Zookeeper Appreciation Week: Cute as a Coati

Thursday's zookeeper of the week is Melanie Czajkowski who is about to celebrate her first year as a zookeeper at Wildwood Wildlife Park. To commemorate National Zookeeper Week, Melanie has selected as her favorite park resident the coatimundi.

The coatimundi or coati is a medium-sized mammal found only in North and South America and are members of the raccoon family.  Coatis have a slender head and as you can see, a slightly turned-up nose. This feature is part of the reason why it is given the nickname 'the hog-nose raccoon.' Additionally they have a very long tail and often hold the tail erect; using it as a way of keeping troops of coatis together while walking or foraging in tall vegetation. The tip of the coatis tail can be moved slightly, just like a cat.

Coatis are active day and night and feeds on lizards, fruits, nuts and seeds, insects, birds eggs, rodents and small reptiles. A forest dweller and an agile tree climber when the coatis is on the ground, its short forelegs give it a bearlike gait.

Females and their young travel in bands but males are solitary. Males join the band only during the mating season, typically at the start of the rainy season, when there is an abundance of food. When the female is ready to give birth she will leave the band of coatis to build a nest in the trees or on a rocky ledge, where she will give birth to 2-7 kits. The female and her young will rejoin the band when they are about 6 weeks old. 

Coatis communication using chirping, snorting, or grunting sounds. The also use postures to convey simple messages. In her photo Melanie has chosen a favorite posture of our one-year old coatis: the adorably cute tactic of begging the zookeepers for their favorite food of grapes and mealworms.

Thank you Melanie for sharing your love of animals and for highlighting the coatimundi.

Helping Our Animal Friends Beat the Heat

One of my favorite "ism's" is the one that says: be careful what you wish for. Somewhere around January 18th when the thermometer was coming perilously close to twenty below, I'll bet I wasn't the only Wisconsinite who was wishing for the heat of summer. Extreme temperatures such as the heat wave we are currently experiencing offer the challenge of keeping our animal residents safe during oppressive heat wave. Like zoos around the world, Wildwood is using a variety of methods to help beat the heat.

The Zookeepers at Wildwood Wildlife Park have been preparing cold treats to help the animals cool down in the hot weather. They offer the perfect cool treat that also provides an enrichment activity.

To help prevent heat illness the animals are given daily treats: the otters are given frozen fish lollies while the lemurs and coatimundi are given ice lollies made from frozen fruit and juice.  Other animals such as the capybara, otters, beavers, and tigers keep cool by swimming in their pools, streams offer other animals a chance to splash in the water. The water helps cool them off and the animals can be seen going in and out of the water quite a few times throughout the day.

All the animals have shady spots around their enclosures including shade cloth tops. The zoo incorporates fans, spray misters and sprinklers to help the animals keep cool in extreme weather conditions as well as providing a shady place to rest.

Many of the zoo animals are enjoying the heat wave including the lemurs who can be seen sitting up on their hind legs, with their arms splayed out. Our giant tortoise has been hanging out in the paddock, soaking up the sun and munching on the grass but the Zoo Keepers still have taken measures to keep them comfortable and keep a close watch on all the animals.