Many corporations in Anchorage are very community oriented and not only donate funds but do community service projects. I was lucky to be invited to participate in one of the projects today. It was Zoo Day. We got there at 7:00am and the animals were out enjoying the weather. The red fox was surveying the entrance; the arctic fox came to the bars and stretched his front legs; the wolverine was watching; yaks were stomping; musk ox were standing (although, I don't know what else they do). All were active except the porcupines. They appear to be late sleepers.
The weather could not have been better. Sunny, 75-80 degrees, slight breeze. Perfect for outdoor work. Robert and I started off on a project sealing the administration building. (Yes - with all of the potential animal projects, we are on the building with humans.) This consisted of painting two log cabins with the equivalent of baby oil. Slightly messy but when finished, they looked much better.
Since the team zipped through our project (8 people to do the 2 - one story cabins) we proceeded to the Polar Bear Cage Painting Project. This required the team to paint the very tall bars of the cage with primer and then with white enamel. Sounds easy except the bars had to be 18 feet high and we couldn't use ladders. Everything had to be done with paint brushes, small rollers and small rollers on really long handles.
Lyu was not happy. Lyu is the very big, fully grown, male polar bear. There were strangers in his cage along with nasty paint smells and he couldn't protect. The bear sat at the gate of his inside pen and smacked it hard with both paws for what seemed like hours. He has really big paws (probably 4 times the size of my hand) and big teeth which he gladly showed us when trying to gnaw through the bars. I was amazed at how large he is. I have seen lots of polar bears in zoos before and there is something about being on the other side of the pen, fence, moat, glass, etc. that diminishes their enormous girth when compared to standing three feet away from them.
Ahpun the female was much quieter and more patient. She seemed to be shedding more and I grabbed a handful of hair to bring home with me. (Squirt wasn't that interested.)
Needless to say, there was hair in the paint by the time it was finished. For what it's worth, there was paint in hair (workers) also.
To see the Lyu and Ahpun, check out polar bear cam (if it is working)
We also had the privilege of working next to 2 baby moose. They are so cute and awkward. They were very "chatty" today. I kept hearing a noise and finally figured out it was them bleating. I think they were lonely and wanted to come out to play.
After the bear cage, we moved on to paint picnic tables and then home to clean up for the BBQ.
All in all - a two thumbs up day!
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