Busy Busy Busy

I apologize that it's been a while since I've last posted, but I've been pretty busy lately and I've been too tired/lazy to type up a new post until now. But even now, I'm kind of swamped with taking care of a baby lamb, a duckling, and a baby robin, who all need feeding and love and attention. Therefore, I'm just kind of giving you the highlight of my week: going to a museum and eating a reindeer (I'm such a party animal).

So I've been working at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve for a little more than a week and a lot has happened here. I've been learning so much about the native animals of the Yukon Territory AND I've built up some arm muscles from shoveling so much hay ;) But it hasn't all been work. The animal care assistant here is named Cassy and she's been a great person to get to know. The other night we went into town and went to the Beringia Museum followed by dinner at Klondike Rib & Salmon. It was a ton of fun and the food was DELICIOUS! The Beringia Museum is dedicated to teaching people about the lost continent of Beringia (otherwise known as the Bering Land Bridge) and about the animals and people that crossed over to North America from Asia back during the last Ice Age. It was kind of a smaller museum, but it was still really interesting and cool and I definitely recommend it if you're ever in Whitehorse. After the museum, Cassy and I went to Klondike Rib & Salmon for dinner. In the end, I ate waaaayyyy too much food. I ordered the reindeer stew and it tasted "magical" (see what I did there?).

Jefferson's Ground Sloth

Tooth of a Jefferson's Ground Sloth - awfully big tooth for a vegetarian

Scimitar Cat

Steppe Bison

Wooly Mammoth Tusk!

Short-faced Brown Bear - they were bigger than a large polar bear!

Saiga Antelope - still found in Asia, but very endangered :(

Mural depicting different everyday activities of the ancient people that crossed over Beringia

Giant Beaver!

Baby Mammoth!

Mmmm reindeer stew :)

Baby Robin

Duckling!

Oh and one more thing to mention. There's a Northern Flicker currently trying to break into the apartment I'm living in. He's cute, but he could at least buy me dinner before trying to move in :P

So rude!

A Baby Lamb, Eh?

So I have unfortunate news, the baby moose did not make it :( He was fighting off a bad infection due to puncture wounds from a barbed wire fence and his left femur was dislocated from the hip joint. We had given him plenty of fluids and antibiotics to fight the infection, and Dr. Hallock had made a sling in hopes that the leg would go back into the socket and stay in place. The antibiotics worked, but the sling didn't. His leg would have kept popping out of that socket, and when you are supposed to grow up to be a 1000 pound moose, you can't have a leg that won't stay in it's hip socket. So yesterday was a very sad day indeed :(

Now for the happy news! (I need to make up for how depressing that first paragraph was). We have a baby Dall's sheep and he is doing quite well! There are two herds of Dall's sheep on the preserve, and one of them is suspected to be contaminated with Johne's (pronounce YO-knees) disease. I had to do a little research, but here's what I found:

Johne's disease is caused by the anaerobic bacteria Mycobacterium johnei and is spread by feces and milk. It affects all ruminants, but it is considered a huge problem in cows due to the fact that it can lead to a reduction in milk production, which can be a big economic problem. Johne's disease can be fatal, but it depends on how well the animal fights the infection and how soon the infection is diagnosed and treated. Now, why the microbiology lesson? Because the lamb we currently have came from the herd that is suspected to have Johne's disease. In order to prevent the lamb from contracting the disease itself, Dr. Hallock actually hand delivered the lamb and brought it into the rehab facility and has been bottle feeding milk ever since. According to his records, the lamb has now been inside for about 20 days. Now that I'm here as an intern, it's my duty to feed him every 4 hours each day and take him outside to play for an hour in an enclosed pasture about 2 or 3 times a day. Let me tell you, he is a rambunctious little guy. Dall's sheep typically live in mountainous areas and this little guy definitely demonstrates the adaptation that these sheep have for climbing up and down rocky terrain. Whenever I take him outside to play, he almost always takes off bounding through the pasture and jumping off the big rocks that are located in the middle. It's really very cute :)

Monday, we're going to try and introduce him into the other herd that doesn't have Johne's disease so hopefully that goes well!