The topic for the evening was “Training Animal Stars”, presented by a long-time Zoo animal trainer who “lives” at Hunte Amphitheater. She and the keepers brought several animals up to the Otto Center, which is a rare treat for the Special Speakers program.
Some of the guests included: Jabari and Chuma, the African servals; Desarai, a twenty year-old red tailed hawk; Jirra, the red kangaroo; two hedgehogs; Karoo and Sven, the cheetah/dog duo; and a large kookaburra-looking bird that I unfortunately didn’t get to hear anything about. (I was still taking care of a few things outside.)
The talk focused a bit on the importance of training certain behaviors and a lot on silly stories from keeper and animal experiences. For example, an emu can jump 7-10 feet up in the air. One day, a large tree crashed, startling an emu. It jumped in fright and went over a fence into a neighboring enclosure, landing on a gray kangaroo. Neither were hurt, but the kangaroo wouldn’t go near the fence after that!
Jirra wasn’t able to come out on stage, as time ran out. She was outside in her crate, and I got to talk to her for awhile. I’m not sure if what I was saying was interesting or if she was waiting to see if I’d give her a yam slice, but either way, it was cool to see her paying attention. Karoo and Sven were on stage for awhile, and Karoo was obviously very comfortable. She flopped over on her side and proceeded to try to catch her tail in her mouth for awhile, which was cracking everyone up. Sven was outside after the talk was over, getting plenty of attention. He rode happily away squeezed between two keepers in the front seat of the animal truck. It was a great night.
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