously and I don’t know where to start. I think that’s why I’ve left it so long, but it just gets harder to know what to write.
Steve and I are no longer in Ukraine and have finished working at Kyiv Zoo. We had a few problems with our paperwork, and our work permits and visas were not renewed.
It was very sad to leave as we feel that the zoo was making real progress. We have left behind some wonderful people – friends, zoologists and conservationists. Steve and I will always support the work of Kyiv Zoo and will provide advice and act as consultants to them in the future.
Steve was pleased to have completed the lynx enclosure, and in the next few weeks a male lynx will be sent to Kyiv Zoo to begin a new blood line for the conservation breeding programme, an important achievement for both Steve and Kyiv Zoo.
With my elephant Boy it’s a bit different. I know that I made some hugely significant changes to enhance his welfare but I didn’t achieve what I planned in terms of his training. I hope that the vets continue my work and train Boy for his footcare. A lot of people from around the world supported me with my work with Boy and I am so extremely grateful as I wouldn’t have been able to do anything for Boy without them. I miss working with Boy, he was very forgiving and prepared to work with me.

I’m finding it good to be back in the UK, although it is also quite funny. On the last day in Kyiv the temperature was about -25°C at the airport and thick heavy snow. So, during the snow in the UK in January I didn’t find it too cold at all.

Since being back I’ve been catching up with friends and family which has been lovely. I’ve neglected too many people and it’s time to start seeing everyone again.

I’ve also been to a few zoos since being back; Dublin, Marwell, Twycross, Whipsnade, Rare Species Conservation Centre, Port Lympne and Dudley. I have photos from some of these so I’ll try and write something about these zoos soon.

Winter has arrived

2009-12-13T10:13:00.005+02:00

Last weekend started with our second visit to the Kyiv Expats new social group – the First Friday Club. The idea is that the first Friday of every month the group meets at a different bar in Kyiv for some drinking and general chat. This time was at a bar called Route 66, an American-biker themed bar not too far from where we live. We had a nice evening, met lots of people and listened to some good live music.
Steve’s lynx enclosure is now fully finished and the gorgeous Carpathian Lynx has been enjoying very much. The last work Steve had to do in the enclosure was train the staff to find any faults in the fence and be able to fix them. So, he spent an interesting afternoon trying to break the fence so it could be repaired – this was actually quite difficult because the fence has been extremely well constructed and was consequently extremely hard to create faults in!
The temperature has dropped a lot over this week, its currently getting close to -10°C (during the day, even colder at night) which is pretty crazy. I’m so cold and having to wear nearly all my clothes at the same time I don’t remember ever being somewhere this cold before – I’m sure it never gets to these temperatures during the day in the UK. It’s so cold outside that your nose just starts running and it makes your eyes hurt – even with thick gloves your fingers start to ache. I think everyone here except for Steve and I have gone for the “wear as much fur as possible” option, which may actually be quite sensible under the circumstances. No one is wearing bright sparkly clothes anymore, like in the summer. Everyone is in dark clothes and excessive fur trimmings, but the girls are all still in very very high heel shoes!
The snow started to fall properly on Monday morning, there hasn’t been too much yet – just a fairly thin covering over everything. It’s been so cold that it hasn’t melted during the week so every day the layer gets a bit thicker over the frozen puddles – so slippery!
We’ve had the elephant outside for his exercises every day this week even during the snow. He’s been a bit curious about it all – investigating the snow with his trunk but it doesn’t seem to have bothered him at all. The exercising is going well and although it’s still early days I think I can see some muscles starting to build up properly on his legs.
As we have been doing a lot of work in and around the elephant house I’ve been able to closely watch Boy and was interested in how tall he was. I found a mark on the wall that corresponded to his shoulder height (you measure elephants like horses – height at the withers) and measured him. I read in a book whilst I was at elephant school that Boy was 3.25 metres ten years ago, and since then he has grown to 3.45 metres. Possibly he is now the tallest bull elephant in Europe?
We had some very big meetings this week with zoo staff and representatives from the Kyiv Institute of Zoology and various environmental NGOs. These were very long and important meetings as we are starting to work on creating legislation for Ukraine to deal with zoos, wild animals and their conservation. There are some laws already but they are very basic and mostly deal with domestic animals and livestock and therefore aren’t quite relevant to zoos and conservation. I’ve never written any governmental legislation before and it’s pretty difficult when working in a different language with a different culture towards these things.
The zoo has just completed the first part of a new visitor education programme – a stork and native wildlife education centre. This is in a part of the zoo where we have some beautiful lakes and naturally forested area. So far invertebrate, bird and bat boxes have been installed along with a display of artificial stork nests from all regions of Ukraine – these are a familiar sight in villages across the country. When completed, this area will have a nature trail, a stork museum and conservation centre and lots of activities for children. We’re really pleased with this work and think the visitors will like it a lot.

Boy in his first snow

From the office window

Hippo in the warm

Elephant exercise in the snow

Siberian Tiger feeling at home

Rhino bench

The zoo's other "elephants" in the children's playground

Completed Lynx Enclosure

Bird valley enclosure

Carpathian Lynx in her completed enclosure

Having a good scratch

Frozen Wildlife Area

Stork Nest Display

Invertebrate, Bird and Bat box display

Bee Nest Box

Don't forget the rhino

2009-12-06T16:53:00.010+02:00

This week has been more of the same at the elephant enclosure, but the weather is starting to deteriorate. I don’t think we’ve seen the sun all week as it’s been foggy, drizzly and pretty cold. But we are not people to be put off by bad weather (unlike some of the sulky keepers!) and have all been back out at the elephant sand enclosure digging the rest of the sand over. It’s a pretty big achievement to actually dig the whole area by hand. My elephant friends at other zoos all have nice diggers to do the job for them (slight case of jealousy!). Once we finished digging the enclosure we raked it thoroughly, which the keepers must now do every day and we dug some of the sand into big hills for Boy to play with. It looked a bit like an elephant sized Zen Garden.
Now that the sand is much softer, Boy has been able to start expressing some more elephant behaviours. It’s much easier for him to pick up sand for dust bathing but even better is digging. I hoped that once the sand was loosened Boy would have a little dig and was so pleased when I found the first hole that he dug in the enclosure. Now he is digging regularly to find hidden food, clean his feet and get sand for dust bathing with.
Boy has also been exercised every day this week, but not by us. It’s been taken over by the vets and the keepers, which is great to see. They have also started talking to him more as he really needs the interactions.
We moved from the outdoor area to the inside enclosure with our cleaning programme. Whilst Boy was outside we had a good opportunity to work indoors. We have scrubbed Boy’s enclosure from top to bottom and shown the workers the standards that we want maintained. The food preparation area was also a big priority – it just wasn’t being kept clean enough. It’s not a nice area, it needs new tiles, but that’s no excuse for not keeping it clean, so we set everyone to work – taking everything out, scrubbing and bleaching until everything was clean. The vets even donated a new table for chopping food. I think it went really well as the keepers were arguing over where the best place was to put the table. That shows pride and thought in what they are doing. I am confident they will keep it hygienic now.
So, with the elephant spring clean almost complete, Steve and I turned our attentions to the next animal on the elephant section – our lovely old rhinoceros. Same routine here; digging over an extremely compacted sand enclosure by hand and then scrubbing out a very dirty water pool. Fortunately for us, the rhino enclosure is considerably smaller than the elephant so we could get most of the work done in two days.
Steve particularly enjoyed playing (sorry, Working) with the power washer and discovered that the indoor enclosure was not actually grey, but green and the wooden boards where the rhino sleeps were really a lovely light brown colour!

Boy coming to start his exercise routine

One of the keepers throwing a carrot for Boy to collect

Boy dug this hole

Showing the contrasts between the compacted sand, dug sand and raked sand

You can almost see the layers of compaction here

Nicely raked Zen Garden with small hills

Finished digging at last

Boy investigating a sand hill

We put Boy's log in the wrong place so he decided to move it

Moving

Thats where he wanted it

Some indoor food enrichment for Boy

Collecting it all

Very dirty rhino pool

Nice clean rhino yard

Steve with the clean rhino pool

Rhino enjoying her refreshed enclosure

Nice clean rhino bed

How to exercise an elephant

2009-11-30T20:18:00.004+02:00

So, since I got back I took some time to relax and unpack. The first day back at work I spent catching up on two weeks’ worth of emails and general zoo happenings. I also was able to start to focus on what I had learnt at elephant school and how to apply it to my lovely elephant.
So, on Tuesday with the aid of Steve, we descended on the elephant enclosure and the poor terrified workers and unleashed “Operation слон - Spring Clean”! Steve started with the concrete outdoor yard, it was covered with mud, leaves and sand, and our red safety lines couldn’t be seen. We managed to find one proper broom and a squeegee and eventually managed to get a hose pipe long enough to reach the yard. Steve swept, hosed and squeegeed for hours until it was sparkling clean. I started on the sand outdoor enclosure. I don’t think the sand has ever been changed or dug over, it was packed down completely solid. So I started digging at one end of the enclosure, just to turn the sand over and try to refresh it a bit. Also by loosening the sand it may give Boy the possibility of digging, which is a natural behaviour that I want to encourage. We all worked for most of the day in the outdoor enclosure – well, Steve and I worked but the keepers mostly moaned and whinged about having to do some work. They started to work after we told them that they sounded like little old ladies, except that little old ladies dig better than they do! We managed to get about a third of the enclosure done, which was pretty good.
The other new thing I have introduced since elephant school is an exercise regime for Boy. He was very fat, but after we changed his diet earlier in the year he began to slowly lose the weight. The problem now is that under where the fat was he has little or no muscle mass. So, I need to get him properly fit. The question is – how do you exercise a huge elephant? What I decided to do was to rather than scatter his lunch around the enclosure (which I used to do) I would throw it for him a couple of pieces at a time so he would have to walk from one end of the enclosure to the other to get the food (elephants can walk huge distances in the wild). He really didn’t like this idea at first and looked very sad about it but after a few throws he got the idea and trotted along to collect his carrots! I also realised that I could take this one stage further. We were told at elephant school that having the opportunity to climb was great for elephants – another good natural behaviour. Our elephant swimming pool is empty at the moment and has big elephant sized steps down into it. By throwing food into the pool I could encourage Boy to go down and then climb back up again – fantastic exercise for him. I’m introducing this very slowly as it requires a lot of energy for Boy and I don’t want to tire him out completely, just a few times every day and then more as he gets fitter. I imagine that Boy was pretty tired after all his exercise but nowhere near as tired as I was, I ached all over and my hands were covered in blisters from all the digging!
The next day we were back at the elephant enclosure, which was a great disappointment to all the workers! We carried on digging the sand (and they moaned again) and someone managed to find a power-washer from somewhere in the zoo so we spent several hours trying to get that set up. We started power-washing the pool – lots of mud, leaves and sand that needed to be removed as it was a bit slippery and therefore not so safe for elephant exercise. We exercised Boy again, which he seemed to enjoy, although perhaps it’s just having a lot of attention that pleased him. We’ve been trying to get the workers to talk to him when they are near him, which they are gradually starting to do. After Boy’s workout we left him outside and we went in to make a start on his indoor area. Usually this is just swept or brushed with a bit of water. We took the power-hose and removed vast amounts of muck from the floor and walls. It’s very satisfying work! In the afternoon we did some more elephant exercise as we had a TV news crew in who wanted to see what was happening. Again, I only ever seem to get interviewed on TV when I am tired and covered in mud, water and elephant poo!
The rest of the week was much the same, although the workers seemed resigned to the fact that they would be digging and raking and cleaning the elephant enclosure, which was a very nice development. By the end of Friday I ached all over and my multiple blisters were bleeding everywhere – one of the shovels will never be the same again!
It does seem to have paid off so far. Over the weekend we saw the keepers raking the sand enclosure and the vets were exercising the elephant – all good!

Sand that I dug over (after elephant has walked on it)

2 days of sand digging

Steve's lovely clean yard

Me power-washing the pool steps

Boy climbing down the steps for exercise

Boy at the bottom of the pool

Climbing back up again

18/11/09 to 21/11/09 - Hamburg Zoo

2009-11-29T15:09:00.010+02:00

After the course ended, all the other participants drifted away back to their homes, countries and zoos and by late afternoon on Wednesday, all were gone except for me. These extra few days were due to a crazy flight schedule from Hamburg to Kyiv, so I was able to spend some more time in the zoo. Very kindly, the Head Veterinarian arranged for me to meet with some of the non-elephant keepers and get a look behind the scenes in other departments. I saw the beautiful orang-utan exhibit and spent a few hours with the keeper there. I also spent some time on the African Section with the keepers and met lots of the animals in that area. They were great to me, I tried not to get in the way and disrupt their day but they had so much to show me – it was brilliant.
On my last day I went back to the elephant house, as I had a few more questions for the keepers about my training and management programme for Boy. Whilst I was there, they let me go out into the paddock with all the elephants to be able to meet the babies. I had a pocketful of elephant biscuits and was immediately besieged and harassed by baby elephants that were desperate for me to feed them the treats. It was incredible. During my training with Boy at Kyiv, sometimes I can touch the tip of his massive trunk, but I had three little elephant trunks all curling around my hands and arms, trying to worm their way into my pockets to steal their biscuits!
I had an amazing experience at elephant school and at Hamburg Zoo. I’ve learnt a huge amount and met some wonderful people from all over the world. It has definitely changed me.
I’ve never been to Germany before, I found the people at Hamburg Zoo to be extremely kind and generous. Compared to Kyiv, it felt almost like home – there was just a good atmosphere and I was happy.
I would very much like to come back to Hamburg, but maybe also some other zoos in Germany too.

Flamingos

Giraffe Enclosure

Bird House

Saddle-Billed Stork

Orangutans and Otters

Bactrian Camels

Little Statue in Elephant House

Indoor Mandrill Enclosure

Baby Tapir

Baby Tapir and his Mum

Chameleon in Tropical House

Snake having a swim

Hyrax

Crocodile feeding time

King Cobra

Rattlesnake

Cuddling elephants

Red River Hog

Being stared at by giraffes (I'm in their house)

Nice view of one of the "mountains"

Sleepy tigers

Dinosaurs!

Orangutans

Orangutan enclosure roof which can be opened in summer

Me and the baby elephants

I have no more elephant biscuits

This bear seems very close

Kangaroos

Porcupine Bottoms

Lions posing very nicely

Lions again

Lion dinner time

Feisty little warthog

Red river hogs

Red river hog going to bed

Zebras ready for bed

Millions of guineapigs!

Elephant School 5 - 17/11/09

2009-11-29T14:38:00.003+02:00

This was the last day of school, which was very sad – it seems to have gone very quickly.
We had lectures on the breeding programme at Hamburg Zoo, and their recent developments. They are pioneering the elephant group birth situation – they let the elephants get on with it themselves (with no human input unless there is an emergency) which is much similar to the wild situation. This is what we do with most other zoo animals, but traditionally zoo elephants give birth with no other elephants to assist. This technique seems to be working well at Hamburg, and I hope other zoos will start to introduce this system – as far as I understand, it will lead to better group structures which will benefit the elephants and their future captive breeding and conservation.
After the end of school some of us took a look round the zoo – I was lucky as I had seen the zoo before the start of the course but most of the others had only seen the elephants and the aquarium.
We had reduced numbers for dinner at the Greek restaurant that night as some people left immediately at the end of school. It was a nice evening, and a little bit silly. We made pictures of our elephants using torn up beer mats. My picture of Boy is at the bottom (the other pictures were far more artistic than mine!).

More elephants

An elephant washing her food

Elephants

Big male orangutan

A picture (very unflattering) of Boy eating his favourite food

Elephant School 4 - 15/11/09 and 16/11/09

2009-11-29T14:08:00.003+02:00

Sunday 15th November
Didn’t sleep at all well last night, I was totally exhausted all day! No idea why – I felt too hot, but the heating was off. Oh well.
This morning we were back in the elephant Barn watching the keepers and elephant’s morning routines – cleaning the elephants and cleaning the enclosure. I was absolutely amazed at how quickly and efficiently the team worked, it was incredible. One highlight was watching the littlest baby elephant trying to drink from a pool of water – it had mastered sucking water into its trunk but just couldn’t get the trunk into its mouth and the water kept dribbling down its chin. After a few attempts it went back to mum to suckle – much easier!
In the afternoon we took a tour of Hamburg, we went by U-Bahn to the docks where we had a boat tour along the river; I don’t think I have ever seen so many container ships and containers! We then went to a beer tent to eat and drink a lot of beer. There was much dancing and general silliness – great fun!
Monday 16th November
Today was a full day of veterinary lectures and demonstrations, starting with infectious diseases and other medical issues. We then had lectures on fertility cycling and monitoring for breeding purposes. One of the lecturers today was Dr. Hildebrandt, a world renowned animal fertility expert who works with zoos all over the world doing artificial insemination and assisted breeding programmes. We also looked at blood, urine and faecal sampling techniques. At the end of the day were lectures on elephant conservation in India and the conflicts between people and wildlife.

Watching elephants have baths

Bathing elephants

Baby elephant trying to use trunk

Suckling from Mum

Keepers cleaning enclosure

Group Photo

Lazlo, George and some very big beers

Most of elephant school 2009

Dr Hildebrandt explaining an elephant ultrasound

Dr Flugger taking bloods

Elephant School 3 - 13/11/09 and 14/11/09

2009-11-29T13:19:00.004+02:00

Friday 13th November
We had a full day of lectures, so were based in the hotel all day. The main topic for the day was digestion and the associated anatomy. We had excellent lectures from Professor Fowler and Dr Fagan – a zoo dentist from America. Professor Kurt gave a couple of lectures on the relationship between food intake and growth and behaviour of elephants in the wild and in captivity. We also had a lecture on nutrition of zoo elephants – we all got a packet of elephant biscuits to take back for our elephants (I have managed to squish mine, which is very unfortunate). We finished the day with a talk about the African elephant situation and conservation in South Africa.
Saturday 14th November
This day was based fully in the elephant barn as it was concerned with training elephants, both in free contact and protected contact systems. This was delivered through a series of lectures and demonstrations of training and its variety of applications. I also put my hand in an elephant’s mouth today – yuk! A few people thought it was funny that I am a bit nervous around the elephants, but I think I’m being quite sensible about it. I’ve only ever worked with one elephant who cannot be touched, and I think it’s irresponsible to just go to an animal and put your hand in its mouth (or tickle it or whatever) just because someone else says it’s ok.
We also had an extremely interesting talk from a PhD student who has been looking at vocal communication in Asian elephants. It was fascinating, particularly the videos of playing vocalisations to zoo elephants and seeing their reactions. I am quite interested in getting copies of some of the sounds and playing them to Boy as a form of enrichment – it should also be an interesting experiment as he hasn’t been in contact with any other elephants for a long time – I would like to see how he reacts to it. He’s a fairly quiet elephant, but he might like to listen to other elephant sounds. Maybe I’m anthropomorphising too much, but at the moment I am very happy to be surrounded by many English speakers, whereas in Kyiv the options for conversation and listening are limited. Perhaps it will be the same for Boy?
The last lecture of the day was on the topic of measuring behaviours, which I have already done for Boy but will continue to do so. The talk was given by a lecturer from Colombo University (Sri Lanka) Devaka Weerakoon who I have met previously in Sri Lanka and is good friends with my friend Dr Ganga at Colombo Zoo.
I had a fairly quiet evening, many of the others were out in town eating and drinking. I stayed back for a quiet drink and elephant talk with some of the zoo staff.

It's difficult to concentrate when there is an elephant in the classroom

Meeting another elephant

Babies playing in sand pile

Baby elephant having a chat with Head Keeper - Thorsten

Babies playing with branches

Devaka from Sri Lanka

Elephant School 2 - 11/11/09 and 12/11/09

2009-11-29T12:46:00.004+02:00

Wednesday 11th November
We started today with the anatomy and physiology of elephant feet with lectures by Professor Fowler, who has written many excellent veterinary and zoo text books (books that Steve and I use on an almost daily basis). Professor Fowler also lectured later in the day on the processes of wound healing. The principle being that to understand the proper care of elephant feet, one must understand how the foot functions. This was followed by practical sessions observing elephant foot care in free contact and protected contact situations. This was particularly useful to me as it is the target I wish to achieve for Boy. We then had more lectures on the veterinary management of foot issues from the Hamburg Zoo veterinarians.
The day was finished with videos and photos from Roy Smith (who recently transported the baby elephants through Kyiv on their way to another zoo). This was about severe problems and treatment of foot conditions – it was very interesting as many of the techniques were similar to those used on Boy at the start of the year. I then managed to have a quick chat with Alan Roocroft (who runs the course) about Boy, before heading to a Chinese restaurant with my fellow course participants.
Thursday 12th November
Today’s lectures were on the topic of moving elephants – chemical immobilization, movement of elephants between zoos and the issues of relocating wild elephants. We spent half the day in the elephant house for practical work. We were set a team challenge of planning the crating of a particular elephant in a particular location in the elephant house. We worked together in small teams, and the group I was in got the process figured out correctly. We then watched the elephant keepers and animal moving team run through the whole procedure with an elephant and all the kit needed. It was amazing to see it all in action. In the evening we had a lecture and film from a South African Vet who routinely relocates whole families of elephants, which is pretty spectacular if thought about – anaesthetising and transporting 10 or more elephants in one go!
The other students headed out for a meal, but I stayed back at the hotel to have a beer and chat with Roy from the animal transport company and Professor Kurt. Professor Kurt has studied Asian elephants all his life and knows many of the people I know in Sri Lanka, including Ganga who I was at University with. He calls her the “giggling vet”, which is pretty apt.
And then, an early night – I’m exhausted!

Tools for footcare

Professor Murray Fowler and an elephant foot

Elephant Foot

Bull elephant foot

Alan trimming Bull elephant foot in Protected Contact

Alan treating feet in PC

Giraffe statue outside zoo

Main entrance to zoo

Roy Smith talking about elephant transport

Roy's elephant lorry and a very big crane

Putting the crate in position

Elephant demonstrating how comfortable the crate is

Elephant School 1 - 9/11/09 and 10/11/09

2009-11-29T11:18:00.006+02:00

Monday 9th November
This was the first day of elephant school, with an early start. I was quite nervous to meet all these people, especially as I am quite new to elephants, but extremely pleased to be there. When I first started working with Boy and heard about elephant school I really didn’t think I’d actually be able to go. Anyway, there were 14 other participants in the school, from the UK, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Holland, USA, Israel, Hungary, Belgium and Spain – a great international mix.
The day started with introductions to the school and the staff involved. We had lectures on the European breeding and management programmes, genetics of elephant breeding and the programme at Hagenbeck (Hamburg) Zoo.
We had a tour of the elephant facilities with the Zoo Director and then an evening tour of the Tropical House, followed by a meal and drinks in the Tropical House. It was lovely.
I have realised now just how little I know about elephants and think that this course will make a huge difference to how I care for Boy.
Tuesday 10th November
I was very tired this morning, but was up and away on time after a nice hot shower – our shower in Kyiv is good, but has quite low pressure and limited hot water. The one in my apartment here is the absolute opposite and it was difficult to make myself turn the shower off in the end.
We started the day with lectures on team building, problem solving and developing elephant management programmes. These were both interesting and useful and I hope to make use of them in the future. We then watched a free contact elephant training session – this is when the keepers are standing in the enclosure with the elephants, so very different to what I do with Boy at Kyiv. We then had a short lecture on some elephant health problems and moved onto practical sessions.
They brought an elephant out into an off show area to demonstrate the rope techniques needed when safely anaesthetising an elephant – the techniques would bring the elephant safely to the floor when the anaesthetic takes effect in a suitable position for the veterinarians. We practiced putting ropes on the legs, but didn’t actually bring her to the ground. We then did some basic knot tying and splicing which was fun – I have done the splices they taught before, but just couldn’t get one of them right – very frustrating!
The last lecture of the day was from Professor Kurt (who has written many many books about elephants) on the history of man and elephants, particularly the working relationship and riding of elephants – absolutely fascinating.
We all then spent the rest of the evening in a Greek restaurant, still talking about elephants!

Inside elephant enclosure

Baby at the indoor pool

Safety lines on the floor in the keeper area

PC Training Wall (kind of like my one)

Exploring the outdoor enclosure

Crocodile Pool in the Tropical House

Fish

Lobster

The HUGE marine tank

In the massive marine tank

Indoor Enclosure

Start of a Free Contact Training Session

Training

Mmmm, sticks

Having a nice scratch on a rock

Playing with water

Lectures at the Elephant Barn

Meeting my first elephant

Zoo Director Stephan demonstrating rope tying

Alan Roocroft showing another rope technique

Travelling and Hamburg Zoo 7/11/2009 and 8/11/2009

2009-11-29T10:17:00.006+02:00

7th November
Saturday morning saw me having a last minute panic and pack – trying to remember everything I need, and making sure I have actually packed it.
Steve came with me to the airport to say good bye, and off I went. I had a few hours to wait at Kyiv airport, but had saved a book that Dad sent me specifically to read on this journey. I’ve been reading from an e-reader for the past 8 months, which is great, but it just does not compare to holding a fat book in your hands and being able to turn actual pages. My first flight was from Kyiv to Köln-Bonn and took about two and a half hours. The flight was good and I had a whole row of seats to myself which was great for stretching out, although it was very odd to not have Steve sitting next to me. I kept looking at how beautiful the clouds were as we flew over them and forgetting that Steve was not there to share it with. But, someone has to hold the fort, keep an eye on the elephant and wrestle the cat. It’s a shame that he couldn’t come with but it was difficult enough to raise the money for me to go, I can’t imagine that we’d have managed enough sponsorship for two. The passengers on the first flight were mostly Ukrainians and in typical national style they refused to wear their seatbelts or turn their phones off when the airline staff asked them.
I had a three hour stop at Köln-Bonn and after putting my watch back an hour used this opportunity to reacquaint myself with the excessive prices used in airports – a glass of coca-cola for almost 3 euro – ridiculous!
The second flight was only an hour long to Hamburg, and was very nice – I also had a whole row of seats to myself. Both flights were actually very smooth – only a little turbulence, but great landings with no bouncing along the runway. I don’t particularly like flying but was able to relax well on both.
On arrival in Hamburg my suitcase appeared very quickly which I wasn’t expecting particularly as I had two flights and flew with a budget airline. I found a taxi (with a driver who spoke perfect English, even though I tried to speak German to him) and made my way to the zoo.
As it was 9.30pm the zoo was closed obviously but I had the phone number of the night watchman who met me at the gates and took me to the zoo accommodation. The watchman Peter had worked as a zoo keeper at Hamburg for 40 years and was able to tell me a lot about the zoo and we had a coffee and a good talk about zoos, animals and elephants! He was really helpful and found me lots of maps and drew on them where the accommodation was and where to go on Monday for my course. He also pointed me in the direction of a small shop and restaurant. I decided not to bother as it was so late, I just wanted to get settled in and go to bed.
The zoo accommodation is very nice, split into a few apartments with several bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen and lounge. They even provided a big pile of tea bags, which is great. It’s very clean, the kitchen is useable with a cooker, saucepans etc. It was just me in the apartment, but Peter said that there might be another course participant arriving the next day.
Sunday 8th November
I had a really good night’s sleep and woke up quite early. I lazed in bed reading and drinking coffee for a while until I could go out into the zoo – I was told that I couldn’t go into the zoo before it was open to the public.
For the non-zoo people reading, Hamburg (Hagenbeck) Tierpark is one of the most famous zoos in the world and renowned for inventing the bar-less enclosure over 100 years ago. They created panoramas of animals in enclosures that shouldn’t live together e.g. lions and zebras. The animals only appear to live in the same enclosure due to hidden ditches, moats, fences and walls. They still exhibit their animals in this way; many of them still live in these old enclosures that are just spectacular to see. This style was copied by zoos all over the world and I always wanted to see Hamburg Zoo.
So, off I went to the zoo. I can honestly say that it is the most beautiful and amazing zoo I have ever been to. The enclosures are spectacular and seem good for the animals, most are separated from the visitors by water moats or dry moats so are very good for photography, some have glass which is very clean and didn’t interfere with the photos. The grounds are very clean and tidy, with wide paths and lots of trees and bushes. They have a very big animal collection – I saw bears, flamingos, mountain goats, lions, tigers, leopards, deer, orang-utans, bison, giraffes, coatis, giant otters (on CCTV as they have babies at the moment) and lots and lots of elephants. I tried not to look at the elephants too much as I will be seeing a lot of them during the course, but I couldn’t help it. There were three youngsters who were just charging around and wrestling with each other. The adult females were all very interested in the visitors who were allowed to feed them, so they were all reaching over the moat for pieces of apple and carrot. The big bull elephant was gorgeous, with nice tusks, but he wasn’t as big as my elephant!
Anyway, see the photos of the zoo – I just can’t explain how wonderful it was.
My camera ran out of photo space just as I got to the aquarium-terrarium which was a huge shame. I have never seen anything like it before – it’s a huge total immersion exhibit, you are in with birds, lemurs and other animals and you follow paths through the different zones. It’s all set to look like villages and natural habitats of the animals. Words just can’t do it justice – will try for photos another day. The last exhibit in the tropical aquarium is a huge aquarium, at least 10 metres high and maybe 30 metres wide with a huge array of species. It’s absolutely spectacular. There are ranks of steps where you can sit and watch. I just sat absorbed by the sharks, rays and other fish – I just lost track of time. This area can be hired in the evenings for corporate meals, functions, weddings etc. Pretty amazing backdrop!
I stayed in the zoo all day until it closed – they let you know to start making your way out by having someone walk round the zoo ringing a bell. I then headed out to try to find the little shop so I could buy some bread and cheese. Unfortunately, no success, I couldn’t find it at all – I walked for quite a while, but nothing.
Went to the hotel in the evening – where the course lectures are based and most of the others are staying. Had a nice evening – met a few of the people from the course and some of the lecturers and elephant staff from Hamburg Zoo.

The old gates to the zoo

Bear Enclosure

Capybara

Bison

Leopard Enclosure

Tigers

Temple in the zoo

One of the beautiful lakes

Orangutan Enclosure

Baby elephant

Most of the female elephants

Bull elephant

View from the top of one of the "mountains"

Marabou Stork at the front of the African Panorama

African Panorama

Before Elephant School - 6/11/09

2009-11-29T10:14:00.000+02:00

I’m going to backdate the last two weeks as I’ve been away and haven’t had any internet access – so, I shall start with Friday 6th November, the day before I travelled to Germany.
I spent Friday making sure everything was ok with the elephant – Steve has been coming to all the training sessions recently so he can train Boy while I go away. I have left him a big pile of instructions and training information, I’m sure they’ll get on together just fine.
On Friday evening we went to the Pivarium – a local restaurant/bar that Steve and I are quite regular at. We went to meet some other expats, through an internet group called the Kyiv First Friday Club. The idea being that on the first Friday of every month, a group of expats meet in a different bar in Kyiv for drinks. Unfortunately there was a bit of a poor turnout, but we met some nice people and had a good evening, and possibly drank a little too much of the delicious beer that the Pivarium brews in-house!
We were also a little bit naughty because of the swine-flu “epidemic” – there are so many people wearing swine flu prevention masks that we have invented a game (which the other expats also invented independently to us) – the game is to sneeze whilst standing as close as possible to the person in the mask. People here are so paranoid about swine flu. I don’t remember seeing anyone in England wearing masks (although maybe they did in London???). There are also a lot of political issues with the swine flu epidemic – all the politicians are blaming each other for not being fully prepared and for not having enough medication and masks for the citizens. I think people are being manipulated into thinking the situation is considerably worse than it actually is and that the flu is more dangerous than it is.

Back in Kyiv

2009-11-23T11:44:00.001+02:00

I haven't had time yet to write up the last two weeks while I have been away at Hamburg. I'll do it as soon as I can. In the meantime, here is a photo of me being harassed for treats by three baby elephants!

Packing My Bags

2009-11-05T15:38:00.005+02:00

Just a quick one before I go away to Germany. I'm off to Hamburg Zoo for two weeks for an intensive elephant management course (Elephant School). I'm very excited as it will really help my training and enrichment programme for Boy. I've been sponsored by various European and American Zoos and also by some Zoo Keeper Associations. I've been amazed by the generosity and helpfulness of the people who have helped arrange this trip for me.

Boy has been working hard this week and is really good at standing still now - Steve will take over the training while I'm away. I think Boy will be a bit naughty for Steve, but I think they will get on together just fine.

The temperatures here are still really cold and we had our first snow on monday - I have included a picture, but you can't see the snow as it was just a few flakes. I'd imagine there will be a lot more snow over the next few weeks.

These are just a few random pictures:

Chopping food for Boy

Training for standing still

More standing still

I don't spend all my time poking elephants with sticks

Boy's trunk tip

жук attacking Steve with laser eyes

Leaves on the Koi Carp Pool

It is snowing very slightly in this picture

If you look very carefully you may be able to see at least one flake of snow

An Elephant Biscuit

Boy playing with a big cardboard tube filled with carrots

жук in pre-attack mode

Chinese Alligator

Common Boas

Swine Flu

2009-11-01T18:12:00.002+02:00

I haven’t really got much to write about from the last two weeks. We’ve been working mostly on paperwork, getting a new education and events programme planned and looking at general staffing issues in the zoo. I’ve been working with the Invertebrate Department to help plan the future of the department – which species they will work with and their scientific research programme development.
Steve has been ignoring the lynx enclosure this week and has left the staff to get on with furnishing and decorating the enclosure themselves. They’ve been doing really well – they arranged a big delivery of soil, lots of rocks and some blue fir trees, which are native to the Carpathian Mountains apparently.
The animals are all settling into their winter accommodation at the moment. They currently just stay inside overnight and have free access during the day so they can go where they feel most comfortable.
It seems that we have mostly bypassed autumn, the leaves have all turned and fallen very quickly and the zoo is carpeted in yellow and red – our cleaning teams just can’t keep up with how fast the leaves fall. Fortunately lots of the keepers are taking advantage of this and bringing leaves into their enclosures as extra bedding and substrates for the animals. Temperatures have dropped faster than the leaves - at the moment they are averaging at about 2°C during the day and much colder at night obviously. The main topic of conversation is “when will it snow”? It’s already been snowing in Moscow and I think it will snow here within the next week.
Last weekend Steve and I had a day out in Kyiv, we went shopping and bought a nice huge pair of boots for me for the winter, some shirts for Steve and I found some long striped sparkly woolly gloves (hurrah!). We were right in the middle of Kyiv at Kheshchatyk and nearly got caught up in a political rally – the Prime Minister was holding a huge gathering and the crowds attending were vast. Fortunately we managed to escape the flow of people and treated ourselves to some nice hot curry at the Himalaya restaurant. Lovely!
On Monday we were invited to a birthday party for one of the zoologists at the zoo. We had a lovely evening, everyone ate and drank too much – it was good. During the evening Steve made a bet with the zoo technician from the herpetology department. Steve bet him that if Steve could name a venomous mammal, the zoo technician would have to run round the zoo in his underpants and boots when it first snows this year. Of course Steve could name one (he could name two actually) so we will have to wait and see if the forfeit is completed!
Following on from all that excitement, this weekend we’ve just stayed in; watching films and reading our books.
We did have a brief panic this week – Swine Flu has officially arrived in Ukraine – mostly in the Western regions at the moment but spreading fast. As part of the precautions, the Government has imposed “quarantine” on the country – it took a while for us to get the details of the quarantine filtered through to us. They are restricting travel within the country, banning mass gatherings and have closed schools, universities and cinemas. Although I have been told that they close schools every year when there is a “normal” flu outbreak. For a while we thought that the travel restrictions would stop people leaving and entering the country, which would be a disaster for us as it is Elephant School next weekend and we have just booked our tickets back to the UK for New Year. However, it all seems to be ok in terms of leaving the country - obviously the authorities don’t mind spreading flu to other countries! We’ve seen a few people wearing face masks but the newspapers have been reporting that pharmacies are running out of medication already - it may just be like that in other regions, it doesn’t seem to be the case in Kyiv. Although we have noticed today that the streets are emptier and there are more and more people wearing masks.
Not much else to say really – the elephant has been working very hard in training and behaves himself very well. The kitten is still enjoying the radiators and is currently chewing a large buzzing fly – yummy!

Zoo Centenary

2009-10-18T13:09:00.005+03:00

It’s been manically busy this week, so much to do and nowhere near enough time. My week hasn’t been helped by a massive migraine necessitating a day off on Thursday. I had been free of migraines for over six months, which is pretty amazing but I guess having another one was inevitable.
Steve has been completing areas of the lynx enclosure this week. The main house is finished and fully furnished for the lynx, the electric fence work is finished apart from one little section where we are still waiting for a few components and the secondary enclosure is ready now. There are still a few bits that Steve wants to do, to make the enclosure look really good, but it’s more or less done now.
As the only part of the lynx enclosure awaiting completion is the main area, it meant that our beautiful Carpathian Lynx Ricki could be moved to her new home. She’ll remain in the house and secondary enclosure until she has become accustomed to her new surroundings, which should coincide nicely with the completion of the main enclosure. We scheduled her move to be done at the same time as her veterinary health check. We needed to ensure that she was in good health for the move and that she will be ready for the male lynx to arrive early next year. The vets gave her an anaesthetic for the health check and then brought her to the new home. Her keepers settled her in with a nice big fluffy bed of straw to keep her warm as she recovered from the anaesthesia.
I’ve had a bit of a strange week with the elephant, he’s been fine, but it’s just been a bit odd.

The week started with one of our elephant keepers coming into the training session and saying “pussy cat” to me over and over again. He doesn’t speak English, and my Russian still isn’t too good. I explained to him that I have a cat and I quite like cats, but that wasn’t it. He wanted me to go with him to the elephant office where he showed me a small pretty cat, which he then tried to give me. He was quite insistent about it, but I politely declined. I think two young cats in our apartment would just be too much!
It was decided this week that Boy would have access into his house at night, not just the shelter as he previously used at night. This meant a rush to get it ready for him and a lot of noise and people in the elephant house, which disturbed and confused him during his training sessions. On a couple of days he was completely disinterested in training, and on another day he trained but collected all his rewards together and didn’t eat them until the end of the session. I think he also missed me on Thursday when I was having a migraine. Steve went to do the training and Boy worked well with him, but he works hardest with me.
A lot of animals have moved house this week as well as the lynx and elephant. The keepers have been really busy getting the winter accommodation ready for the animals as apparently the temperatures will be falling very quickly and very soon. The mongooses, coatis and a lot of birds were moved this week and the primates will be moving as soon as they have new ropes and wood-chip substrates ready for them.
The heating did eventually come on this week, which is really nice, and the cat is appreciating it greatly. I’m not sure it’s really cold enough to necessitate it during the day, but at night it’s lovely.
Kyiv Zoo celebrated its 100th anniversary this week, and we have had all sorts of events to commemorate this centenary. Over the past month we have been inviting children to submit art and photographs of the zoo animals for a competition. I was asked to be on the judging panel for this contest. There were so many pictures and some were absolutely amazing. I decided that my judging wouldn’t be for the best picture but one that showed the child had worked really hard and thought about what they were doing. One of the pictures I voted for really wasn’t good, but the child who drew it had been to the zoo and had copied our distinctive signposts and benches in their picture, and I really liked that. It took ages to get through all the pictures and categories, but was very good fun.
On Saturday we had the official celebrations, overseen by the Mayor of Kyiv and other dignitaries. I have never seen the zoo so full of visitors – everyone wanted to join in our celebrations. There were speeches, loads of activities for the children, gifts for all the major animal sponsors, a charity auction and a great big birthday cake, shared by all our visitors!
All the zoo staff were given a salary bonus, a commemorative book about the zoo and a very limited edition coin as a thank you from the city authorities.
It was an amazing day and at the end of it, Steve and I were told that we have been chosen for awards from the Mayor for our services to conservation and animal welfare in Ukraine. Pretty incredible!

One of the vets with the anesthetised lynx

In the new lynx house

Awake after the anesthetic

Me and an inflatable elephant at the Zoo Birthday

Zoo Birthday Sign

Children's art competition entries

Masha's son and Steve playing with bubbles

Lots of important people

Zoo Birthday Cake

Hose-pipes and trees

2009-10-11T16:36:00.003+03:00

It's mostly been quiet for us this week, but we have had a few intense moments.

On Thursday evening, Steve and I were just leaving the zoo offices and looked out the window to see what Boy (the elephant) was up to. He was reaching out of his enclosure to pick grass to eat, which he does from time to time. As we watched, we realised something wasn't quite right. The elephant had been in a bit of a mischevious mood all day (he'd been stealing sticks from me during our training sessions). We could see him picking up something with his trunk that definitely was not grass or plants. He'd got hold of a hose-pipe. How it got there, we just do not know. As we watched, he pulled the hose-pipe into his enclosure and started swinging it round his head. Steve made a mad dash down the stairs and to the elephant enclosure. I followed and headed for the veterinary centre, which is just next to the elephant house. We all converged on the elephant enclosure just as Boy was trying to taste if the hose pipe was good to eat. Steve and the vets convinced Boy to drop the pipe and not eat it. We lured him to the far side of the enclosure with all his favourite foods and Steve was able to retrieve all the pieces of hose-pipe.

We don't know how the hose-pipe happened to be within reach of Boy, but you have to be so careful around zoo animals. There have been many cases in the past where animals have ingested items that have made them either very sick, or in a few tragic cases has killed them. Sometimes the items are given to the animals by the visitors, or zoo staff occasionally make mistakes. We were so lucky this time, and Boy is fine, but definitely a big lesson for all staff here at the zoo.

After all that excitement, Steve decided that he just needed to get out and do some physical work in the lynx enclosure. We're getting close to completion now and our gorgeous lynx will be moving in soon. The task Steve had in mind involved most of the zoo staff, a fork-lift truck and a huge tree trunk. Steve wanted the tree trunk to be lifted up onto an old tree stump creating a ramp for the lynx to run up and down. With everyone working together, they gradually lifted the trunk in place and it looks amazing! Photos are below.

It's still cold here and the heating rumours turned out to be just rumours. Larissa says that the heating will be on by the 15th of October, but I'm not so sure now. It's actually much colder inside than outside, so working outside is the way forward this week and wearing all my clothes when I'm inside will keep me nice and warm. Steve bought me some amazing huge hand-kintted woolly socks in the market last week - excellent timing!

Massive tree in position

From another angle

It will look amazing with the lynx running up and down the tree

Rhino just getting up after a roll in the mud

Rhino after having turned over to get her other side muddy

Armadillos, Elephant and Olly

2009-10-05T11:47:00.005+03:00

Since Thursday this week, we’ve had a visitor – Steve’s friend Olly has come to stay. As always, it’s really nice to see people here and show them the zoo and the sights of Kyiv. We’ve taken a few days off work so we can get out of the zoo for a while. That said, we’ve still been to a few important zoo meetings, I’ve still been training the elephant and we had a weekend of visitor activities that I’ve had to be involved in as it was my idea.
It was World Animal Day on Sunday, so I planned a series of enrichment workshops for the visitors over the weekend. The idea being that the visitors would bring along some items from our lists, and then work with the keepers and zoologists to transform their items into activities for the animals. The event has been really successful and the zoo staff were amazing.
On Saturday we made enrichment for the coatis, skunks and tigers. The coatis and skunks had cardboard tubes and boxes filled with their favourite foods, and pinecones rolled in honey and seeds. The baby coatis loved it and the visitors were really happy. Igor, our head keeper/zoologist for small mammals has a very good rapport with the visitors and there were so many children able to have a go at making the enrichments. One child wanted to follow Igor round all day and was trying to push his wheel-barrow for him! Masha (zoologist for big cats) did the tiger enrichment. The children all got a box and put scents (perfume and spices) on the boxes so the tigers could use their sense of smell. Masha also gave the tigers a huge pumpkin which they played football with.
On Sunday we started with fruit trees for all the parrots and macaws – children hung pieces of fruit on branches which the keepers then took into the enclosures for the birds. Igor did armadillo enrichment, which was extremely popular with the visitors. I learnt that the Russian word for armadillo is the same word as for Battleship! I then did elephant enrichment which was cardboard boxes again. Each child got a cardboard box; they could write a message for the elephant on the box or draw a picture. We then put an apple or carrot into each box and the keepers took all the gift-boxes to the elephant. It was really busy as the elephant is an extremely popular animal at the zoo. I think the whole weekend went well, we gave lots of press interviews about the zoo, enrichment and world animal day. Very successful and lots of fun!
The temperatures here have suddenly dropped this week; it’s really starting to get cold - I’ve had to stop wearing shorts and put on a jumper. Everyone has said that the weather has been very good this year, and stayed hotter for longer – I think that’s why there has been such a sudden change. It’s very cold at night now but I think that the city will turn on the heating later this week. All the central heating is controlled by the city authorities here. It goes on in October and stays on until about March. In the apartment buildings if one person doesn’t pay their heating bill, the heating for the whole block is switched off until they pay. I’d guess that you really don’t want to be the person who hasn’t paid. Ours will be ok, except there’s no option to turn the temperature up or down, it will just be on the maximum setting all winter! The keepers are starting to get prepared for winter – getting all the indoor accommodation ready for the animals. A lot of our animals will stay in all winter, but this year it will be a little bit different. We have decided that on days when it isn’t a lot below freezing, or isn’t snowing, the animals will be able to have supervised outdoor access to let them get some fresh air and have their indoor areas refreshed e.g. new ropes and substrates for the primates. We’ll have to be very careful how long they go out for, but it will be good for them. The elephant keepers have told me that they want to build snow sculptures for the elephant to play with outside!
Steve and Olly have been out exploring Kyiv this week (getting lost and finding lots of different places to drink some beer!), which has been really good and given me a chance to catch up on emails etc. and just have a bit of time to myself.

One of our lovely baby lions in the sunshine

Olly trying on a hat in Podil market

Steve wearing Olly's new hat

World Animal Day Enrichment Schedule

Igor showing children how to make armadillo enrichment

Making elephant enrichment

Elephant looking for all his boxes

Opening boxes to get his carrots

Olly's present to the elephant

Lots of visitors watching the elephant open the presents they made

Elephant with Olly's present

Lots of elephant presents

Good Boy

2009-09-30T10:57:00.005+03:00

Here are a few pictures of elephant training with our Bull elephant Boy.

He has now learnt that when I ask him to do a "head-target" he will get a reward if he touches his head to the end of the stick. He's very good at it, and only misses a few if he gets distracted by noises outside the enclosure or if the vets come to watch (like most zoo animals, Boy really is not fond of vets).

I've started getting Steve and the Head Keeper of elephants involved now as they will need to be able to train Boy whilst I am away at the German Elephant School in November. Boy is responding well to them and I think they will all work together nicely.

Once everyone can do the Head Targets, we will move onto another behaviour. Boy and I have started working on the next behaviour but it is not ready to pass onto the others yet.

Boy just moving towards a head target

Moving to a target at the end of the training wall

Touching his head to the stick for a reward

Good Elephant

Well done Boy

Steve having a go

Steve rewarding the elephant for being good

Well done Steve

Dancing Bears

2009-09-27T17:41:00.008+03:00

Steve and I have been to the circus again.

I'm not really sure why.

There were some great acrobatic acts and the clowns were very funny.

This time there were a lot more animal acts than last time (I put photos here a few months ago). They had the same lion and tiger act as before, so I haven't put any pictures of that again.This time there were lots of monkey acts, leopards riding horses, the biggest sea lions I have ever seen and bears with muzzles and shackles jumping over dogs.

It's crazy, there are species in circuses that we are trying to conserve and save through zoo work, yet there they are in the circus riding motorbikes and swinging on the trapeze! Unbelievable.

People love it here, they laugh and applaud the whole way through. Having read the UK newspapers online recently, to see an animal circus in the UK (and there are only one or two) you have to fight your way through an army of anti-circus protesters. Here there are none, just people ready to pay to see the spectacle.

People bouncing on rubber tubes

Skipping on rubber tubes

Monkey on a pony

Monkey doing a handstand

Monkey riding a bike

Monkey on a trapeze

A good circus act

A bear jumping over dogs

Skipping bear

A bear far too close to the audience

A bear rolling a tube on his feet, just before taking a swipe at the trainer

Handstand bear

Flying bear

Bear driving motorbike

Young leopard

Leopard on a horse

Two leopards on horses

Leopards on horses

Massive sealion on ball

Climbing sealion

Sealions too close to audience

Sealion on a stick

Sealion on left is the one from the show and is pretty big, the enormous one on the right was not in the show and is bigger than a cow

Copenhagen

2009-09-26T10:32:00.007+03:00

Steve had a lovely trip to Copenhagen, and managed to fit in a bit of touristy time while he was there. The conference was good and he managed to meet up with a lot of friends from UK and European Zoos. I think the chance to speak English with lots of people was also good! Here are some of his photos:

Conference Centre

I am not sure why Steve is holding that man's foot

Steve being super-strong

Super-strong again

Steve being bitten by a snake

Steve at the Little Mermaid statue

Flamingos

A monkey enclosure that looks like the Giant's Causeway

Monkey (can't remember what species)

Roof of Norman Foster Elephant House

Elephant enclosure

A pile of elephants

Elephant enrichment

Big Bull elephant

Lots of lions

Lots of tigers

Aeroflot plane

Smile Please

2009-09-21T08:40:00.002+03:00

The staff and giraffes of Kyiv Zoo

(if you click on the photo, it can be viewed properly)

Quiet Week

2009-09-20T19:18:00.002+03:00

It’s been a very quiet week. Not because there hasn’t been much to do (I have been working very hard) but because Steve and our translator have been away at the EAZA conference, I’ve had no one to talk to. I’ve been trying my primitive Russian skills, but it’s difficult.
I have no photos this week as Steve has the camera with him in Copenhagen and strict instructions to take lots of photos of their elephants. Copenhagen Zoo has a new elephant house and enclosure designed by Norman Foster. Apparently it’s very functional for the elephants and keepers as they were all consulted in depth during the design process and it is also eco-friendly. Designing zoo enclosures and houses is an extremely difficult task. Zoo architects were once described as the most dangerous animal in the zoo (I can’t remember who said this, but it’s true!). On far too many occasions enclosures have been designed with only the architect’s scant knowledge of animal behaviour and capabilities, and no understanding of the needs of the keepers. Making an architectural statement is not necessary in zoos, the animals showing natural behaviour and the conservation interpretation should be what our visitors remember. I don’t mean to underestimate the value of aesthetics, but form should not detract from the animal and functionality of the habitat.
Our elephant at Kyiv has been responding well to his training and this week I made a slight alteration and now train twice a day with him, but for shorter sessions. He still seems happy to see me and works very hard. He has, however, managed to take two training sticks from me this week. The first one he used to scratch his belly with and then crunched up and ate very quickly. When he took the second stick, I quickly grabbed a new one and asked him to move to elsewhere in the training area, he dropped the stick and carried on working with me. I was really pleased with him, as I think it shows just how much he wants to be doing the training. He can leave any time he wants (or eat the sticks) it’s entirely his decision.
This week, I’ve been involved in the planning of some educational events in the zoo, they wanted to do something different, and so I am designing a day of enrichment workshops so our visitors can make gifts for the animals which the keepers will deliver. It will be for World Animal Day. We’ll be giving presents to the elephant, gorilla, chimpanzees, coatis and a few others.
The evenings are getting dark earlier now and it’s beginning to feel like the start of autumn, it’s still hot, but there’s a slight chill in the air and its smelling like autumn. The thunderstorms seem to have started up again; we had a real cracker of one on Thursday night for almost two hours – so loud that the cat hid under the bed!
The cat (apart from being scared of the storm) hasn’t been well this week, which meant a series of trips to the vet for injections, so obviously I am not the cat’s favourite person at the moment, not that she has much choice as Steve is away. The cat now is (as of yesterday) very popular with the vets as she bought them a bottle of cognac to apologise for biting one of them during the week!

Hedgehog, Camels and Conkers

2009-09-13T15:18:00.006+03:00

I don’t really have much to report this week. Steve has been working hard in the lynx enclosure and I have been training the elephant, doing some data analysis and other paperwork.
The elephant training is going very well and he works very hard for his little bits of apple rewards, even when there are a few whole apples in his feeder, he still wants to work for the small pieces. He’s very vocal when I arrive for a session, and if I stop to prepare some more rewards for him he grumbles and blows dust at me until we start again.
The elephant keepers have been very busy with elephant enrichment this week; they seem to have been suddenly inspired to give their animals even more activities. The rhino has been given a hanging tyre which she loves to hit with her horns before her mud bath. The elephant has some chunks of tree trunk and had a huge plastic barrel filled with water which he enjoyed squashing. They have also given him a very long log (it’s the same height as him), he likes to roll it around, pick it up and drop it onto the concrete and wedge it against the bars and kick it. It keeps him extremely busy.
One night this week Steve and I were walking through the zoo and saw a little hedgehog out for a wander. We quite often see hedgehogs as the zoo has a lot of suitable habitat for native species. This little one was taking a walk along the edge of the camel enclosure. Our camels are curious about everything and three lolloped over for a closer look. The hedgehog also decided that he wanted to get a good look at the camels and headed in their direction. The camels were not too impressed by this and ran away, closely pursued by a little tiny hedgehog!
Kyiv has a lot of horse-chestnut (conker) trees – the leaves are one of the symbols of the city. Unfortunately they all seem to have some sort of tree disease, the leaves have died far too early and the conkers are starting to fall. The conkers from these trees are really small compared to the size they should be. Anyway, there are lots of conkers everywhere and no one seems to know how to play conkers with them. We’ve seen a few kids pick them up and throw them at each other or play football with them. We have decided to buy some string and bring the ancient English tradition of conker smashing to Ukraine. It’s ok to play here we think as Heath and Safety regulations seem to be a few years behind the UK and we won’t be forced to play wearing goggles or any other silliness.
Steve is going away tomorrow for a week. He’ll be in Denmark for the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria AGM, which is being hosted by Copenhagen Zoo. He’ll be going with the Director, Deputy Director of Zoology and Larissa the translator, which unfortunately for me means that I won’t be able to speak to anyone for a week!
I will hopefully be able to learn some more Russian as I have to cope on my own for the week. My Russian language skills are currently appalling, as we discovered in a restaurant this week. I tried to ask the waiter for the bill (pronounced “Shot” in Russian) but actually asked him if he had “Spit” – I inadvertently asked him if he had AIDS. They are used to the “strange English people” in that restaurant, but I was still mortified and hugely embarassed and consequently that waiter earned himself a large tip.
I would have gone with Steve to the conference, but they could only send four people and I am going away on business in November to Elephant School, so couldn’t go this time. In preparation for the conference, we have all had new business cards made (I got some too even though I’m not going), and very nice they are too – Russian on one side and English on the other. I’ve put pictures of them on here, but the writing seems to have mysteriously vanished!
Our little cat is doing very well; she and Steve have a new game which they play every night just before bed time. Steve puts on my work gloves and the cat launches herself across the room at him and they have wrestling matches. She is a feisty little beast!

Camel chasing Hedgehog

Steve's card

My card

The Elephant Hotel

2009-09-06T20:57:00.004+03:00

This week Steve has mostly been in the lynx enclosure working on the electric fence. Thanks to all the help he got last week he’s been able to get a lot more done this week and has started putting the wires up. This has all been a lot more complex than you might imagine. Steve, being a bit of a perfectionist, wants all the wires to be as hidden as possible and all absolutely level. This is not easy, as the enclosure is on a slight slope and in the parts where natural tree trunks have been used, they do not line up exactly. So, we did some maths on the back of an envelope, taking into account gradient, the fact that some of the square posts are slightly out of line, bought a lot of string and a spirit-level and after ascending one of the delightful ladders mentioned last week, managed to get the holders for the wire perfectly horizontal.
I’ve been doing a lot of elephant work again this week. Every morning I’ve continued my training programme for him, and its going quite well. He’s getting used to seeing me every day, doing what I ask and getting his rewards. One of the behaviours he needs to learn as part of the overall process is called “targeting”. I have a target stick (long stick made from part of a tree branch) and when asked, Boy needs to come to the stick and touch the appropriate part of his body to the stick and get his reward. This is all very new to him, but is a common technique in non-contact animal training. We’ve started with a head target, I say to him “head” and touch him on the forehead with the stick, and if he lets me do this he gets a reward. He’s getting very tolerant of this, so this week I tried putting the stick up to head height but not touching him, asking for “head” and seeing if he would put his head onto the stick. He’s been able to do that twice so far which is fantastic progress and indicates that he is starting to understand how this all works. However, the third time I asked him to do it, curiosity got the better of him and he reached up with his trunk, stole the stick and ate it. Not a huge problem as it was only a piece of tree branch and he gets to eat branches and leaves regularly, and I also have a good supply of spare sticks as I suspected he might eat some of them! What was makes this all ok is that whilst he was eating the target stick I asked him to come to the other end of the wall to stand; he dropped the stick, came and stood where I wanted him to be and he got his reward. Excellent elephant!
When Steve and I first started working at Kyiv, I did a big study on the elephant, looking at how he spends his day and how he uses the enclosure. The results enabled me to start changes to his management. This week I spent a day doing a follow up study to assess the progress. I haven’t analysed the results yet, I think they will show some positive changes but with room for further improvement.
It’s actually been a bit of an “elephanty” week. On Thursday, Steve and I were asked if we would meet with some Germans after work, take them for a meal and make sure their animals were ok. Of course we agreed to do this as we always like to meet new people when they come to Kyiv, but these were a bit special. They were an animal transport company who were moving some animals as part of an International animal breeding programme and in their care were three young elephants travelling from a zoo in Germany to a zoo in Russia and they all needed an overnight break in Kyiv Zoo where they could clean the transporter, fill up with water and get some fresh food for the elephants. They arrived late in the evening, spent a while parking their mammoth sized elephant transport lorries in the yard and checked their charges, and gave them food and water. We all went for a meal, checked the elephants again and bedded down for the night. Same in the morning, checked, cleaned and fed the elephants and then off out the zoo on their way to Russia. It was a great experience for us, meeting the little elephants and chatting with the transporters. We haven’t met them before, but all know some of the same people so it was really interesting to talk with them.
On Friday we went on a trip to another zoo – Cherkassy, which is about three hours drive outside Kyiv. It was their 30th anniversary and so they were holding an event for colleagues from other zoos, Steve, I and a few others were the official delegation from Kyiv Zoo. Steve and I have met a few people from Cherkassy Zoo before at the last Eastern European Zoo Conference and also when one of them came to visit Kyiv Zoo. So, it was nice to catch up with them again and to see their zoo. We spent some time talking with the zoo director about the changes he had made to the zoo since he became director. Cherkassy is quite a small zoo, located in one of the city parks in Cherkassy. The animal collection is quite small and the zoo feels quite open and un-crowded which is very nice, the general atmosphere is very relaxed. It is themed quite naturally, with open lakes, mature trees, areas of grassland and wooden sculptures. They are just starting a big renovation of the zoo – remodelling old enclosures and completely knocking down others. They are also incorporating a lot of environmental technology as they make the changes, such as solar heated hot water, which apparently works even during the Ukrainian winters. They have recently started an enrichment programme for all the animals in the zoo, apparently inspired by Steve and I, after one of their zoologists spent the day with us at Kyiv when we hung ropes in the primate enclosures. She spent at least two hours feeding Steve with cognac and telling us how amazing we were and that it was all due to us! Very nice, but also quite embarrassing! Overall, we had a lovely day, got a guided tour, met the deputy mayor of Cherkassy, Steve was interviewed on TV, ate far too much at the banquet they laid on for everyone and survived the manic mini-bus drive back home (overtaking on bumpy narrow roads in the dark at high speed with lots of rapid decelerations).
Steve and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary on Thursday. Thank you everyone for the cards, e-cards and greetings, particularly Grandma for present you sent us. We had planned a meal out on Thursday, but had to postpone due to the elephant hotel situation, on Friday we didn’t get back from Cherkassy early enough to go out. We finally managed to go out for a wonderful meal at a Ukrainian restaurant last night and had a great evening.

Nice straight lines in the lynx enclosure

More nice straight lines in the lynx enclosure

Elephant Trucks

One of the elephants

Another elephant

Cherkassy Zoo Entrance

Children's play area

Scorpion Sculpture

Turtle Bench

Tokay Gecko

Donkey

Primate Enclosure

Bird Lake

Map of Cherkassy Zoo

Kyiv Zoo Hippo

I Love this photo!

Scaredy Cats and Grumpy Gorillas

2009-08-29T19:02:00.004+03:00

The weather is still stifling, but now with a hint of coolness in the breeze (yes, there is actually a slight breeze) and the thunderstorms are back, but only at 4am. With the slight change in weather come the mosquitoes AGAIN, we thought we’d seen the last of them this year but the little monsters are back. We’ve been liberally coating ourselves in DEET insect repellent (revolting nose-torturing stuff) before bed, but alas, to no avail, my arms and face are covered with bites and itch so much.
We’ve only had four days of work this week; Monday was a bank holiday for Ukrainian Independence day. So, on Tuesday morning I began training our elephant Boy. Don’t worry, this is purely to enable me to trim his toenails and to help the vets assess his health, I will not be standing on his head in a sparkly bikini, juggling swords whilst he whistles the national anthem (I can’t juggle anyway). Being able to start training is the culmination of many months of discussion, planning and construction work. This week all I wanted to achieve with the elephant is the basis of trust and for him to understand that if he does what I ask, he gets a reward (piece of apple) and if he doesn’t do it, then no reward. Simple really, just like training a very large dog! This week, we mostly did walking up and down the Protection screen and if he stopped and stood in front of me without reaching for a reward, he got a reward. It didn’t take long for him to understand that. On the second day of training just after I arrived at the elephant house, Boy came in to see me whilst I was chopping carrots and apples as food rewards for the session. He stood as close as he could to me, looked me in the eye and started purring! Really, his sound was just like a deep elephant-sized cat purring. I took it to mean “hello” and Don, my internet elephant mentor in America says that the grumbling sound is a greeting and that Boy probably wanted to say hi and for me to start the training session. Boy doesn’t have to take part in the training sessions if he doesn’t want to, he’ll still get all his carrots and apples and there are no punishments, it’s all up to him, and whilst four days is only four days, he seems keen to interact with me.
Also this week I have been observing different sections in the zoo to look at how they work with the animals and how efficiently each department operates. That’s the official work that I have to do, but for me it’s been lovely to be out the office and be with the zoo staff and animals. I’ve only been to one department so far, and will get to more next week. I started with Primates, so monkeys, apes and our lovely Carpathian lynx. I went to have a look at the lynx, I couldn’t see her anywhere in the enclosure so I thought she must be in the house, as I started to head round there she appeared right next to me, having stalked me along the edge of the enclosure without me noticing! Amazing animal. She had a lovely fresh rabbit for lunch which she proudly carried around the enclosure for five minutes before settling down to eat it. I also managed to spend some time with our Silverback gorilla Toni. Silverback gorillas are always difficult when you first meet them, you have to be very careful with them and not behave in a threatening manner i.e. don’t stare at them etc. So, I was sitting on the floor next to his enclosure, looking at him over my shoulder and out of the corner of my eye, whilst making gorilla-ish grunting noises. Toni stomped around a bit, came and looked at me very closely, tried to smell me and went away to eat his dinner. A few minutes later, he returned carrying a piece of browse (small tree branch for eating, chewing and playing with, which Steve and I insisted all primates must have every day), Toni very carefully threaded it through the enclosure mesh near where I was sitting and tried to stab me with the end of it! I politely informed him that I had not intended it to be used as such, but was actually rather proud of his logistical reasoning and tool use.
On Friday I spent some time at the Carnivore department, but not enough time to assess the department, that will have to wait till next week. I was helping with the new lion cubs. The babies, it seems are very scared of people. At their previous zoo, they were not on show to the visitors and only knew a few keepers and their mother. Here, they are starting to settle down but still don’t relax fully when there are people around. We are keeping them inside at the moment because they are still under quarantine, but they can be seen by our visitors and are extremely popular. They only really relax and play a lot when there are very few people around. We need them to be relaxed and happy all the time, but particularly when the keepers are around, as currently feeding and caring for them is quite difficult. So, zoo staff are taking turns to sit in the keeper-service area of the enclosure and talk to the lions through the mesh. So, I took my turn at this too. It’s a very strange feeling being hissed at by four grumpy lion cubs and having to talk to them. I started by talking to them about their living at Kyiv Zoo and the keepers that would look after them, then about the elephant Boy and his training, giraffes and other African animals at the zoo, zoo conservation, I told them that the vets were very nice and not at all scary and after that I just rambled about anything and everything I could think of.
It was the tiger twin’s first birthday this week and to celebrate they had lots and lots of enrichment and many people came to see them and wish them a good day. They were in all of the newspapers as their birthday is on Ukrainian Independence day.
Steve has been mostly up a ladder this week in the lynx enclosure. All his electric fencing supplies arrived and he’s been desperate to get started for some weeks now. Finally there was enough free time to get going. To do the work Steve needed a ladder as the electric parts of the fence will are very high up. He was given an hilarious selection of ladders to choose from; firstly there was a nice light aluminium A-Frame ladder that was just too short, secondly there was a hand-made wooden ladder (that Steve thought would be more appropriate for climbing the walls of medieval castles) that was very wobbly, to the point where during ascent it would sway until it started to find its natural resonance and threatened collapse and lastly another hand-made ladder probably designed by Hagrid (the Giant at Hogwarts School) that was just too heavy to lift! In the end, the “safest” option seemed to be the short aluminium ladder and Steve spent most of the week on top of it, on tip-toes trying to attach the fence components whilst gently swaying and trying not to topple off. Steve managed to get the majority of the fence done in just four days whilst teaching electric fence construction the Director of Zoology (Anatoly) and Tollik (one of the carnivore keepers). He let them use the crazy ladders!
The new kitten is settling in nicely, she’s very affectionate, talkative and purrs a lot, but we have a problem. No sock is safe, it seems she has a sock fetish and is always stealing Steve’s socks, carrying them around the apartment and trying to kill and disembowel them. I think Steve will forever have odd socks now.
It is currently water-melon season in Ukraine, they grow very well here and all the zoo animals are enjoying this refreshing treat, which is fantastic and cheap – less than 20 pence each. However, they seem to have particularly dangerous water-melons here, the street vendors keep them in large sturdy metal cages – see photo below!

Steve testing a ladder

Trying not to wobble

Don't look down

Me and Anatoly

Tollik using the good ladder

Electric Fences

Dangerous Water-melons

Please note that the other melons (Honeydew?) don't seem to be quite as dangerous

My Family and Other Animals

2009-08-23T18:53:00.010+03:00

The big news this week was that Mum and Dad came to visit with David and Ola, my aunt and uncle, which has been just lovely. It’s been a great week; we’ve been to lots of places, eaten in many restaurants and had a fantastic time. We were joined for most of the week by Ola’s cousin Oleg and his wife and son and some of her other cousins from Kharkov – Garrick, Lyuda, their daughter and granddaughter.
I think that we have done every touristy thing that is possible in Kyiv (apart from eating chicken kievs!). Oleg arranged everything for us all week, and all our “new” cousins have been incredibly kind, generous and welcoming.
It was great to be able to show everyone the zoo, Steve and I arranged that everyone could pat the rhino if they wanted.
We have seen probably every church in Kyiv. Mum and Dad have visited a Dacha – Oleg took them to his one.
We’ve all bought tourist souvenirs, Mum and Dad had some space in their suitcase to fill on the way home as they brought almost a full suitcase of supplies for us (mostly marmite). This was all achieved with the aid of our cousins who negotiated prices so we didn’t have to pay rip-off tourist prices!
We’ve drunk a lot of vodka and toasted everything we can think of.
Steve saw his first ever female stag beetle at the folk architecture open air museum.
We’ve heard the Ukrainian Army practicing cannon fire for the Independence Day celebrations, rather too close to the hotel, and seen the Air-Force practicing their fly-past.
We’ve eaten a lot of Ukrainian food, Georgian food and Italian food in some wonderful restaurants with even better conversation.
We’ve listened to traditional music at the open air museum and in a restaurant, and have seen Larissa dancing to the music.
It’s all been excellent fun, but over far too quickly.
In other news:
We have a new baby zebra at the zoo that is about 2 weeks old now. It’s lovely with very long gangly legs and brown stripes – the stripes will darken as it gets older.
Steve and I have decided to adopt a kitten. There is a big problem in Kyiv with stray animals and there are so many kittens near the zoo. For several weeks Steve and I have passed by a particularly friendly black kitten that seems to have no family. We have been bringing her little bits of food and have made friends. I just don’t like the thought of her all on her own trying to survive a Ukrainian winter, so after much thought, we have brought her home. She’s a mad little thing, but very purry (or “murry” if you pronounce it the Ukrainian way). We have decided to call her жук which is Russian for Bug.
The zoo welders have made another fantastic item for the elephant – an automatic drinker from a design I made, so Boy can have fresh clean water whenever he wants it, rather than having to ask the keepers for a drink.
I have discovered this week that my MSc thesis on gorilla nutrition has made it into the Institute of Zoology library in London, so I’m quite pleased with that.
We’ve just seen two of the baby coatis out and about in their enclosure with their mum – gorgeous!
I’m sorry if the photos are in the wrong order, but I’m “borrowing” Mum and Dad’s photos as well as Steve’s.

Dad eating a Bumblebee desert

Larissa having a dance

Ola, Steve and the Rhino

Baby Deer

Przewalski Horses

Everyone

Oleg filming everything

Everyone

Our little cat

A Marten at the zoo

Baby Zebra

A Stag Beetle on a statue

St. Vladimir's Church

Dragon Statue

Musician at the open air museum

Traditional Carpathian House at museum

Steve and Stag Beetle

Dad and Rhino

Corsac Fox

How to confuse an Elephant

2009-08-14T11:12:00.005+03:00

As part of my programme for Boy the Elephant, we have constructed a puzzle-feeder. This is to help keep Boy busy and this enrichment box slows down his feeding, so he can feed throughout the day. When we first put it in he was very confused and couldn't work out how to get the food out of the feeder but soon found the trunk holes which give him access to the food.

Baby Lions

2009-08-12T16:50:00.003+03:00

Here are a few pictures of the baby lions, they are about six months old and arrived from a Russian Zoo a couple of weeks ago. The pictures are from our CCTV system as the lions are a bit shy at the moment. This is their indoor enclosure and hopefully they will be outside soon.

Elephants, Trains and Dolphins

2009-08-11T20:50:00.012+03:00

This week has been so busy that we haven’t had time to stop. We’ve been working extremely hard in the office with paperwork but did manage a relaxing morning making enrichment for our elderly lioness and also for our group of chimpanzees. We worked with the Head Keeper of Cats – Masha to wrap a tree in thick natural fibre rope so our lioness can sharpen her claw without damaging the tree and upsetting our Horticulture Department. We used about 300 metres of rope which Masha wrapped around and around the tree until she got too dizzy! For the chimpanzees, we worked with all the primate keepers to get some fire-hose ropes up for the chimps to swing on.
The main event this week was our inspection from EAZA (The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria). We want to become members of this organisation, but they have very high standards in terms of animal welfare and zoo management. As Kyiv Zoo is in Eastern Europe, we can’t immediately become full members but instead can be “Candidate for Membership”, which means that we have reached a certain standard but will be mentored by EAZA representatives from other zoos to ensure the standards are maintained and developed. After this period we can then apply for full membership.
The Inspection started on Wednesday with the EAZA inspectors (both important zoo directors from other countries, one of whom will be our mentor if we succeed). We spent most of the day walking in the zoo and visiting the departments, looking at the animals and their enclosures, from the visitor perspective and behind the scenes. We managed to get round about half the zoo and had some meetings in the conference room also. They wanted to speak with the zoo keepers and the department heads, asked a lot of questions and gave advice.
In the evening we took them for a meal at a nice hotel and continued the discussions.
Thursday we continued the tour of the departments in the morning, spent some time looking at paperwork and then our Director took the Inspectors to meet the Mayor of Kyiv to discuss the future of the zoo. Steve and I were unable to join them for this meeting, which we would have liked to do as we would like to meet the Mayor. He’s a bit of a character, very fond of wildlife and a great supporter of the zoo – he is the sponsor of our elephant.
Steve went for a meal with the inspectors on Thursday; I was just too tired and went back to the apartment to sleep.
On Friday morning we got up at 4am as we were setting off on a trip to Kharkiv, a large city in the Northeast of Ukraine, to spend some time at the zoo. We were accompanying the EAZA Inspectors. As they had travelled to Ukraine to visit Kyiv Zoo it was a good opportunity for them to visit Kharkiv Zoo, who already have EAZA Candidate for Membership status.
We were driven to the train station and shown where our train was as we were slightly concerned that we would get on the wrong one, but it was actually quite easy and I could read the departures board, which was quite pleasing. One of the inspectors had travelled by Ukrainian trains some years ago and had told us to expect grotty run down packed hot trains, but what we found was quite different. We were booked into first class carriages, which had small 6 seater air-conditioned compartments. The Inspectors wanted to sit in a different compartment to us as they had not had time to discuss our zoo in private, so Steve and I stretched ourselves out in the compartment and waited for the train to leave. Shortly after the train departed, the conductor came round checking tickets. A few minutes later the Inspectors were ushered into our compartment. Apparently on trains in Ukraine, you must sit in your allocated seat even when there are spaces available elsewhere. As the train clunked through the beautiful countryside we all chatted about zoos and sipped our coffee which was brought round to us by the train conductor. The journey took about six hours and as it was the express train, it only stopped twice.
We reached Kharkiv just after midday and were met by Kharkiv Zoo’s translator and the elephant manager. Steve and I had met the elephant manager Oleg at Kyiv earlier in the year.
We were driven to check-in at our hotel and then onto the zoo to meet the Director. We had a pleasant lunch in the zoo’s cafe and then separated so the Inspectors could inspect and Steve and I could look at the zoo.
The zoo has a huge range of animals; lions, tigers, brown bears, polar bear, llama, lots of deer and antelopes, birds, lynx, coati, chimpanzees, lots of monkeys, bison, elephants, hippo and lots more. We spent the whole afternoon wandering round and taking photos. We haven’t been to another zoo since we got here, so it was quite nice to be somewhere different.
In the zoo we found a small amusement area full of really old (still working) arcade slot games. They were pre-computer arcade games, just pop-up figures and cars that raced round tracks.
At about 8pm the inspectors had finished for the day so the zoo director took us all to a restaurant for a meal of Ukrainian foods. Steve was happy as there was a lot of meat! We drank, talked and laughed until late. The restaurant had unusual decor, I think it was all folk/fairy tales – there was a strange cat, monsters, a three headed dragon (Hydra?) and a house on chicken legs that you could eat in, I think it is Baba Yaga’s cottage.
The Zoo Director told us the story of a statue of monkeys we saw in the zoo. During the Great Patriotic War there was not enough food for the animals, so some citizens of Kharkiv took the monkeys into their homes and looked after them and fed them. The statue is a tribute to these people who cared so much during great hardships.
Kharkiv is very different to Kyiv. It looks similar, but feels different. Kharkiv is much more Russian/Soviet than Kyiv. In Kharkiv we saw many statues of Lenin as we drove between the hotel and zoo, but in Kyiv there are only a few and they are being vandalized. We spoke with the translator and elephant keeper and they said that people there mainly speak Russian and only a very few can speak Ukrainian whereas in Kyiv, Ukrainian is the main language and everyone is bilingual.
We were back in the zoo early the next day, desperately wishing we had packed jumpers. The weather in Kyiv was scorching when we left, but in Kharkiv there was a chill in the air – much cooler.
It’s nice (as a zoo geek) to spend two days at a zoo as on the second day you can see things that you missed the first time round and also revisit particular animals. One of the highlights of the day was watching an Asian Leopard Cat stalking a sparrow in its enclosure. The sparrow got away. We also were able to spend some time talking about elephants with Oleg the elephant manager, a new useful contact.
In the evening we were invited as guests to the new dolphinarium next to the zoo for a tour of the facility and to watch the show. There were sea-lions balancing balls on their noses, dancing and jumping around, some amazing acrobats and fire-spinners (not kittens this time) and dolphins jumping through hoops, carrying the trainer around the pool and balancing balls on their noses, all accompanied by very loud music and laser shows. The dolphinarium was open air and as the show started at 9pm we were absolutely freezing.
We eventually got back to our hotel, laden with bags of books given as gifts from the zoo director – all written and published by staff at the zoo, a very generous present.
It was another very early start as we all had to get the train back to Kyiv. We had already learnt that we must all sit in our allocated seats for the journey, but this time we had company. The other two seats in our compartment had passengers allocated to them, even though there were empty compartments in the carriage. We all squeezed in and tried to sleep.
Back in Kyiv we were met by our zoo director who whisked the inspectors off for a sightseeing tour of Kyiv. Steve and I bartered with a taxi driver and eventually got him to knock 80% of the original fare off to get back to the zoo. It was an interesting journey back in a battered Lada with no seat-belts and the driver naming all the English football players that he could remember as he swerved round the corners!
Monday was the last day of our zoo inspection, as tired as we were, Steve, I and other members of zoo management were out in the zoo all day with the inspectors. We finished the day with another traditional Ukrainian meal at a restaurant near the zoo.
Today, we finally had a day off, relaxing and walking in our zoo and only doing a small amount of work!

Lions having a cuddle

Leopards

Asiatic Black Bear (Moon Bear)

Polar Bear

Mongoose in a tree

Hippo House

Female Elephant Playing

Statue of Monkeys

Old Arcade Ride

Old Arcade Games

Zoo Map

Bird Lake

Strange Cat at Restaurant

Baba Yaga's house

Coypu

Steve being attacked by a 6 legged spider

Markhor

Main Entrance

Beautiful Carpathian Lynx

Siberian Ibex

Bactrian Camel

Sleepy Black Jaguar

Scary Dolphin outside Dolphinarium

Dolphins

Sea-lion

Fire-spinners

If you look very carefully there are flying dolphins

Dolphins

Vodka, vodka, vodka and vodka

2009-08-02T15:39:00.003+03:00

I am slightly disturbed by the contents of our freezer.

Don't worry, its not all mine. Some of it belongs to Steve.

People keep buying us vodka, so we now have a freezerful. I think we may have to start giving it away as it will be just impossible to get though it all.

We also have four huge jars of home-made honey from different regions of Ukraine. Whenever anyone goes to their Dacha or to visit friends or family, they bring back honey for us. It's delicious and each honey tastes different, depending on where it is from.

If anyone wants to assist us with this honey and vodka situation, please form an orderly queue!

Four Lions and a Wedding

2009-08-02T10:43:00.000+03:00

The big news this week is the arrival of four young lions to Kyiv Zoo. They are about six months old at the moment and there are three females and one male. We have only seen them on CCTV so far as they are being left alone, apart from cleaning and feeding until they settle in. They have come from Kaliningrad, a big zoo in Russia, and are actually really important for Kyiv Zoo. Until this week we only had an elderly lioness. Historically there has always been a pride of lions at Kyiv Zoo and a lion is the logo of the zoo, without them the zoo seems to have been missing something. So the arrival of these lions is really special. As a responsible zoo, we will not be breeding these lions, they are all from the same litter and there are too many African Lions in zoos. It’s very exciting for everyone to have them here and I’ll get photos once they have settled in properly.
I have had the zoo welders working hard for me over the past few weeks. They have been building a “Protected Contact” (PC) Screen” for me to use when I start training the elephant for his pedicures and health checks. The PC Screen will allow me to get close to the elephant to train him in a safe way for me and the elephant keepers. Eventually, we will be able to open the little doors in the screen for the elephant to put his feet through so we can make sure his toenails are nicely trimmed. I had some great help from zoos in America, Canada, England, France and Ireland to design the screen, and I’m really pleased with the results.
All the zoo staff have been working really hard over the past few weeks in preparation for our inspection next week. They have a lot of pride in their work and their efforts really show. We wanted a lot of the enclosures to have fresh woodchips substrates, so the industrial wood-chipper and the gardening department have been working overtime to make sure enough was prepared. Just as they sent out their final truck-load the machine decided it had had enough and broke down! Our mechanics will get it fixed in a few days, but I’m so relieved that all the chipping was done before the break-down.
Another break-down that is frustrating me at the moment is my watch. It’s so frustrating not having one. I’d buy a new one, but all we can find so far are cheap crummy ones that will fall apart in a few hours, or super-expensive solid gold type watches. I just can’t seem to find a reasonable water-proof watch. Never mind, watch hunting again next weekend. I’ll just pester Steve for time checks every five minutes!
Saturday was Armadillo day at the zoo. There were armadillo related activities for children, actors in armadillo costumes, educational talks, plasticine modelling, face painting and lots of armadillo enrichment. Such great little animals! Our “animal days” are really popular and there are a lot more visitors at these events. One activity that children like here is being given chalk to draw with on the floor. I’ve included a photo of someone’s picture of an armadillo.
Saturday was also Galina and Denis’s wedding. They had the ceremony in the morning at the registry office and then came to the zoo with all their guests for refreshments and photographs. In Kyiv after a wedding ceremony the bride and groom usually have their photograph taken in front of monuments, statues and the historic buildings in Kyiv. Also, throughout the wedding day, the bridesmaids and the best man all wear special ribbon sashes with their names painted on them. As Galina is the zoo’s PR manager she thought she would like her wedding photos in front of the zoo animals. We hope that other brides may consider doing the same in the future. Galina and Denis apparently arrived at the zoo on a big black Harley Davidson bike. We met them by the elephant enclosure for photos, champagne and a wander round the zoo for more photos. Galina looked absolutely beautiful.

Boy eating some branches

Foot doors in PC Screen from Keeper Side

Door hooked open on keeper side

PC Screen with open doors from elephant side

Armadillo Drawing

Galina and Denis

Galina and her mother

Galina, Denis and family

Sleepy Camel

Baby Sika Deer

Baby Przewalski Horse

Genghis Express

2009-07-26T22:00:00.009+03:00

The weather this week has continued to be almost unbearable. We borrow the office fan at night as sleep is impossible without it. It mostly blows hot air around the room but also has the added function of propelling mosquitoes at us all night!
We have been in the office a lot this week, lots of last minute preparations for our inspection – just making sure that everything is in order and that there is plenty of wood-chip for the enclosures.
The Scientific and Technical Council of Kyiv Zoo had a meeting on Monday night. Steve and I were unanimously voted onto the council for the duration that we are at Kyiv Zoo. There was an added motion that we could remain on the council after we leave the zoo if they can all come and have the council meetings with us in the UK!
We managed a brief escape from the office to do some enrichment with the coatis. Last week Steve made a hanging basket feeder for them so we took it to their enclosure. The coatis seemed quite happy with it.
All week (when the internet has been working) we’ve been following the progress of our friend Pete Wearden and his Mongol Rally teams – The Baatar Boys (Pete and Edd) and Genghis Express (Ian and Tom).

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jspglId=06R5XAyZoNr2IzNuE6iQCzxovl1FI0Pxo

They were due to arrive with us on Wednesday. However, as we could see from their website, they spent several hours driving in circles in the Czech Republic. They got to us on Thursday evening and we went straight out for a meal to find out about their adventure so far. It sounds like such an amazing experience. Driving unsuitable vehicles across all terrains from London to Mongolia in less than six weeks!
This is their website address and there are links to donate to their charities if you feel so inclined.

http://mongolrally09.theadventurists.com/index.phpmode=teamwebsites&name=thegenghisexpress
http://mongolrally09.theadventurists.com/thebaatarboys

We drank many beers, listened to a band and all relaxed. Sometimes Steve and I find being in Ukraine a bit surreal (it was never part of our long-term plan, just a great and interesting opportunity), but having the boys here with us was even more surreal than ever before. We arranged for them to be able to stay overnight in the zoo, so we all walked back through the zoo and stopped by the elephant and hippo enclosures for some talking. It was lovely to see the elephant having a sleep in the sand of the outdoor enclosure and snoring loudly.
The next day we took them all around the zoo and behind the scenes to meet some of the animals. Edd and Tom were particularly taken with our tiger cubs and Pete and Ian enjoyed meeting our baby skunks. We had a brief meeting with the zoo Director and took some photos with the rally cars. The zoo mechanics gave the cars a check over to make sure everything was ok and fixed some minor problems. Steve and the boys went to the Great Patriotic War Museum (that we visited a few weeks ago) to look at tanks and aeroplanes. We then packed up the cars, examined the route maps and sent the boys on their way to Russia. We made little travel bags for each car with some useful bits and pieces to keep them going; mosquito repellent coils (an essential at the moment), vodka, sunflower seeds, lots of sweets, dried fish, beer, strawberry scented toilet roll and various other bits and pieces.
Over the weekend we’ve had no internet access which has been a pain and the weather has been just too hot to do anything.
A new initiative at the zoo most weekends is to have displays of house plants for sale in the shop. A few weeks ago it was African Violets and this weekend was cactuses, so I have bought a little cactus garden to sit on my desk.

Steve hanging the Coati feeding basket

Masha putting food out for the Coatis

Beers with the Mongol Rallyers

Car Maintenance

Pete meeting a Skunk

Ian, Tom, Pete and Edd with Skunks

Meeting a Tiger

Relaxed Bear

Carpathian Lynx

Cars, Zoo Director, Maintenance Staff and All of Us

The Boys and the Cars

At the War Museum

Checking the maps, heading to Russia

TV Stars!

2009-07-19T19:36:00.003+03:00

Wednesday this week was spent giving more TV interviews about animal enrichment. I think we did about 10 TV channels and a few radio ones as well. The TV interviews were scheduled for broadcasting to about 80 different countries. Steve seems to give very good TV interviews where I do better at the radio ones; it works out very well between us.
On Thursday we did a mock inspection of the whole zoo in the sweltering heat. It is in preparation for an inspection to join EAZA – the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria; we have to prove that we maintain excellent standards in terms of animal management and welfare. It went pretty well, we took a check-list round to ensure we covered all the aspects they will be looking at. We found a few areas for improvement, but nothing insurmountable.
We have a new baby at the zoo – a Prezwalski foal (no photos yet) who is doing very well and the whole herd of horses are all looking after it. This is great news for our captive breeding programme as Prezwalski horses are an extremely endangered species.
This week we found an artist in the zoo creating a sculpture of a Great Bustard, the sculpture looks amazing so far and will be even better when he gets it cast in metal.
Friday was spent meeting Heads of Departments to discuss what they needed to do in preparation for the official inspection so they plenty of notice to get everything ready. It should have been our night for going to the Canadian Embassy but we had a meeting in the evening. Steve was asked by a Ukrainian TV channel to give a half hour live interview and phone-in Q&A session, so off we went to a TV studio in the centre of Kyiv. It all went very well and Steve gave good answers to all the questions and was able to discuss all the points we planned.
It’s just too hot at the moment to do anything apart from sit in front of the fan and drink icy cold water. I’m desperate for a thunderstorm to cool everything down.
On Saturday we recovered from all the TV publicity this week and running round the zoo. We stayed in the flat to catch up on emails etc. In the afternoon, Masha and her little boy came round to see us. Whilst they were here, Masha cut my hair as it was getting far too long. I think I have said before that most of the staff here have second jobs as the wages are so low, and Masha’s second job is as a hairdresser.
Today we have just popped to the local shops for some supplies and I bought a lovely pair of shiny flip-flops as my current ones are a bit worn out. Steve is busy making some designs to modify the zebra enclosure and is currently banished from the flat as he is cutting up bits of wire mesh to make a feeder for the coatis – little bits of wire pinging everywhere!
This week we are expecting some guests from the UK. Our friend Pete Wearden, who we know through zoo work, and three of his friends are taking part in the Mongol Rally. This is a charity car endurance challenge driving from the UK to Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia. They are going to stop here at Kyiv Zoo for an overnight break at some point this week. They have two cars in the Rally – Baatar Boys and Ghengis Express. We’ve been following their progress online and expect them here probably on Wednesday.

Artist with Bustard Sculpture

Steve getting Make-Up for Live TV

Larissa, Steve and TV Presenter

Digging and Durrell

2009-07-14T21:07:00.004+03:00

I can’t believe it’s only Tuesday – we’ve been really busy already this week.
Monday started with an attempt to take a group photo of everyone who works at the zoo, not an easy task with a few hundred staff, particularly when you also want the giraffes to pose at the same time!
A member of the management from Minsk Zoo, Belarus, is here at the moment and Steve has been advising him on electric fences for primates. They are desperate for Steve to go there to help, even offering to pay for Steve to go back with them tomorrow to get their fences done. It’s actually a very interesting proposition, but we just can’t go at the moment – too much to do here. They even bought him a very expensive bottle of Vodka, but it just isn’t possible.
Whilst I’m on the subject of Vodka, I was amazed by a kids TV programme I watched at lunchtime on Monday. It starred a few clowns who had been fishing and were waiting for Mrs. Clown to cook the fish. Whilst they were waiting for their dinner they started drinking vodka and eventually all got so drunk that they fell over and went to sleep before their food was ready.
Construction staff here seem to have incredible hole digging skills, you saw my clumsy attempts a month ago in the lynx enclosure – the ground here is very hard to dig, the soil is so sandy it just crumbles away. These staff are able to dig the most incredible holes. For fence posts they can dig holes 5 foot deep and a foot in diameter by hand, and the holes are just perfect. In just one day this week they have dug a hole about 12 foot deep and 5 diameter for a drainage system. See photos.
We had a huge long meeting on Monday night with all the Heads of animal departments to discuss and decide on various new management systems and protocols. It was really embarrassing as Igor, head of small carnivores, gave a presentation on husbandry routine protocols and used pictures of me and Steve posing in the coati enclosure (after we had finished building it) as the background for his PowerPoint slides.
Today, to complement the new enrichment committee and programmes the zoo issued a press statement asking for people to donate various items for the animals. They asked Steve and me to be interviewed for the news. It’s just typical – I always have unexpected press interviews on days that I can’t be bothered to wear make-up and make my hair nice! Anyway, it went very well. They interviewed Steve, me and Masha and then filmed some tiger enrichment. I hope that people will respond to this and bring items for our animals.
Steve and I are trying to implement new concepts and procedures into the animal management systems here. It’s quite encouraging that when we discuss something e.g. enclosure design (design first for the animals, second for the keepers, third for the visitors and last for the management) that the zoo staff say to us “yes, we understand, we read about this in Gerald Durrell books”. Generally if we can link something back to a Durrell book it will be accepted and implemented by the staff. I think sometimes in many zoos staff forget just how much we owe to Gerald Durrell in terms of animal management and much of his work is the foundation of much of the zoo based conservation in practice today.

Big Hole

Big Hole again

Big Hole with Drainage Tank

I was just given this photo of Steve and Larissa (our translator)
I thought you'd like to see it !

Monkeys

2009-07-12T21:39:00.003+03:00

The absolute highlight of this week was getting into the primate enclosures to thoroughly audit the ape and monkey collection and to start getting new ropes into the enclosures for climbing. The Kyiv Fire Department donated a huge pile of fire-hoses to us and we decided that the primates were most in need of some new climbing structures. Enrichment and ropes is a concept that has been somewhat lacking in the Primate Department, but as there is now a new Head of Primates – Valentina, she is desperate to get things changed to benefit the animals. We spent a day in the department helping them to get two enclosures modified. Lots of people were there to help and learn, including the Curator from another Ukrainian Zoo who is also very interested in bringing her zoo up to Western European standards and wants us to visit and advise them on some changes. From the work we did in the two enclosures, the primate staff will now do the other enclosures on their own. Also, as soon as we can get drain covers in the enclosures we’ll start putting down natural substrates which will help the monkeys to forage for their food and will be really good for the babies to play in.
I’ve had a few weeks off from mosquito attacks, which has been very pleasant but this week I’ve been targeted again. We have insect screens on all the windows in the apartment but the little buggers are getting in somehow. Being bitten on the elbow is particularly annoying and I’m sitting here scratching as I type.
The lynx enclosure is developing well and there has been lots of progress this week. The fence mesh is going up and the overhangs are being prepared for Steve’s electric fence. The floor of the house has been put in and the drainage system has been installed. Apart from a few little problems, it’s actually being built very quickly which is great considering the Maintenance/Construction Departments have never built an enclosure like this one. We’re really pleased with it so far.
The weather here continues to be hot and sunny, but humid with storms in the evenings. I guess I’m actually surprised by how hot it is here; maybe I thought it would be like summer in the UK. If I moan about being too hot now, please remind me when I’m complaining about how cold it is in winter!
We have set up several working groups in the zoo over the past few weeks. These consist of department heads, zoo vets and other managers. The idea is to work together on new policies, working practices and problems within the zoo. This system allows ownership and investment into the plans from the staff that will have to carry out the decisions made by the groups. I think this will be a successful programme as people are more likely to do the work if they have made decisions in the planning stage and developed the system to suit their department.
On Saturday we took a course about living and working in Ukraine. It was run through a company called the British Business Club in Ukraine. We found out about the course through an expat website, and that it was free for users of that site, it normally costs about 200 Euro. It was a full day course at the company’s offices in the centre of Kyiv. The course covered a huge range of topics including; history, economics, politics, culture, religion, customs, business values, corruption and bribes, workplace attitudes, management and working styles and business communication and negotiation.
The course was really interesting; we learnt a lot of new things but also had a lot of confirmation of how we are finding the working practices, particularly the negotiations we make in meetings and how different levels of staff relate to each other. I recommend this course to anyone working in Ukraine; it will help a great deal.
Today we took a trip on the Metro to Petrivka market. It’s a huge market relatively near the zoo, but to get there you need to take the metro into the centre of Kyiv and out again on a different line. The market seems to be in three sections; household items, books and fake designer clothes/handbags. We had a good wander around in the sweltering heat before giving up and coming back home – just too hot today! The book section is huge and we have been told that it is the best place to get English books. I didn’t see any apart from English dictionaries. Perhaps we’ll go again on a less hot day so we can explore more thoroughly.

A Golden Bellied Mangabey

Putting up ropes

Steve climbing on the roof to put up ropes

Overhang at Lynx Enclosure

Lynx House floor

Lynx enclosure developing nicely

Kittens and Tanks

2009-07-06T20:59:00.009+03:00

This week at work has been quite slow, mostly office based and lots of long meetings. It’s been very tiring but successful. We have been working with the Primate department very closely. We will now formalize and document their enrichment programme and start some work on enclosure renovation. We had meetings to finalize some permanent enrichment for the elephant – the welders seem to think that we have the world’s strongest elephant and that he will break anything that they make. We’ve now told the welders to make the enrichments, but if they think they have welded it strong enough, they must make it even stronger. And, if the elephant breaks anything, they can make it again – animals always break things.
At the zoo is an industrial sized wood-chipper, mostly used to reduce the space taken up by fallen branches and left over browse from the animals. Until now it hasn’t been used very much but we have changed all that. It now runs almost all day and is slowly chewing up the huge piles of branches that clutter up the keeper areas behind our enclosures. We have decided that where possible and practical we will give piles of woodchips to the animals and cover enclosure floors in woodchip. So far, it’s going very well. The animals seem to be enjoying it – rolling around in the chips and searching for food in them. We had a lot of tree surgery in the zoo this week, so all the animals are benefitting from extra branches to eat and play with. I can't get the pictures to upload.
We have finally completed the immense and ever changing list of requirements needed to get temporary residency here in Ukraine. We already had work permits and a one year visa before we arrived, but since then we have had to register in probably every government department in Kyiv. This will allow us to stay for the duration of our visa (tourists are only allowed to stay three months in Ukraine) and to leave and enter the country as and when we please. It has been an absolute nightmare getting all the documentation ready and probably worse for Larissa who has done the bulk of the preparation work. The last requirement on our list was blood testing, which we left till last as we didn’t really want to do it as it would mean a return trip to the dreaded poly-clinic. In addition to my recently discovered fear of Ukrainian poly-clinics, I also have an incredibly strong aversion to needles. So, we finally gritted our teeth and made our way to the poly-clinic. Fortunately for us we were able to see a doctor who made the whole process entirely pain free. Two days later, armed with all the paperwork, Larissa made her way to the government offices and made the full registrations for us.
On Saturday we went to Kyiv’s pet animal market and Lice Market (Larissa meant Flea Market, but her translation just didn’t quite work out!). The market is pretty big and consists mainly of stalls selling cats, dogs, fish, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice and a few other animals. There were peacocks, ornamental pheasants, tortoises and spiders. Most of the cats and dogs for sale are pedigree – tiny dogs are very popular here, as are cats with flat faces. Not to my taste really, I prefer “moggy” real cats. There were also quite a lot of hairless cats and dogs. Some stalls also had furs for sale – mink, fox, wild boar and even badger. I’m quite pleased with my willpower in not bringing all the kittens home with me.
On Sunday we met with some zoo volunteers who had offered to take us to a museum and do some sightseeing in Kyiv. Ruslan, who has trained as a diplomat (but now wants to be a psychologist), and his girlfriend Alexandra. They are both helping out in the bird department over the summer. We travelled by metro to the station nearest the museum and walked from there. We stopped at various points of interest to look at the view over Kyiv and see various monuments to people who died in the Great Patriotic War (WW2) and the famine in 1932-33. We also went past the Larva Monastery which is a UNESCO world heritage site, which we will visit on another weekend.
The museum we visited is the Museum of the Great Patriotic War – Steve is very interested in WW2 history, but from the Soviet perspective so he’s been desperate to visit since we’ve been here. The museum is about the German invasion, the Nazi occupation and the course of the war for the Ukrainians. Much of the museum is outdoors with tanks, aeroplanes and other military vehicles. There are also a lot of sculptures depicting key moments in the war. The museum is full of artefacts and personal items from key people who were involved. The gloves made from human skin and soap from human fat were particularly disturbing. Also in the grounds of the museum is the statue “Defender of the Motherland” a 62 metre high memorial to those who died and the heroes. She is very impressive, but has very scary eyes.
After the museum we all took a very very long walk across Kyiv, stopping at various other sites. The “People’s Friendship Arch” dedicated to cooperation between Russia and Ukraine. We also walked past the Dynamo Kyiv Football Stadium and across the “Lover’s Bridge”. It is traditional at this bridge for lovers to bring a padlock (engraved with their initials) to attach to the bridge as a sign of their love. It was such a popular thing to do that recently the weight of all the locks made the bridge unstable and they had to be removed. People have still continued bringing their locks to the bridge, so I guess it will become wobbly again soon.

Fish

Pheasants and other birds

Peacock

Badger Skin

Lots of birds

Tortoises

Kittens

Memorial to the Unknown Soldier

Memorials to victims of the Famine

Entrance to Lavra

Tanks

More Tanks

Even more Tanks

Aeroplanes

Baby Tank (Tanketka)

Defender of the Motherland

Pretty Tanks

Pictures of some of the people affected by the war

Ceiling of Museum

Sculpture outside museum

Love Bridge

People's Arch

Strange Cat-thing on a tree

Pumas, Anteaters and Wolves

2009-06-30T21:51:00.009+03:00

Friday night this week was Canadian Embassy night, so we spent a great evening there drinking mojitos and eating pizza. We mostly chatted with Americans some of whom came on our zoo tour a few weeks ago. We discussed that our work at the zoo is actually very similar to some of the work carried out by staff at the embassy, particularly where they are advising on business and banking. They encounter the same problems, bureaucracy and the same slow speed of change (and Ukrainian insatiable need to stamp everything with their special official stamps). During the evening there was another torrential thunderstorm and we all had to hide under the beer tent and patio-umbrellas. These seem to happen quite regularly at the moment, as the weather is so hot and humid. They generally follow the same pattern. The heat increases steadily throughout the day along with high humidity – it’s quite unbearable. Suddenly the sky will turn black and an immensely powerful wind will sweep in – so strong that it pulls leaves and branches off the trees. This is quickly followed by the sky unloading so much rain that the pavements and roads turn to rivers. All accompanied by spectacular lightening strikes and overhead thunder that makes the ground shake!
We decided to have a relatively quiet weekend, as it was another bank holiday on Monday. This time it was for Constitution Day. It was actually a bit strange, normally on the other bank holidays the streets are busy in Kyiv around the zoo, lots of street vendors and lots of traffic but it was very quiet this weekend. The zoo was still busy of course, but I’m not sure where everyone else was.
We spent Saturday and Sunday in the zoo, resting in our apartment and wandering around to see the animals.
We popped into the red river hog enclosure so Steve could measure up for some work he needs to do in there, and were happy to see that the construction department have completed the stalls in the house and the doors for the pigs to use.
The lynx enclosure is also coming along nicely, the mesh is starting to go up and the foundations for the house are going down. Over the weekend, the zoo held a public awareness/education campaign and fundraiser for our Carpathian Lynx. This is such an important thing for zoos to do, particularly when we can focus on native species.
Monday, which was bank holiday, we decided to be active and went on another adventure in the sweltering heat (when we got home at 7pm it was 34⁰C, and it had cooled down a lot). We decided to head for the “artists” area of Kyiv called Podil and we would walk up St Andrivsky’s Descent – a steep cobbled street with art and antique stalls. It didn’t take too long to get there by metro and we even managed our first ever change of metro line without too much trouble.
It’s only a short walk from the metro to where we wanted to be, but we got side-tracked with some statues, a very strange front-door and a church that Steve wanted to photograph. We also stopped at an Irish themed pub as Steve fancied a pint of Guiness. I think we have discovered the World's only Irish pub without Guiness, Murphys or Jameson Irish Whiskey!
The market has all sorts of things for sale; old clocks, general antiques, soviet memorabilia (both real and mass produced), jewellery, old books (including the first English book I have seen since being here – a Spike Milligan autobiography!), traditional clothing, handmade clothes and hats, lots of tourist items (Matryoshka dolls, Ukrainian painted wooden eggs, novelty t-shirts, fur hats, vodka glasses etc) and lots of artwork. Some of the paintings were excellent, some were painted well and some were just awful. I did particularly like a modern painting of two zebra, but for us buying art is impractical here under the circumstances. Steve and I were very restrained with our purchases, we bought four old enamel pin badges from zoos – we got Kyiv Zoo (obviously), Moscow, Leningrad and Askanya Nova.
About half way up the street, near St Andrivsky’s Church we saw a zebra skin hanging on the wall. On further inspection we found a stall nearby selling mostly sea shells, but also for sale were a wolf skin, a stuffed turtle, crocodile paws, a puma skin, an anteater skin, a kangaroo skin, a dried shark, horns from various hoof-stock and all sorts of other animal parts – unbelievable! I don’t know a huge amount yet about the animal legislation in Ukraine, but if it’s anything like the zoo legislation here then there will be no laws relating to the selling of wildlife! We saw quite a lot of fox pelts on some of the other stalls, and of course, the fur hats for the tourists.
After we had finished exploring the market we headed to Voldomyrska Hirka Park for a walk in the shade, some cool drinks and to look out across the Dnipro River. The park is at the top end of St Andrivsky’s Descent, and to get back down to a metro station we took the Funicular, the building for which is as beautiful as the metro stations. The funicular cost 1.5 gryvnas, approximately 13 pence (the metro is about 16 pence) so, whilst ludicrously cheap it is actually very poor value for money as it only goes a few 100 metres where you can travel as far as you like on the metro on one ticket!
Steve and I have taken up a Ukrainian National past-time. We are now avid sunflower seed eaters. Everywhere you go there are people selling and eating sunflower seeds. They come in their shells and you crack them open between your teeth giving a nice satisfying pop, although Steve hasn't quite mastered the technique yet judging by the amount of shell fragments all over the floor. It’s quite a slow process to eat them, but very tasty.
I am pleased to inform you that I am now able to exact my revenge on the nasty mosquitoes thanks to a large bottle of industrial strength DEET insect repellent, sent by post from Mum and Dad.

Mosquitoes – You have been warned !

Red River Hog Stalls inside House

Red River Hog Slide Door

Lynx Enclosure Mesh

Lynx Foundations Ready for Concrete

Information about Lynx

Lynx Fundraising

Strange Fountain in Podil

Some Buildings in Podil

Big Statue in Podil

Church Near Podil

Bizarre Front Door

St. Andrivsky's Church from Podil

Zebra Skin in Market

Wolf, Anteater, Puma, Snake, Kangaroo, Turtle and Shark

Fox Pelts

St. Andrivsky's Church (after going up the hill)

Funicular Track

Funicular "Station"

Stink Bomb

2009-06-25T19:49:00.004+03:00

Over the weekend the zoo had VIP guests – the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushenko and his family. He spent a whole day in the zoo having a tour with the Zoo Director. He is apparently very pleased with the progress of the zoo and the plans to modernize. He particularly enjoyed meeting the rhinoceros. I think his visit has really spurred on the Zoo Director with our redevelopment programme.
On Monday we had a huge meeting with the Zoo Director and all the heads of departments. There are new plans underway to split the departments into smaller sections, which will allow for each section head to work closely with the keepers and the animals on their section. This will also facilitate better husbandry and enrichment which is a great development for the zoo. We then are able to define where specific skills lie and focus our conservation efforts in suitable directions. Along with this, we will start to “thin-out” the animal collection by sending animals to other zoos, giving space for more intensive management of our conservation and education based species. This is a really good decision for the future of the zoo.
Over the weekend when we were at Larissa’s dacha, I was attacked by an angry mob of mosquitoes and other nasty bitey bugs. On Monday I counted at least 47 itchy bites on my legs, most of which were having allergic reactions and making my ankles and feet swell. My current tactic, as this is a recurring problem with the local wildlife, is to take lots of anti-histamines which usually does the trick. This week I had run out of anti-histamines and needed to get some more. We have found a small pharmacy at the metro station and went there to try to buy the tablets. They sold me a small packet of Claritin for approximately £5.00. On our way back to the zoo that evening we saw a different pharmacist and thought it would be wise to have a second pack of anti-histamines. We bought a generic pack and it only cost 60p. I’m amazed at the difference in cost for what is the same tablet, but in different packaging. Anyway, the insect bites are slowing subsiding, almost to the point where I can put shoes on again!
This week the baby skunks had a much needed meeting with the vets. They had little operations to have their scent glands removed. This is good news for the visitors as up till now, the area around the skunk enclosure has been a no-go zone. The babies can’t control their glands and are like little stink-bombs that go off randomly! They are still quite smelly, but nowhere near as bad.
It’s super hot here again this week, by 9am it’s almost unbearable. We are still having trouble sleeping at night because the flat gets so hot. Someone brought a fan into the office this week, which is just lovely, so we have taken to borrowing it at night now to cool the apartment down. Hopefully sleep will be occurring now. On Wednesday we thought that there would be a big thunderstorm to cool everything down. Unfortunately we only had a few spots of rain at midday and tremendously loud thunder which just didn’t help.
The armadillos that I mentioned a few weeks ago have just moved into their new enclosure. It’s an enclosure that Steve and I didn’t build, just advised on and we are so pleased with what the keepers have done. The enclosure is where the porcupines used to live, inside the main carnivore building. The enclosure has been modified to a reverse lighting schedule, as a nocturnal exhibit as armadillos are mostly night active. They have been given a deep layer of soil and woodchips for digging and foraging and some little shelters and ramps have been made from slices of tree trunk. It looks great and should work well for these animals. I apologise for the poor photo quality and particularly for the T-shirt being worn by one of our visitors in the background. Many people wear t-shirts with slogans in English and I honestly believe that most of the time they have absolutely no idea what the slogan says. There are many extremely rude slogans, which I shall not repeat as my grandmother reads this blog!

Zoo Director and the President of Ukraine

President of Ukraine and Rhino

Baby Skunk 1

Baby Skunk 2

Armadillo

Armadillo (and visitor wearing rude t-shirt)

There is an elephant hiding in this photo

Snake in the Grass

2009-06-22T18:50:00.004+03:00

Yesterday we went to Larissa’s dacha again, for a day of relaxing in the countryside. Larissa’s husband was also there and Galina and her fiancée Denis arrived on their huge black motorbike.
The dacha and gardens are still beautiful, there are even more flowers and many of the plants are starting to fruit. We ate straight from the garden – freshly picked raspberries, strawberries, peas, blackcurrants and cherries. The taste was just unbelievable.
Last time we were there, the lake was very high – almost to the back gate of the garden, but this time it had dropped dramatically, revealing lots of steps down to the water and a little fishing platform.
Steve and Denis started fishing almost as soon as we arrived. It took a little while but Steve caught the first fish of the day, just as breakfast was ready. We had some lovely fried eggs and beer for breakfast and Steve and I went looking for bugs. The water was just teeming with life, big fat frogs on the lily-pads, huge fresh-water mussels, thousands of snails and lots of fish. We saw a few little lizards basking in the sunshine – by about 11am the temperature was getting close to 39˚C. We even saw a snake taking a swim across the lake, hunting for frogs I’d imagine.
After this we decided to walk to the other end of the lake for a swim and to mess about in Larissa’s boat. So, we quickly pumped up the boat and Igor (Larissa’s husband) and Galina rowed away. We took a gentle stroll through the “Dacha village”, through some water meadows and along to the lake. On the way there we saw a few trees lying in the water with bite marks that look very much like beaver activity. I think historically European beaver lived in Ukraine, but have been reintroduced in recent years. We didn’t see any beavers, but it seems that there is probably some living nearby.
Galina and Igor had beaten us by boat to the swimming area, everyone enthusiastically jumped in the water for a swim. Apart from me, I was being a bit pathetic about the water temperature. I made it into the water eventually and had a great swim around. The water was actually quite warm and shallow with a lovely sandy beach.
After a while we walked further round the lake, through the water-meadows. They were full of brightly coloured flowers and smelled of garlic – there were lots of wild garlic plants growing everywhere and the scent in the heat was extremely strong. As we were walking along, I saw another large snake slithering away from our path and into the grass.
We stopped at the far end of the lake to drink some water and cool off, the heat was just phenomenal. Igor suggested that Steve should row the boat back to the Dacha, so Steve hopped nimbly in and grabbed the oars. I took a much less elegant route, fell down in the mud and crawled into the boat.
After a short while of spinning in dizzying circles, Steve eventually got the hang of the boat and we made good progress back along the lake. We stopped at the swimming beach for a break and took another dip. We had a nice chat with a man who is the manager of Boryspil airport, who told us about another airline that has just started UK flights. It’s really strange, but, lots of Ukrainians we have spoken to think that people from the UK don’t like Ukrainians and find them rude and grumpy. We have found that quite the opposite is true, people are extremely kind to us, try to help as much as possible and when we don’t know the Russian words, and they try to remember their high-school English lessons to be able to assist us. This isn’t just people at work, its people in shops, restaurants and in the streets. This is a wonderful country with very generous lovely people.
We rowed the rest of the way back to the dacha just in time for even more food. Denis grilled some mushrooms in a paprika sauce and Larissa made more traditional Ukrainian foods. We all ate far too much, but you just can’t help it when the food is so tasty.

Steve fishing and Denis in the boat

Steve swimming in the lake

Me swimming in the lake

Igor and Galina in the boat

Making hay in the water meadow

Wild garlic

We think these are beaver tooth marks

Steve rowing the boat

Denis and the long-horn beetle

Grass snake in the compost heap

Requiem

2009-06-20T22:43:00.006+03:00

It’s been a strange week, very slow at the start with lots of paperwork but developed into quite a hectic few days at the end.
We spent a very happy afternoon playing with spiders in the Invertebrate department. This is the smallest department in the zoo, with only a very tiny display area, but actually houses the most animals of any department. They have 100s of different theraphosid spiders (tarantulas) and breed these very well. Also kept are beetles, snails, stick-insects, scorpions and lots of other lovely bugs. In this department, every staff member either has or is studying for a PhD – pretty amazing! In the invertebrate room there are a few free-ranging spiders to help clear up escaped fruit flies etc. Steve found one of these big beasties and gave it a little prod so he could see it better. The spider jumped on him to much laughter from me and the keeper as Steve went bright red and looked like a naughty school-boy!
It’s looking very likely that we will be part of an extremely important conservation programme soon. We already keep Prezwalski horses as part of a captive breeding zoo programme, but have been offered a herd of “A-Line” horses that we will breed and then these animals will be released into the wild at designated safe wildlife reserves. The release sites are mainly in Mongolia, but in the past there have been release programmes in Ukraine. It’s such a great opportunity to work with a high level conservation programme and also as they are a native species it’s really important for the zoo. Prezwalski are a wild horse species that are extremely endangered. There are only a few real species of horses e.g. Zebras (3 different species), Prezwalski, Onager and Kulan. All other horses such as Shire horses, Dartmoor ponies, Shetland ponies, race-horses etc are actually different breeds of the domestic horse, and although some horse breeds are rare, they are not endangered in the same ways as the wild horse species. Steve has been working hard to make plans to be able to have the “A-line” horses, enclosure modification, staff training and intensive husbandry protocols. We also have to move around some of the other animals at the zoo to give these special horses more space. It may mean moving some to other Ukrainian zoos, so Steve is also contacting them to see what arrangements can be made.
We seem to have got the post here figured out now, it’s generally pretty unreliable but some things manage to get through. We think that letters/packages that are franked and don’t have stamps will generally arrive. I had two such packages this week from zoos in America and Canada stuffed full of information and DVDs about elephants. Both took about 10 days to get here and a big Thank You to the people who sent them to me.
The zoo has been offered a large amount of money by an anonymous philanthropist who would like it spent on a new enclosure for some of our animals. This may sound great (and it really is) but it brings such tough decisions and lots of work with it – how do you decide which species / group of species to spend the money on? We’ve been working really hard on this, lots of meetings, discussions, looking at enclosures and areas of the zoo and still have not made a decision. I think it will take quite a while to reach a final plan.
We are nearly complete on an enclosure refurbishment for Red River Hogs. The enclosure has been empty for a long while but recently we have knocked down the old lean-to shelter, and the maintenance department have built a lovely night/winter house for the animals. We’ve also completely changed the fence line and put in viewing windows and solid fence, which is better for the visitors and the animals. It’s going to be great when it’s all completed. Red river hogs are really nice (grumpy) animals, their ears are just incredible. They are also part of a good zoo conservation programme.
Steve’s lynx enclosure is coming on well. It’s mainly the construction department working on it at the moment; Steve is just supervising the work. They are almost ready to put the mesh up, complete the off-show holding area and are putting down foundations for the animal house. Steve will be starting the electric fencing system soon. He’s worked really hard and has found a supplier in Ukraine that can get the make of electric fence equipment that Steve likes to use. Steve even managed to get at 25% discount for the zoo on the parts for this fence and all other fences in the future. It’s great, but comes with the condition that as Steve is the only qualified zoo electric fence technician in the country, he provides a consultancy service for the company and other zoos in Ukraine. So far he has made recommendations to the company on a few occasions and also spoken with other zoos about their fences.
Today (Saturday) we ventured out into Kyiv again. There’s a large art gallery called the Pinchuk Art Centre that currently has a large Damien Hirst exhibition “Requiem”. On the way there we went t a different metro station; it was just beautiful, very 1920’s art deco with incredible mosaic walls. Steve tried to take a few photos but was stopped by the train staff.
The art exhibition was really big, took up the whole gallery and an outside area also. Photos were not allowed apart from one outdoor piece. The focus of the exhibition was the skulls that Hirst is renowned for, but also a lot of animal and taxidermy artworks. There were two formaldehyde encased sharks, one of which was split into two pieces and you could walk through them (titled Death Explained). There was a piece called “A Thousand Years” that was a large Perspex container with living flies, a cows head and an “Insect-o-cutor” – very strange, the flies were buzzing around and writhing on the floor, but it’s a self-sustaining sealed system. There were some incredible pieces made from tropical butterfly wings, laid out in geometrical patterns, like cathedral windows, I could look at them forever and not get bored. Another piece I particularly liked was a fish taxidermy display that made excellent use of mirrors. I’m afraid that I just can’t do the exhibition justice with my descriptions. It was well worth spending an afternoon there and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

Spider at Invertebrate Department

Inside the Red River Hog House (stalls will be constructed soon)

Red River Hog House

Red River Hog Enclosure

Red River Hog Enclosure

Lynx Enclosure Developments

Lynx Enclosure Off-Show Holding Area

Lynx Enclosure with Foundations started

Nice Metro Station

I can't remember the title of this sculpture

Silly Tigers

2009-06-14T18:14:00.004+03:00

This week we have been working hard again, but it was only a four day week – Monday was another bank holiday.
We’ve been doing a lot of paperwork and general planning for future projects, so nothing particularly exciting to report. Just lists and designs for enrichment timetables and projects for the university students. Also, a few “catch-up” meetings with the Zoo Director.
On Thursday evening we went to Paska’s house for some beers. Paska works at the zoo in the shop and is also the zoo photographer. He has a small house on the other side of the zoo to us. His little boy (also called Paska) is about 6 and very funny. Steve and little Paska pull faces at each other and do lots of “high-fives”. Paska speaks good English, but no one else there did, so little Paska decided that he would entertain us by showing us every ornament in the apartment and drawing pictures to explain things to us. Very sweet.
The baby tigers had a good day on Thursday also; they destroyed a sapling in their enclosure and took bits of it for a swim in the moat. The only sensible thing to do on such a hot day! I apologise in advance for all the tiger photos today.
Friday was another super hot day. We were busy in the office most of the morning followed by a TV interview. They just wanted to find out all the new things at the zoo so spent the morning filming, Steve and I had to answer questions about if the zoo was good, how the zoo does conservation work and how the people of Ukraine can help animals. It went really well.
Friday night was Canadian Embassy night again. We spent the evening drinking beer and chatting with lots of people, whilst trying to shelter from torrential rain and very loud thunderstorms.
I know I’ve said it a lot, but it’s really hot here at the moment. So hot in fact that it was almost impossible to sleep during the week. Steve very kindly lets me “borrow” his surfing shorts in the evenings as I didn’t bring any with me. During the day on Saturday we wandered to the local shops to see if I could buy some shorts and let Steve have his back again. It would seem that if you want to buy women’s shorts, you have two choices here (in a variety of colours and variety of rhinestone patterning) 1 – teeny tiny shorts that really don’t cover anything at all or 2 – slightly longer shorts that are skin-tight. Neither option appeals to me really. The shop also had men’s clothes, and a good variety of surf-type shorts (good length, not skin tight and no rhinestones – great!). The girl at the shop now thinks I am completely mad as I didn’t want any of the women’s shorts and insisted on trying on the men’s ones instead. I found a good pair and am very happy as is Steve who can have his shorts back now.
We went out for a meal on Saturday night to the same restaurant we went to last weekend. Steve ordered one of their beers, and expected a pint or half litre beer, but was greatly surprised by a full litre of beer. So big he could hardly lift the glass! Very funny and apparently very nice beer.
Today we took the bus to a big shopping centre (yes, that’s right, we took the bus – managed to read the signs in Russian and managed to get on the right bus all by ourselves!). We decided when we were at the supermarket to treat ourselves to a bottle of red wine and some blue cheese as you don’t get them that much here. They only have one variety of blue cheese – no stilton unfortunately, so if anyone fancies posting me some, I’ll be extremely grateful. Anyway, we are now the proud owners of what is probably the most expensive piece of cheese I have ever purchased (I’m not saying how much it cost, but I feel very decadent) and a bottle of good red wine and NO corkscrew! I have also bought alphabetti-spaghetti, I am not sure if it is in Cyrillic, but I’ll let you know.

Cheese

2009-06-09T20:22:00.006+03:00

Again, I apologise, I’ve been so busy that it’s been impossible to update until now. But, as compensation for my lateness, lots of exciting things have happened.
Firstly, last Thursday, we found out that the porcupines have had babies. I was so sure that one of the females looked pregnant when we moved them to their new enclosure. Anyway, there are two new babies in the group. I tried to take photos, but they were staying so close to Mum that you just can’t see them in the pictures. The porcupines are most active in the evenings and we usually pop out for a walk around the zoo in the evenings after the visitors have left (it’s the best time to see most of the animals, and one of the perks of living in a zoo). Baby porcupines are much less helpless than some other baby animals, they need mum to look after them, but will happily have a wander around her. As for the rest of the porcupines – they are enjoying their new enclosure; they have dug their way through all the mounds of soil. Some of the staff are a bit disappointed that the enclosure doesn’t look as good as it did, but everyone is happy that the porcupines are able to behave naturally.
Friday was another day for working in the lynx enclosure. Steve and some keepers built a shelter for the lynx out of scavenged logs, and we all spent the afternoon covering it in a huge mound of soil. There is enough time before the lynx moves in for grass to grow over the mound. It will look lovely.
On Friday night we went for a drink after work with Larissa. She wanted to go to the bar above the cafe we usually eat at. We haven’t been there before, and discovered a rather nice bar and restaurant. They brew their own beer, so we had a taste of a few – the honey one is highly recommended by me. We also discovered they make a tasty margarita, so we drank a few of those. But the absolute highlight of the evening for me was a large plate of cheese and fruit. As you may or may not know, I am a huge fan of cheese and I am thus far slightly disappointed by the variety of cheese available in Ukraine. The cheese here is very nice, if a bit bland, but they do some nice cottage cheese and a cheddar style one with bits of pepper in it or just a plain very mild cheese. So, I was truly delighted to get a plate of blue cheese and brie. Expensive but delicious!
We are currently experiencing a wave of the most excruciatingly hot and muggy weather, it’s reaching 32 - 34°C most days. Sleep is almost impossible between the heat and the thunderstorms. Midnight on Saturday was the most spectacular one I have seen in a long time, continuous sheet lightening and overhead thunder making the windows shake. The only thing that makes it bearable is the knowledge that it is about 12°C and raining in the UK!
Sunday morning was still pouring with rain when we got up. We were desperate for the rain to stop as we had arranged a VIP zoo tour for staff of the US Embassy based in Kyiv. The rain stopped just before the tour was due to start so we ran to the zoo entrance to see if anyone had turned up. We were expecting 30 people, and were pleasantly surprised to welcome about 25 people to the zoo. The group was mixed between families with children of all ages and adults. We had a nice walk around the zoo, explaining about our conservation and education programmes and answering all the random questions from the kids! We met some lovely people and enjoyed talking with English speakers. We took the group “behind the scenes” to meet our beautiful Carpathian Lynx, and I think it is fair to say, many people fell in love with her! We also showed them the enclosure we are building for her. The group agreed to sponsor the lynx, which will pay for some of the building costs. Well done Mrs. Lynx!

Monday was yet another bank holiday, so we just had a day or resting and watching films.
Today Steve wanted to do some more work to the lynx enclosure – he is nearly finished, but needed to shovel some more soil onto the hide and clear away a lot of the branches that aren’t needed anymore. He was assigned a group of university students who must complete 40 days volunteer work at the zoo as part of their degrees. Larissa went with Steve to meet the group and to explain their duties to them. The students were mostly female and very pleased when they found out they would be working with Steve. Larissa saw this and promptly informed them that they were not allowed to ask Steve to marry them and take them to England, and that Steve was already married and his wife was working in the zoo and would be watching! Poor Steve, he went bright red, it was hilarious!
Steve and I were given some zoo passes to give to people we meet. At the moment, we really only know people we work with and didn’t know what to do with the passes. We’d have given them to some of the expats we have met, but most are booked for tours to the zoo already, my cousin Oleg will visit the zoo with us one day so we were at a loss, and the expiry dates on the passes were getting close. At one of the little kiosks near the zoo where we buy sunflower seeds and cold drinks is an old lady who is very kind to us. She speaks a few words of English and always undercharges us for our purchases. Yesterday as we bought our seeds we presented her with a pass to the zoo for her and a friend. She was so happy she was almost crying. Today we went past her kiosk and she wasn’t there. We got back into the zoo and bumped into her and her best friend in their smartest dresses just finishing their visit. It was lovely; they both said they thoroughly enjoyed their day out.

Baby porcupine just infront of the white tail quills (apologies for poor quality photos)

Baby porcupine just to the left of the porcupine bottom!

Lynx Shelter

Covering the shelter in soil

Finished

Happy Elephant

2009-06-03T21:44:00.004+03:00

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!

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

Snow in May???

2009-06-01T03:51:00.000+03:00

Anyone looking out of our window at the moment would be forgiven for thinking it is snowing. The air is full of light white flakes drifting in the breeze. It’s not snow, but in fact it is little balls of fluff from (we think) the poplar trees. Imagine what it would be like if a whole field of dandelions had their little “seed parachutes” simultaneously and then add another billion of them. It really looks like snow, sorry, photos didn’t come out very well. The weather couldn’t be further from that scenario, it is extremely hot every day, but we are getting more and more spectacular thunderstorms in the evenings. We get a great view from our apartment. The breeze picks up just before each storm, causing little whirlwinds of dust. When these hit the sycamore trees they also release their seeds – helicoptering through the air – Steve says it looks like a plague of locusts!
During the week Steve has been working hard in the new lynx enclosure. The wooden platforms are up and a pond has been dug. I’ve been mostly in the office working on animal management protocols and recommendations.
On Friday night we had our first venture into the expat community. We went to a social night at the Canadian Embassy. There were so many people there, mostly Canadians but also a few Americans and English expats. It was actually really strange to speak English and hear English spoken by everyone. We met some really nice people and will definitely be going back again.
Saturday was pretty quiet for us; I had a bit of a migraine so we mainly stayed in and relaxed. The zoo was mega-busy as usual, thousands of visitors. The zoo has a big education programme for children and one of the highlights is “ZooQuest”. This is a long term challenge for groups of children and school classes. They have to complete a series of Quests over the course of about 6 months, find out information about animals, conservation and environmental issues, take photos, draw pictures, and do projects, all sorts of things really. This year’s challenge finished recently and there was an award ceremony in the zoo for the winning teams. It was really great to see.
Today (and yesterday) is Kyiv Day, a celebration of all things Kyiv. We went along to the centre of Kyiv to see what was going on. We watched the firework display last night from our window. Today there were bands and musicians performing on a series of stages along the main street; both traditional and modern music. There were sponsored races; we saw the start of the rollerblade ones. The streets were lined with little stalls selling food and drinks, books, traditional clothing and souvenirs and some great artwork. There were also battle re-enactments and a rather random group of chickens. We had a nice wander, just looking at everything and sweltering in the heat. We decided it was time to check out an Indian restaurant that we had been told about by some Canadians. It is called Himalaya and the food was fantastic. We haven’t had any spicy food for ages and this was just what we needed. The decor is beautiful and the service was quick and efficient. I would thoroughly recommend this place and we will be going back there again.
We headed back to the zoo mid-afternoon, but got distracted on our way to the apartment by the rhino. The keepers have flooded part of her enclosure this weekend, and she is having a fabulous time rolling around in the mud and water and running through it to churn it up before having another roll. We caught up with one of the keepers and ended up going in and giving the rhino a good scrub down with a stiff brush. It was both excellent fun for us and very beneficial for her skin. She really seemed to enjoyed it as once Steve had scrubbed one side of her, she turned round so he could do the other side!

Steve's Lynx Platforms

More Lynx Platforms

ZooQuest Awards

Strange sculpture at Maidan Square

Battle Re-enactment at Kyiv Day