#caseyinterns

Keeper: Thanks for not being a terrible intern. Me: Thanks for not being a terrible mentor. Keeper: In four years, you're the first person to shoot back at me. Not bad. Me: See? You taught me well. And so ends my time behind the scenes of the kid's zoo. I'll still get loads of time with my goat friends in Public Programs but I'm going to miss the program animals, preparing diets and enrichment, and the friends I've made. But then again, now I can use that day for jobs that pay, or in the meantime, a day off.

When a giraffe first arrived in France as a gift from the viceroy of Egypt, the people nearly rioted to catch a glimpse of her. She became so popular, women began to style their hair and dress in giraffe inspired patterns. Here are five more fun facts about giraffes: 1. Giraffes get only about 2 hours of sleep a night and only 20 minutes of that sleep in considered deep sleep which is taken lying down. Baby giraffes get up to an hour of deep sleep. 2. Although their long necks help them reach leaves up in the canopy, specializing their diets, some scientists believe the neck originally became elongated as the species' legs got longer. Longer legs allow the giraffes to run up to 35 miles per hour to outrun predators and the long neck just evolved with it. 3. Their necks may be long, but giraffes have the same number of vertebrates in their necks as humans! This neck also contains a complex vascular system that prevents blood from rushing to their brains when the lower their heads to drink. Drinking puts giraffes in a vulnerable position because their necks are actually too short to reach water so they have to splay their legs to reach it. Luckily, they get most of their water from the leaves they eat. 4. Male giraffes taste the females urine to determine if she is in heat and ready to mate. When a giraffes is pregnant, gestation is over 450 days (!!!) and the 6 foot baby drops 5 feet to the ground when it's born. 5. Male giraffes often have homosexual sex. Like, as high as 90% of giraffe sex is between homosexual males. There is some debate about why this happens. Some studies suggest it is purely to practice until they are able to breed with the females, or that social hierarchy prevents bulls lower in status from mating, but other scientists suggest that individuals prefer mating with males even when females are available. http://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2014/jan/20/zarafa-giraffe-paris-fashion <-giraffe hairdo article

I miss you, friends!  Being a grown up is overrated.  But you all know that already.  Also goats are great.  Have I mentioned goats?  Goats.

Me: Oh. He was trying to steal things from strollers. After all the people leave, the squirrels run the zoo but they have to wait until darkness falls to emerge from their homes in the trash cans. Darkness is their domain. Otherwise, anarchy.

I explained the water cycle to a kid at the zoo the other day and he said he was never drinking water again. I asked him where he thought it came from and he said he thought someone invented it. There's your scary story.