News From The Mews

Digger the hognose snake certainly lives up to her name. Each morning I see holes in her bedding where she tunneled through. Due to the front-opening doors on her habitat, her bedding is only 2-3 inches thick. Would she like a deeper place to dig?  I filled a pan with about 5 inches of aspen chips and added it to Digger's habitat. She was immediately curious and looped around it. The next day, I spied a tunnel emerging from the deep pan. I haven't seen any sign of her using it since, but at least she gave it a try!

Last week, I wrote about encouraging autonomy in children . I had read a parenting book chapter that made me think of little ways to empower my daughter to do things on her own. Then I saw a quote shared on social media that shifted that same idea to the animals in my care: “Let’s think hard…What are the things we do for the animals that they could do better for themselves?” - Jon Coe This made me think: what could Carson the Red-tailed Hawk do for herself? What choices could we give her? I typed the quote author into a search engine and found that Jon Coe is a zoo planner and designer. Much of his published works center around environmental enrichment. One of the designs featured on his website is an artificial rock formation in a lion exhibit. The large boulders naturally provide sunny basking spots and private shady spots. The lions can choose which microclimate they prefer and how visible they want to be. This is vastly different (and an incredible improvement in welfare) compared...

I read through a parenting book chapter on encouraging autonomy. After all, that's one of the most important goals of raising little humans: they should be able to function on their own one day. How do we get there? By letting them solve their own problems and learn from mistakes. But that's easier said than done.  "How could I let my children make mistakes and suffer failure when all they had to do was listen to me in the first place?" As I watch my 14-month old daughter explore more of her world, I can see mistakes before they happen and constantly want to correct her: "Carry the bucket by the handle, not the lid." "Hold onto the door frame to step over the bump." "Watch where you're going while you're walking." If she would just listen to my infinite wisdom, she wouldn't drop the bucket, trip and fall over the door threshold, or walk into the side table. But that's not how she'll learn. The book chapter encouraged m...

I have a friend who shares AI-generated photos on her Facebook page with this challenge: how can you tell this photo is not real? Sometimes it's as obvious as a woman's third arm. Sometimes the clues are more subtle, like shadows cast in different directions. As AI becomes more popular, it is an important skill to spot phony images and be critical of trusting AI-generated content. An animal trainer recently published a paper reviewing a training framework called the Constructional Approach. In one of her live video chats, she shared an AI-generated slide presentation summarizing her paper. I've been confused about her approach since hearing about it, and the AI clip clarified some concepts for me. It was a nice synopsis with fancy-looking graphics. I was impressed. But then I looked back at the slides with a more critical eye. Can you spot the AI graphics that made me scratch my head?  1st image: Why is the banana thinking? What is it thinking? It appears to be a lightbulb...