Animals I Work With - Coyote

I'm sitting here on lunch at work, where I have all my photos of the work animals stored, and thought this would be a good way to take my break - by sharing pictures of my furry, slimy, and scaley coworkers. We all like seeing animals, right?

I work at a small AZA accredited zoo/nature center that focuses on animals native to the Southeast United States, in particular the region where we're located (a piece of the Appalachian Mountains). We have one notable exotic exception, but for the most part, only a few of our reptiles are found more on the coast rather than the mountains. I'm the primary keeper for the reptiles and amphibians, BUT I do work directly with three mammals, so I thought I'd start with them - the mustelids!

The two North American River Otters are Olive (female) and Obi (male). Olive was born in the wild but orphaned as a pup, picked up by the US Fish and Wildlife, and brought to us where she was raised. She is now 17 years old! She's mostly deaf and blind, and relies a lot on Obi, but still gets around really well. Obi was born at the Pittsburg Zoo and was introduced to Olive as part of the AZA NARO Species Survival Plan, so the intention was that they would have pups, but they never have. He's 12 years old, so both are beyond parenting age now.

(Olive on the left, Obi on the right)
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The other mammal on my string is their extremely tiny cousin, the Least Weasel. Mostly was brought into a local wildlife rehabilitator after suffering an injury, and she was deemed a bad candidate for release after recovery, so she came to us. She's at least 5 years old, though we are not sure when she was born because she was an adult when she was brought in. Despite being a wild-born animal, she's pretty tractable, unlike her predecessors, all of whom had a much more typical mustelid demeanor.  You'll hear least weasels called the "world's smallest carnivore" but I want to clarify that that only means the "smallest member of the order Carnivora" not the smallest animal with a carnivorous diet, obviously.

She's a bit hard to get pictures of, because she rarely stops moving, even when she is in her plastic transport tub!
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. . . more friends on another lunch break! Time to go back to work now, ha!

Ahh, they're lovely! Especially that first photo of Olive and Obi, what adorable faces It's nice to 'meet' your friends from afar, and see what they get up to in their enclosures (I bet those otter pebbles get played with a LOT!)

All three animals are adorable of course, and what a great job! I can't wait to see more of your friends, furry, slimy, or scaly!

How fun it must be to be able to work with animals as your job! Especially mustelids as gorgeous as these!
I love Otters (One of the reasons our youngest goldie shares her name with this mammal!), and Obi and Olive look like such fun playful otters to work with! They have such sweet faces as George said, I love the last photo!
Such a sweet little Weasel too, she looks very lively and full of fun too! I'm so glad you could help her from her injury and she is now cared for by someone as kind as you!

You're surely lucky of having such an exciting job. It is certainly a pleasure awaking early every day to visit your friends. I love these animals, otters are usually very playful and weasels quite energentic, especially when they are playing with rabbits. Thanks for sharing your paradisiac job with us.

Ah- Ring of Bright Water was one of my favorite books as a child! Love them!

Very cool job :)

Thanks all, it really is an amazing job. The road to it was a twisting one for sure, but I am super grateful to be here now! Even on "bad" days I can always say, well here are some otters!

pipsxlch wrote:

Ah- Ring of Bright Water was one of my favorite books as a child! Love them!

A friend of mine used to talk about how much she loved that book, and how much the ending of the movie adaption traumatized her as a child.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] that's a great name for a golden. :)

Ah! A River otter neighbor of mine from my hometown zoo! I remember when Obi was born here, although I did not know his name. Wonderful to see where he’s ended up and to know that he’s in good hands! All of these animals are so adorable and sweet.

Oh wow, that's incredible! He was named Mo at the time. Thanks for letting me know you remember him, that's a neat connection to make. :)

Great job and great photos!! I worked with British wildlife in the past and the only mustelids I have handled were a European badger and an American mink!

One of my favorite animals to work with are snakes, and we have a lot of them, so I'll introduce them in groups.

Our region of the country has only two native venomous snakes* - the Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) and the Northern Copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix mokasen). They are both pit vipers, which means they are easy to identify among our colubrids. Further south and east, there are water moccasins, coral snakes, pygmy rattlesnakes, and canebrake timbers, but none of these survive in the mountain climate (yet - our temperatures are rising every year).

*The garter snake and the hognose are special exceptions, but both have a very mild toxin and are not dangerous to humans. So for educational purpose we do not lump them into the venomous category.

The Northern Copperhead is Penny, a female. She was a wild caught individual "rescued" from someone's property. In many cases, people are far more willing to kill a copperhead than allow it to be removed, so we consider this animal lucky. She turned out to be gravid when she arrived, so then we had baby copperheads! If you're not familiar with the species, copperheads are ovoviviparous, which means they give live birth, so there was no opportunity to discard the eggs or incubate them elsewhere - we were going to have babies. All ended up released back into the wild, while Penny stayed with us. She is estimated to be about 13 years old.

Here she is looking as dramatic as possible. Snakes don't "yawn" per say - when you see a snake with its mouth open, it's likely doing one of two things: realigning its third jaw bone and ligaments after eating, or using the Jacobson's organ on the roof of the mouth to collect sensory information. Or maybe just stretching.
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And here she is looking a little less dignified a few moments later.
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Copperheads are the most common snake bite in this part of the world, but very few people die from the bite. Most of these bites happen because people step on them without realizing or get close trying to kill them. Copperheads are not aggressive animals by nature, and one of the most important parts of my job, as I see it, is to dispel a lot of the mythology that surrounds them and other snakes.

Penny is actually quite docile. We move both the venomous snakes using hooks and a great deal of safety protocol, though, just in case. Here she is being an absolute angel on the hook.
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Our other viper is Dorris the Timber Rattlesnake. He's a male, but was named before the sexes had been determined. There used to be three together: Horace, Dorris, and Borris. Dorris is the only one left. He's an estimated 26 years old! I don't know his story in full, but I imagine it is similar to Penny's.
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Rattlesnakes are a more dangerous bite, but it's much less common to get bit by one. Not that they are uncommon, but they aren't around populated areas as much. Plus they let you know they're there! Again, in case you're not familiar with the species, the "rattle" is actually made of separate hollow segments that rub together to make the hissing sound. Each "button" is formed when the snake sheds.

Dorris is also extremely good natured. He is difficult to move with a hook these days because his arthritis does not allow him to curl around it, plus he weighs about four pounds. It takes two people to move him in and out of the enclosure as needed.
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Sorry if that was just a lot of random information you guys already knew. Snakes are a special interest of mine, and I have a hard time not info-dumping about them.

Taos wrote:

Great job and great photos!! I worked with British wildlife in the past and the only mustelids I have handled were a European badger and an American mink!

I've never encountered either! Both would be super cool animals to get a chance to work with. One of my coworkers in a weasel-enthusiast, and always talks about how she would run a Mustelid only zoo, if she could.

Both of those snakes are STUNNING! Pit vipers are one of my favorite snake groups. I am not super comfortable around snakes because I didn't grow up with reptilian pets really, but I appreciate their place in ecosystems and think they need more accurate info dispersed on them so people can learn to cope and live with them. Great info dump, it was a great refresher course on how amazing these individuals and their species really are!

Even more exciting! Those creatures are always impressive, even to who is already used to them, i guess.
I love to read all the stories and I enjoy these remarks, we probably are aware of some things but often I read and I forget so it is good to revive these curious details.

Really interesting to read, you work with some wonderful snakes! I love the photos too, some beautiful close-up shots!

Gorgeous photos of even more brilliant animals! I love snakes, they're amazing creatures. Enjoyed the 'meet and greet'.

When my family moved north, my little brother's playmate's family was frightened of a lovely garter snake that fell into their pool. I rescued and kept for a few months what turned out to be a she, when I got to watch her birth 15 little ringnecked black worms. We had acreage, so I released mom and babies into some bushes next to the barn.

Great photos and wonderful snakes!!!Oh, I also for got to mention that I worked with ferrets,lots of ferrets!!!!

Thanks everyone, it's nice to hear appreciative words for them for once.

pipsxlch wrote:

When my family moved north, my little brother's playmate's family was frightened of a lovely garter snake that fell into their pool. I rescued and kept for a few months what turned out to be a she, when I got to watch her birth 15 little ringnecked black worms.  We had acreage, so I released mom and babies into some bushes next to the barn.

Amazing! They must have been absolutely adorable. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] ferrets are fun! I worked at a facility once that has an exhibit of domestic ferret, which is unusual of course for a zoo. But since they were domestics, we had an excuse to go for unnatural exhibit design, like tubes and ladders and what not, which made it super fun.

Our rat snake exhibit houses four snakes currently: three black rat snakes (Pantherophis obsoletus) and a corn sake or red rat snake (Pantherophis guttatus). Someday, the corn snake will move into a different enclosure, but for now, they all live together. There are two female black rat snakes, Fussy and Reg, one male black rat snake, Lucius, and the corn snake is Kettle.

Fussy and Reg were both juveniles when they were brought through our wildlife rehabilitation program. Fussy is so named because she has two places where her vertebrae are fused, so she was labeled "FUS" on her chart, which became Fussy. Reg was distinguished from her as having a "regular spine" so, "REG." Both are doing well these days and are estimated to be around 10 years old.
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Fussy is very dramatic snake. She has actually escaped several times, and if there is anywhere in the enclosure that can serve as an escape hole, she lets us know. Thankfully, with the recent renovation of the habitat, I think we've gotten them all.
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She's definitely the best at exploring.
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Lucius (Lucy) is super unique, because, obviously, he's a white black rat sake. He's leucistic, so unlike an albino/amelanistic animal, he has blue eyes instead of pink. He's about six feet long, and has only one eye, and that eye is "buggy" - both probably a result of his mutation. His coloration and his eye problems are why he is with us. Totally white animals rarely live long in areas with predators. he estimated to be 12 years old.
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Kettle was actually born here. We had two corn snakes housed together that our vet thought were two males (snakes are difficult to sex). Turned out one was definitely a female, and she laid a clutch of fertile eggs. One of our staff decided to incubate them at home, with success. Two of them came to our facility (Kettle and Caramel, who works in the education department), and the rest found homes elsewhere - one with me! Milo, my corn snake, is Kettle's full sister. They'll be 9 in September. Pop, their father, retired to my house as well, where he lived to a ripe old 23!
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And here are just some cute photos of everyone hanging out. Black Rat Snakes are our most common or at least most often seen snake in this area. They very docile, even in the wild, and can usually be carried out of pathways or houses or wherever they show up without trouble.
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(there are actually 5 snakes in that photo, but Big, who is 25, has retired behind the scenes because he is too arthritic to climb)

Phantastic pics

Oh they're great, I like rat snakes and love corn snakes - nothing against the vipers but I tend to rank my favourites by how nice their scales feel to handle (with number one being the sunbeam snake - so velvety!)

Beautiful snakes again and it was so fun reading about them all! That close-up shot is stunning too!
Lucy has to be my favourite though, what an unusual and interesting colour, she really stands out and must be wonderful to watch!

They are beautiful- of course Kettle is, but we don't have black rats around here. What beauties! And they sound like really neat snakes I'd enjoy seeing around my place.

My sister will be happy to hear about Pop living to be 23- she dreads the day her Worm passes. That is a well loved snake.

Besides corns, we have yellow rats here. They have a nervous snippy reputation, but a big wild one had me trained when I worked for a rat breeder. As I was up on a stepladder cleaning/feeding the tubs of rats (or mice), it would come out on a beam and follow me around, getting within a couple feet of me. Never acted aggressive, just attentive. I started offering it a rat, and it would take it in a slow almost gentle manner, not striking out like it was frightened. After 2 or 3 rats, it would wander away to be seen next week. What a cool and lovely creature it was, made me feel honored.