Lucy!

Weasel. It is not always a word with the most admirable of connotations. Associations that commonly spring to mind include: misleading, sneaky, devious, and cowardly.

However, these adjectives hardly describe the weasel inhabiting The Perkins Wildlife Center at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Instead, this weasel's attributes include slenderness, short limbs, and tail that is nearly as long as the rest of her body. Our weasel, or member of the Mustelidae family, is a playful female North American river otter named Lucy.

Lucy was born and raised in an otter habitat and rehabilitation center in Pennsylvania, where she was used as an educational program animal for three years. She was retired from programming and came to live at the museum in 2003. Born in the spring of 1998, Lucy is currently ten years of age. Considering that river otters often live for more than twenty years in captivity, Lucy is still a youthful bundle of energy and is easily one of the most popular of our animals amongst museum visitors.

Lucy can be seen daily in her exhibit, where she spends much of her time frolicking in her pond, exploring enrichment items given to her by the staff, and participating in training sessions. Lucy is very motivated with her training which is important for her physical and mental health. For example, if Lucy needs to go to the vet she is trained to go into a kennel, and the staff preserves this behavior by working with her several times per week. The frequent training also keeps her mentally stimulated and maintains her good relationship with her caregivers.

Enrichment is key to Lucy's vivacious demeanor. Every day the staff gives her various environmental enrichments, which encourage physical activity and stimulate natural behaviors.

Lucy is extremely high-spirited and energetic, and upon observing her play for a few minutes it is easy to understand why a group of otters is called a "romp."

On Saturday, August 2, the Wildlife Resources staff will be holding its Enrichment Day from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. Museum visitors can see Lucy, along with the other animals living in The Perkins Wildlife Center. There will be training and enrichment demonstrations along with a number of hands-on activities. Come see our merry little otter, who of course is not entirely without her mischievous, weasel-like moments!

Michelle Leighty, wildlife specialist

Animal Camp 2008

What an exciting week we had at the Wildlife Resource Center! Friday marked the end of the second annual Animal Camp, run in conjunction with the Gathering Place. Budding animal specialists got to get their hands dirty, literally, caring for and learning about the animals in our collection.

They prepared diets, cleaned enclosures and even provided enrichment for their assigned animals! At the end of the week, parents and loved ones came to listen as the campers gave presentations with their animals, showing off their new knowledge.


Just like last year, the staff and animals really enjoyed working with the Gathering Place kids and we look forward to next year!


Jenny Wilson
Wildlife Specialist

"A doe, a deer, a female deer"

One of the most popular destinations of the Perkins Wildlife Center is the white-tailed deer/wild turkey exhibit. In this naturalistic setting, complete with a waterfall, visitors can get up close and personal with Ohio’s most recognizable wildlife.

A year ago, we were excited to introduce two youngsters to Baby, an adult female, or doe. Although this energetic duo was full of adolescent antics, Baby got along well with them and was quick to show them the ropes. The trio is doing remarkably well, each with their own individual personalities and physical attributes.

Now six years old, Baby displays a rare, but not unheard of condition seen in many species of deer. You see, if you look at Baby, you might assume she is a buck, or male…Baby is sporting antlers, typically only seen in males.

Just like her male counterparts, Baby will grow antlers in the spring and shed them in the winter months following the breeding season, or rut. We anticipate her antlers to get larger each year, so be sure to stop by and see how they have changed from year to year. Despite the fact that one of her antlers is misshapen, they pose no harm to Baby or the other does, as she is a perfectly healthy girl.

Although a species most Ohioans have encountered in their backyard or along the roadside, it has not always been the case; the plight of white-tailed deer in Ohio is one of a number of endangered species success stories. Current estimates place the white-tailed deer population in Ohio around three quarters of a million; however, by the early 1900’s white-tailed deer were extirpated from our state. That means, one hundred years ago, there were no deer in Ohio, hard to imagine. Like all of the animals that call the museum home, Baby, Artemis, and Ginny could not survive in the wild. For some, disease or injury has rendered them non-releasable. The “girls” (as I like to call them) were all orphaned at very young ages and hand-raised, therefore, too dependent on humans to survive in the wild.

So the next time you are at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, be sure to stop by and see Baby, Artemis, and Ginny, three fabulous does.

Robyn Kaltenbach, Senior Wildlife Specialist

Celebrating the 4th of July the wildlife way!

One aspect of a wildlife specialist's job that most people do not realize upon first learning of our career is that animals don't take holidays and therefore wildlife specialists don't always take them either! We take turns celebrating our holidays with all of the critters at the museum because animals need care 365 days a year... You can't take a holiday from eating so someone has to be there to feed them. However, you won't hear complaints from me or any of my fellow coworkers about working holidays because they are very different from our usual day to day work and can be pretty interesting for all involved.

For starters we work a shortened day so we do actually get to spend most of the holiday with the humans in our lives, but for about 4 hours out of that day we are at the museum making sure all of the animals are healthy and well fed. We will, however, change up the feeding habits of some of our animals. For example, since the museum is closed many of our carnivores and omnivores will get an extra special treat in the form of a rabbit. We do this when the museum is closed because it can sometimes be a rather gruesome feeding to watch, but that is the food chain and the way life goes. We never feed live rabbits or any other live food, however, because live food can fight back and potentially hurt some of our animals so everything we feed is dead.

This 4th of July our bobcats and our red fox all received rabbits and showed their excitement over this great enrichment in a couple different ways. Huxley, our red fox, took his rabbit and ran around with it for a few minutes until the wildlife specialists left so he could cache it and come back for it later. This is a behavior red foxes exhibit in the wild when they find a large amount of food and they want to save some for later. They find a good hiding spot, dig a hole, and bury their large prey until they can come back later and finish eating it. Bob, our male bobcat, immediately started chowing down on his rabbit, but Bitty, our female bobcat showed her true natural instincts. She would hunker down and stalk her rabbit and then she'd pounce on it and throw it up in the air like she was catching live prey! This "game" of hers continued on for a few minutes before she finally gave in to hunger and started chowing down like Bob. Her attack on the rabbit though is an example of great enrichment. It keeps her mentally stimulated and keeps those natural instincts sharp and intact. This attack also illustrates what we tell people every day... bobcats do not make good pets!

Feeding out the rabbits is probably the highlight of my 4th of July, but we also make sure all of our other animals are healthy, well fed, have fresh water, and are enriched. One type of animal we definitely cannot forget on this all important holiday is our nation's bird... the bald eagle. Our two eagles on exhibit, Saturn and Venus, were hand fed their diets of fish and rats while our education bald eagle, George, had his food put in a plastic ball with holes stuffed with newspaper and in the center of hula hoops so he really had to work to get his food out. These birds have a higher intelligence level than some of the other birds of prey found at the museum, so we make sure to enrich them a little more often than the others and especially on our nation's birthday for which they serve as a great, patriotic symbol.

So while we wildlife specialists may not spend our 4th of July in the usual way that most people do, we still have a great day even though we are working. Fireworks pale in comparison to hand feeding a real live bald eagle on this special day. We get to leave knowing that the animals we care for were well fed and enriched and we leave pretty enriched ourselves after watching them benefit from all of our hard work.

Nikki McClellan, Wildlife Specialist