When I pulled into work this morning, my plan for the blog was to talk about how it officially feels like spring-time on Jamie’s side of the building. Some panels were taken off the Greenhouse last week and this opens up the opportunity for caregivers to serve meals outside, to better see the chimps and their interactions, and participate in enthusiastic games of chase with a certain someone (ahem, Burrito). It was going to be beau-ti-ful. This all changed, though, when caregiver Katelyn and myself were cleaning the playroom and heard the tell tale sign of something slithery and sinister.
We heard Annie alarm calling and went out to see what was wrong. The chimps (except for Negra, who was in the greenhouse) were all out near a platform on Young’s Hill. We could tell they had discovered a snake and we even saw Jamie grab and throw it. Thankfully, our team has worked on recall with Jamie’s group for this exact reason and we were able to get all 7 chimps off of Young’s Hill. This was my first ever snake-on-the-hill scenario and I have to be honest- searching through tall grass for an unidentified slithery someone is not on the top of my list of preferred activities, but we grabbed the snake catcher and were on our way. Anthony and I took part in the snake search and it involved many renditions of “Who ya gonna call? Snake-busters!”.
Anthony snagged this photo of myself on the hill with our snake catcher, our tool that allows us to humanely grab the snake while we get the tote in place.
After a little while searching, we spotted the two (!) slithery fiends. Can you find them? Extra points if you can, the photo is from my phone and is very pixelated.
When we got off the hill, Jamie and Annie were waiting to see whether we had been successful.
And we had been! I was able to catch one of the snakes, while the other one went sprinting up the hill. We continued the search, but it had sped up, off, and away. Anthony took our little friend and released it away from the chimp house after I snagged this photo of it from the top of the snake capture tote. Thankfully, it was a non-venomous racer (Coluber constrictor)… and I am officially adding snake catcher to my list of skills.
While this isn’t the first snake we’ve seen this year, and it won’t be the last, it is reassuring that it was non-venomous and that we were able to get it off the hill. Since it was such a beautiful day and we were already on the hill, we decided to make the most of it and have a hill forage!
Burrito enjoying some avocado on Young’s Hill.
Jody brought her loot back into the Greenhouse, where she could watch the rest of the group participate in the forage.
Jamie with a mouth and hand full of peppers, climbing to the top of a Young’s Hill structure.
Annie having a quiet moment after foraging.
Happy Sunday, everyone!
