Bear Birthday Bash

[meriones]

Crazy hectic day at the zoo. Not only was it the bear special event but Girl Scout day as well. These special events generally require extra areas for the volunteers to cover, and if it weren't for the 8 volunteers from other days that came in after an emailed plea to the entire corp we would have never made it.

There's certain bolded spots on our schedule that are considered must covers. This means someone has to be there the entire time and you can't leave until the next volunteers shows up. Usually there are three must covers - Discovery Bay touch pools, dolphin stadium when the upstairs area is open, and the hall area to control traffic during the bird encounters. Today there were eight must covers - an extra three for the Girl Scouts, one at the bear exhibit and one to sell raffle tickets for a Beastly Ball related new car giveaway. With nearly 5000 guests at the zoo today it was pretty easy to take five minutes longer to get somewhere than it normally does and end up late. My entire schedule today consisted of must covers. Good times.

I was at the bears for the birthday cake and presents enrichment. Funny how the two volunteers on Saturday that always have a camera with them were put in that area. ;P I set up in the lava tube viewing area and the other volunteer took the cabin area. Just my luck the bears veered off to the area seen from the cabin! I could see Haines eating his cake but that fallen log blocked most the view. At least I got a few photos of Kenai opening and eating his cantaloupe present.

I felt guilty for ignoring Jasper walking to and from the bear exhibit. Sad sea otter face trumps sad puppy dog eyes every time.

I did get to do an animal demo with Irwin the bearded dragon. Of course the Girl Scout activity tables took over our normal locale so it was more of a walk out with an animal on your arm for ten minutes and barely get any facts out deal but hey, it's been months since I last handled the bearded dragons so I'm all good. :)

And as I mentioned on Twitter there were two service dogs in Discovery Bay at the same time. One was the commonly seen yellow lab. The other a big ol' Newfoundland! Never seen a Newfie service dog before.