We had two sun bears (as well as browns and sloths and others) that resided in a high walled group of enclosures with a fifteen foot wide by eight foot deep moat, between them and the public viewing area. In which there were trees in a central bed to break up the "concrete concept" of the enclosure. The sun bears used to like these trees and one in particular would lean out to touch the leaves, attempting to gather them. The other bear a female would then creep up behind him and push him into the moat, until eventually he became wary of loosing sight of her.
It was a nice day when I recieved a call that "the sun was in the moat" collected the dart gun and a loaf of bread, making my way with the head keeper, through another enclosure, down the steps to the moat access gate where I could see the bear some twenty yards away happily eating bits of the tree. The head Keeper called to him through the barred, prison like, viewing panel which the bear ignored. Anticipating this the head Keeper rustled the bread wrapper and fed the bread through the inspection window into the moat. The Bear now rapidly made his way to collect his prize and we darted him in the fatty area of his rump. The dart took five minutes before he was "Out", we entered the moat and tapped his eyelids to make sure he was full out.
We now had a set time to get him back safetly inside before he would wake up and one can never be certain how accurately you can work that out, so the quickest way to get his weight of bear out of the Moat, was in a cargo net and up a ladder which the other kepers had errected in preparation (you have to bear :o)) in mind that this was initially a regular experience).
He was unceremoniously laid onto the spread out cargo net and with ropes attached lifted to the ladder where he was slid about two feet up the ladder. The keepers in the moat along with the head keeper ran around to man the ropes with the rest of the keepers, whilst I stayed to close the gate. After about a minute nothing much happened and the bear slowly started to move up the ladder in fits and starts and a voice from the top asked if I could help in anyway from down there? So as obliging as ever and in spite of being suited and booted, I placed my shoulder under the bears lower back and commenced to take some of the weight, it supprisingly made a difference.
When the bear was at about half way up the ladder his bowel and then his bladder "let go" ( a normal incident when under anaesthetic, I was informed later) and you can imagine the state I was in? when finally the bear was lifted clear of the handrail, taken out of the net and placed, more or less sitting upright in a large wheel barrow, ready to be pushed around to his den at the back of the enclosure.
Rather bedraggled, I climbed over the rail to observe this "gentlemanly" bear apparently happily sitting relaxing in a wheel barrow, with one brown eye now open and the keepers running in all directions thinking that he was coming around prematurely. After a few seconds, of the bear making no further movement, they returned and duly pushed him around the back and into his enclosure, gently tipping him onto the fresh straw in his den. It was apparent that the dart wound hadn`t yet been treated so armed with some terramycin spray I climbed over the bear and duly sprayed the small wound and surrounding area with the spray. As I finished, the bear suddenly sat up, trapping me in its den, as he was now between me and the door. The keepers immediately slammed the door shut, locking it. After what seemed like an eternity and much comment, they looked through the viewing panel realising what they had done, just as the bear was lying back down and convulsing (a product of the anaesthetic) they opened the door and allowed me to climb gingerly over the bear to get out! As can be imagined, I was a little taken by surprise by the action of the keepers and the bear, to such an extent that even to this day I have never believed the amount of faecis evident or if I could fully attribute it all to the actual bear :o))
It was a nice day when I recieved a call that "the sun was in the moat" collected the dart gun and a loaf of bread, making my way with the head keeper, through another enclosure, down the steps to the moat access gate where I could see the bear some twenty yards away happily eating bits of the tree. The head Keeper called to him through the barred, prison like, viewing panel which the bear ignored. Anticipating this the head Keeper rustled the bread wrapper and fed the bread through the inspection window into the moat. The Bear now rapidly made his way to collect his prize and we darted him in the fatty area of his rump. The dart took five minutes before he was "Out", we entered the moat and tapped his eyelids to make sure he was full out.
We now had a set time to get him back safetly inside before he would wake up and one can never be certain how accurately you can work that out, so the quickest way to get his weight of bear out of the Moat, was in a cargo net and up a ladder which the other kepers had errected in preparation (you have to bear :o)) in mind that this was initially a regular experience).
He was unceremoniously laid onto the spread out cargo net and with ropes attached lifted to the ladder where he was slid about two feet up the ladder. The keepers in the moat along with the head keeper ran around to man the ropes with the rest of the keepers, whilst I stayed to close the gate. After about a minute nothing much happened and the bear slowly started to move up the ladder in fits and starts and a voice from the top asked if I could help in anyway from down there? So as obliging as ever and in spite of being suited and booted, I placed my shoulder under the bears lower back and commenced to take some of the weight, it supprisingly made a difference.
When the bear was at about half way up the ladder his bowel and then his bladder "let go" ( a normal incident when under anaesthetic, I was informed later) and you can imagine the state I was in? when finally the bear was lifted clear of the handrail, taken out of the net and placed, more or less sitting upright in a large wheel barrow, ready to be pushed around to his den at the back of the enclosure.
Rather bedraggled, I climbed over the rail to observe this "gentlemanly" bear apparently happily sitting relaxing in a wheel barrow, with one brown eye now open and the keepers running in all directions thinking that he was coming around prematurely. After a few seconds, of the bear making no further movement, they returned and duly pushed him around the back and into his enclosure, gently tipping him onto the fresh straw in his den. It was apparent that the dart wound hadn`t yet been treated so armed with some terramycin spray I climbed over the bear and duly sprayed the small wound and surrounding area with the spray. As I finished, the bear suddenly sat up, trapping me in its den, as he was now between me and the door. The keepers immediately slammed the door shut, locking it. After what seemed like an eternity and much comment, they looked through the viewing panel realising what they had done, just as the bear was lying back down and convulsing (a product of the anaesthetic) they opened the door and allowed me to climb gingerly over the bear to get out! As can be imagined, I was a little taken by surprise by the action of the keepers and the bear, to such an extent that even to this day I have never believed the amount of faecis evident or if I could fully attribute it all to the actual bear :o))
4 comments:
Now THAT'S a very cool post. Don't you think so, Jamie?
Not sure about that certainly smelly though :o))
Yeah, that's a story, Rob!
Hi Jamie thatns for your visit an comments I love the photos on your last post.
Take care!
Post a Comment