News From The Mews

Enrichment is an important part of maintaining a high standard of welfare for our raptors. It helps keep the birds happy. I also provide daily enrichment for the selfish reason of saving me time later. Without alternatives, Otto the Great Horned Owl will find his own enrichment by ripping at perch covers and picking at his equipment. Repairing those items can be costly and time-intensive.  Instead, I proactively provide enrichment to occupy his time instead. He regularly gets his meal served in something he needs to rip up. A rat leg sticking out of a toilet paper tube is one of his favorites.  To make it last a little bit longer, I add layers. The meat-stuffed tube gets wrapped in a sheet of newspaper with another section of paper tying it all together. He loves ripping through the layers to his meal. I just hope these disposable pieces keep him busy enough so I don't need to worry about mew repairs. Got recyclables for raptor enrichment?  We can currently use donations of: - Toil

It is definitely breeding season. Aldo the American Kestrel is always showing off his nest to anyone that walks by, bowing and trilling loudly. But Carson the Red-tailed Hawk is the less ostentatious of the two. She quietly works on her nest, one stick at a time.  In the wild, Red-tailed Hawks build sizable nests by stacking sticks up to 6.5 feet high and 3 feet in diameter. Carson doesn't have access to so many nesting materials, but I provide her with a handful of sticks every spring. (Without these provided materials, she dismantles her perches to use creatively instead!)  Carson spends considerable time moving and arranging these sticks. Sometimes I find a haphazard pile on her highest shelf perch. But her favorite spot seems to be the back corner of the mew on the ground. There she has plenty of space to perfect her nest with carefully placed sticks and even sheets of newspaper that she drags over.  I always feel bad destroying her hard work on cleaning day. When possible, I l

While packing for a reptile program last week, I was worried about getting the snakes in their travel crates. I've been practicing force-free, choice-based training with the snakes. They get the choice to come out to explore instead of me grabbing them and whisking them away.  That's great for lazy Sunday afternoons, but how would it work when we have a scheduled program?  I swung open Emory's habitat door after placing her crate right outside. I pondered for a moment how to transfer the rat snake with minimal stress. Should I use a glove or the snake hook to differentiate this from her free-choice explore time? While I considered my options, Emory poked her head out the door. Her tongue flicked as she ventured farther out. She slid down into the crate and coiled under the log hide spot. She crated herself, coercion-free! It turns out that a few months of practicing the choice to come out helped her be more confident moving into her crate when it really mattered, stress-fre

  We sadly had to say goodbye recently to Scuba the Tiger Salamander. Despite his small size, he had a big impact at the Museum.  Scuba's career here goes back even further than mine - he joined the Museum in 2013. For 11 years, Scuba resided in the Curiosity Center where he taught many children and adults the value of patience as they searched his habitat for the half-buried salamander. Lucky visitors got to see him strike and shake a worm vigorously at feeding time. Scuba also reached families across northern Wisconsin, traveling as far as Turtle Lake, Ashland, and Grantsburg to teach people all about amphibians.  He will be greatly missed!