Happy Holidays!

Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noël, Frohe Weihnachten, Buon Natale, God jul, Nollaig shona, 즐거운 성탄절 되세요, С Рождеством and Merry Christmas!!!!!

Thank you for following my blog and thank you for caring about the animals at Carolina Tiger Rescue! Volunteers carry our organization and your compassion for big cat conservation can help preserve these amazing species.

Be safe and save your Christmas trees for the tigers!

Becoming a Fan...of Straw

If you haven't noticed the new gadget on the right side of the page... check it out! Carolina Tiger Rescue is on Facebook! Become a fan! Unfortunately Facebook is kind of crazy, so when our name changed we were unable to change the name of our page on Facebook. So, you can go to our old page via the little gadget to the right and find our new one, or you can search Carolina Tiger Rescue on Facebook and become a fan! You'll get all kinds of great updates and see the great photos and videos posted often. I will get our internet genius, Amanda, to help me fix the gadget so it's less confusing. Here is the new page URL:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=11818011#/pages/Carolina-Tiger-Rescue/180650068121?ref=ts


Speaking of becoming a fan, if you like my blog, please become a follower! I've been on hiatus recently only because the semester has been so intense (thanks, Physics), but now that that is over I can spend more time on updates. Also, follow me on Twitter! I do follow other conservationists focusing on big cats, so there is ample opportunity to learn what is going on in the cat world and how you can contribute to saving amazing species!
http://twitter.com/imogenedavis

The past few weeks have been very busy at Carolina Tiger Rescue. Kiowa, the caracal whose enclosure partner Tailessa passed away, was moved to live with Damien, a male caracal. Unfortunately this has not worked out, as the only interaction between these two has been entirely negative, and Kiowa has been moved back to her previous enclosure. Damien was alone before Kiowa moved in, but these two could not adjust and the fighting and hissing showed no signs of ceasing. Of course both parties are in good health; the keepers monitored the two for a few weeks and made sure no one was seriously harmed (cats do not fight to the death as often as other species. This is mostly true for domestic cats, but our tigers as well as our small cats do not suffer life-threatening injuries when they fight. However, the case could easily be different in the wild were an encounter over territory or protecting cubs. These issues do not truly present themselves at Carolina Tiger Rescue, so there is no primary over over one animal killing another).

Kiniki, one of our many caracals. He is not happy about the cold weather and prefers to stay inside his den box with his heat pad.

I have started cleaning Level 2 enclosures with keepers. Level 2 enclosures contain our small cats who are more aggressive than the moderately lazy binturongs but not so much that a pair of humans cannot enter the enclosure to clean it. As I have mentioned before, one person always guards while another cleans when inside a cat enclosure. I have only cleaned the caracals so far, and the enclosures have contained either one, two, or three animals. Only one enclosure at Carolina Tiger has three animals. Bandit, Electra, and Kiara are very mischevious caracals who truly enjoy stalking humans when they are in their territory. This is not a game as it is when I run along the fence with Lucky, a tiger, and trying to keep my eyes on three caracals who blend in effortlessly is trying. These three have not attacked anyone, which is why they remain a Level 2, but protecting both myself as well as another while inside the enclosure requires constant focus.

Another thing requiring constant focus is keeping these guys away from buckets. Kiniki, the caracal above, gave keeper Lauren and I a run for our money last week when we brought fresh straw into his enclosure for den boxes. One den box for each caracal, Kiniki and girlfriend Mary Stewart, desperately needed to be emptied. Of the small cats, ocelots are the only ones who urinate inside their den boxes, and for them we use pine shavings to absorb moisture better. The other cats receive straw. However, we discovered that these caracals have forgotten where the lavatory is and spent an excessive amount of time cleaning. The tricky thing about cage cleaning is that you are not only guarding yourself, but another person, or you are cleaning and guarding yourself as well as a few buckets (one for waste, another with straw). Kiniki became obsessed with our giant bin of straw and took to getting at it any way he could; every time Lauren or I turned around (not literally because you can never turn your back on a cat) he was knocking over the bin and stuffing his furry little body into the straw. When we finally finished, we decided to give Kiniki his very own bin of straw so he could do with it whatever he wanted:

Mary Stewart is on the right, while Kiniki is in the process of dumping the bin of straw over. Fun stuff!

Enrichment is brought into an enclosure any time we enter it as well as old enrichment removed. In addition to Kiniki's straw, Lauren and I took raw chicken chunks and stuffed them into cake ice cream cones. Everyone loves chicken ice cream!

I also finished my intern project! Interns at Carolina Tiger Rescue must complete a certai number of hours in different areas in addition to writing papers and completing some sort of project. The project ideally has a lasting impact. I chose to build some contraptions for ocelot enclosures. Ocelots love to climb and jump and I would like to maximize enclosure area by installing hanging platforms or stands for the ocelots to jump on. Actually, I'm not done doing this... I just got Round 1 finished and installed yesterday. I created two hanging platofrms for Julio and PJ's respective enclosures by simply screwing pieces of wood together in a sturdy fashion. I purchased chains and links that are adjustable so these pieces can be moved around the enclosure as enrichement. I wrapped the chain in firehose so the cats won't bite down on the metal links. Each platform hangs around two feet from the ceiling and the ocelots can access them with ease:

I am rather proud of this... it is the first of it's kind at Carolina Tiger Rescue.

Julio investigates. Chicken was placed atop the platform to coerce him to climb up.

Once these guys adjust to the new piece and (hopefully) use it, I will then move it to different and higher-reaching areas within the enclosure. This will require adding some 'bridges' from tree to tree so the hangin platform is easily accessible.

I am very excited that I will be staying on through next semester as an intern! I will continue with everything I am currently doing, and I will begin new intern projects. After Christmas I will be installing a new ground stand into servals Marua and Gianna's enclosure. It is partially built already, but needs more tiers added to it. Curious? Come see it! Want to help? Please!

If you are interested in becoming an intern with Carolina Tiger Rescue, visit our website's page for information:

http://carolinatigerrescue.org/education/internships.asp

Videos

Tex hears a tour coming

It's finals week at NC State University, which means I am one of 30,000 students with heightened cortisol levels. So, once I get through this week I will be posting more in addition to getting some videos up. Robin Thomson, one of the dedicated volunteers at Carolina Tiger Rescue, has been filming a lot of great stuff lately and has allowed me to use them for this blog. However, I can't get the darn things to upload right now, but as soon as I figure out how I will post them!

Jellybean and volunteer Sue Register have a chat

Millhouse hoping for more breakfast

Update

I have been immensely busy with both school as well as work and have only now managed to squeeze in a blog update.

Foremost, the CCF cheetah bushblok project was not selected as a finalist in the World Challenge competition. Thanks to those who voted! Be sure to listen for the success of the program in the future.

I am sad to report that in the weeks since my last posting that one of the animals in my areas has died. Ralph was the oldest binturong at Carolina Tiger Rescue. Necropsy results yielded heart failure as the cause of death, which is to be expected with a nineteen year old binturong. The keepers were going to take him to the vet the morning he died becuase he had been acting unusually lethargic and was not eating. Longevity of binturongs is not known in the wild because these animals have not been well-studied, but nineteen is the expected age in captivity. Consequently, Ralph lived the longest life possible for a binturong in captivity, which speaks for the quality of care at Carolina Tiger Rescue. For an animal to die of nothing but old age leads me to believe that the life of the animal was ideal. Ralph never had much to say, but that is characteristic of an old man.

To learn more about binturongs, please read a previous posting. You can also learn more about Ralph, who will be missed by staff and volunteers at Carolina Tiger Rescue.

Cheetahs and the BBC World Challenge

I stole this picture from Ryan

My friend Ryan Richards is a graduate student at the University of Maryland. We met when I attended the Cheetah Conservation Fund benefit in September (see blog). Ryan spent the summer in Namibia, Africa working with CCF on the Bush Project, the focus of his graduate research. His project is one of 12 finalists in the BBC/World Challenge 2009. The winner is decided by popular vote and I am asking that you help Ryan as well as the cheetahs win this thing!

The Bush Project aims to reduce bush encroachment caused by overgrazing, restore habitat for cheetahs and other wildlife and produce a renewable energy source for a country that is largely dependent on coal and charcoal. At the moment most of the acacia bush that is cleared is turned into Bushblok, a chipped, compressed wood product that looks a bit like a Duraflame log (without any waxy additives). It's marketed in South Africa and Europe as an alternative to charcoal. Our ultimate goal is to develop biomass as a viable electricity source in Namibia, and the World Challenge award would help us pursue that goal (the publicity in the EU and US certainly won't hurt either).

The website for voters is http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/ . Click on the pushpin in southern Africa to find out more about the project. Then VOTE!

If you'd like a better idea of the work CCF does, check out their website: http://www.cheetah.org/

Please vote for the Bush Project!

Oh Deer

It's deer season in North Carolina. Although I am not a hunter, Carolina Tiger Rescue is fortunate to have a good network of hunters that bring fresh meat for the cats. I personally think that hunting is only validated if the hunter uses the animal in its entirety. Otherwise, I find it a waste of a precious life. I have come across many hunters who will kill multiple deer for one cut of meat when one doe would have delivered the meat of those six single cuts. The elimination of population surplus or choosing to not take down an animal for one cut is not an issue for the hunters that come to Carolina Tiger. During the season we get multiple deer brought in each week that go out to feed our cats. Tigers will get an entire torso or a deer leg (hoof to hip) in place of one chicken, and small cats will get small portions of one leg or the pelt of the animal. Preparation to feed usually takes about an hour, but once the truck is loaded up it usually looks like this:

Yesterday someone brought in a deer that had been hit on the road. Yes, it may sound strange, but if a person witnesses a deer getting killed on the road we will take it just like one taken down in a hunt. It makes sense to not waste the meat, and we are committed to taking care of our animals. Of course, we always remove the bullet(s) and ensure the meat is good prior to giving it to any animal. It is just another facet of the circle of life at Carolina Tiger Rescue.

We "dress" a deer in similar fashion to a hunter... we skin the animal, remove the internal organs (in the wild cats do not usually consume the intestines of prey, though they will eat some of the larger organs such as the heart and liver and drink the blood for hydration), then remove the limbs. After helping Lauren, head keeper, dress the deer, I decided that Tex needed the deer for breakfast. The legs were given in place of one chicken to other tigers (so instead of receiving two whole, raw chickens one tiger received one chicken and one whole leg). Any tiger on the compound that lives with another tiger is shifted during meal times to prevent fighting. This simply means the tigers are separated in different parts of the enclosures by shift gates. However, I forgot to shift tigers Lucky and Carmelita yesterday morning... they are used to being on a certain side and I thought the gate was down. Lauren and I were about to drive away leaving the two to their respective meals when we realized that in fact I had not shifted them. This could have been a major problem had one tiger finished early and decided to steal the other's meal. A fight would have broken out... probably not to the death, but separating two 400 pound cats with claws that are three inches long is not an easy as separating two young boys in a school yard.

After the shift gate mishap, we shifted tigers Jellybean and Tex with difficulty, as Jelly is a bit jealous and took a swing at Tex when he saw the deer. We pulled the deer into the enclosure (with no tigers in that part) and lifted the deer torso onto a platform. Tex came into the enclosure once we were out surveyed the place first. Tex can be aggressive at times and I expected him to charge me, but he didn't.

The deer carcas is on the platform and Tex surveys the area

Tex immediately pulled the meat off the platform and dragged it around for no apparent reason. He was either showing off to a snarling Jellybean or searching for just the right spot to eat. Like most cats, tigers can pull their own body weight with their jaws. Tex took the meat in his jaws and walked around, heaving his weight on his front legs with the torso in between. Tigers carry the majority of their weight in their forepaws. If you look at tiger you will notice that their front legs are more powerful than their back legs, which differs from cats like the bobcat, whose back legs are much larger for jumping.

Making sure the kill is... killed

Preparing to drag meat to a secure location

We never feed live game to our animals. Although the predator-prey relationship is only natural, it goes against our values as a wildlife sanctuary. The deer we receive at Carolina Tiger Rescue allows the tigers to eat a complete as well as diverse diet. Nothing goes to waste on the compound... no bones, no parts, and as some put it, it keeps us humble.

Special Thanks

I'd like to take a moment to thank one of Carolina Tiger Rescue's tour guides, Pat. I met Pat today and he informed me that he has been reading my blogs! I'm really excited about sharing the lives of these animals with others, and today Pat spread the word about my blog to our visitors on his tour today. Thanks a lot! I was also able to take a moment and listen to how well both Pat and Ruth, another guide, discuss what we do at Carolina Tiger... which is a lot! It is my hope that through this blog I am able to promote the support of these amazing cats in North Carolina while documenting the Days of Their Lives. I learn every day from talented, intelligent individuals who work tirelessly as staff and volunteers and I think it is pretty much the coolest thing ever that I have this opportunity to work with exotic cats. Please keep reading and don't hesitate to let me know what you want to know! Come out for a tour. And, more importantly, visit Carolina Tiger Rescue's website to see how you can get involved with the wildlife sanctuary and get to know our stars!

http://www.carolinatigerrescue.org/default.asp

My favorite picture of Julio.