The Golden Years
9 years ago
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
More developments in our orangutan saga...
It had been almost a month since Sandra died, and Hadiah and Mahal seemed to be doing well together, but that all changed on Sunday and Monday. For some reason, Hadiah seemed to "snap" and began to abuse Mahal. By Monday it had escalated enough that the decision had to be made to separate him from her for his safety. We tried introducing him this morning to the other female we have. She has a five-year-old of her own that she raised. She made it clear that she was not interested in having him live with her. So for now we are once again raising him. It should be very short-term, as we and the Orangutan SSP (Species Survival Plan) are already working on where he will go. Hopefully within the next week to two weeks he will have a new home and a new mom. It's been a rough time for the little guy, and we will be really sad to see him leave, but he needs a mom to love him.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Happy New Year!
I hope you all had a very special Christmas and a great New Year!
My trip home was great. My car survived the trip with no lingering otter odor. The drive to Leavenworth was pretty sloppy, with wet or slushy roads most of the way. It was really nice to spend extended time in Leavenworth, since it seems I'm usually just passing through lately.
On the 29th of December, we took a drive up to Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge near Mound City, MO. With most of the water frozen over, we knew that most of the waterfowl would be gone, but I was hoping to see some eagles and was not disappointed. We probably saw a couple dozen bald eagles, several deer, lots of pheasants, trumpeter swans, a few straggler snow geese and my favorite sighting: a barred owl that was perched on a hollow log just feet from the road. Here are some pictures:
Ring-neck pheasant
A pair of bald eagles with their nest
A white-tail doe
A few trumpeter swans coming in for a landing
A mature and immature bald eagle performing some aerobatics
A barred owl
My drive back to Colorado included a detour to the zoo in Garden City to pick up a skink (lizard) for my zoo. It added quite a few miles, but I got to see parts of Kansas I'd never been in before.
My trip home was great. My car survived the trip with no lingering otter odor. The drive to Leavenworth was pretty sloppy, with wet or slushy roads most of the way. It was really nice to spend extended time in Leavenworth, since it seems I'm usually just passing through lately.
On the 29th of December, we took a drive up to Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge near Mound City, MO. With most of the water frozen over, we knew that most of the waterfowl would be gone, but I was hoping to see some eagles and was not disappointed. We probably saw a couple dozen bald eagles, several deer, lots of pheasants, trumpeter swans, a few straggler snow geese and my favorite sighting: a barred owl that was perched on a hollow log just feet from the road. Here are some pictures:
Ring-neck pheasant
A pair of bald eagles with their nest
A white-tail doe
A few trumpeter swans coming in for a landing
A mature and immature bald eagle performing some aerobatics
A barred owl
My drive back to Colorado included a detour to the zoo in Garden City to pick up a skink (lizard) for my zoo. It added quite a few miles, but I got to see parts of Kansas I'd never been in before.
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