Last Monday, I started training to clean the enclosures of the smaller cats, such as lynx, bobcats, caracals or servals. This means washing their food and water bowls, cleaning the areas of the fence that might have been touched by the food and, most importantly, find and remove poop – yay!

Since we are a no contact facility, we never go into the enclosure of a cat. Instead, we use a long metal pole to scrape the poop towards the fence and then grab it with a barbecue tong and remove it. The enclosures are quite large, and the poop is hard to spot (for an inexperienced new intern like myself) so it feels a bit like easter egg hunting 🙂

Another important purpose of cleaning is to check that all the animals are healthy. We make sure to see them, we talk to them and, if they like us, they may come and say hi! Since they are wild cats, we need to be careful and on alert at all times, they might pounce and growl when you try to “steal” their poop.
Cleaning takes three to four hours per person and per area, and I really like how I get to know the various personalities of the animals in the process of doing it. It’s also fascinating how some of them create little “poop nests” – they hide their poop in neat little piles, often in the same area of their enclosures.

At the beginning of my first day of cleaning, the weather looked quite dry and it was warm, so I didm’t bring any rain gear. Shortly after, it started to pour rain and, within a few minutes, we were completely soaked. It felt like gardening while taking a shower, but unlike gardening at home, we have no choice than to keep going. The next day I was prepared and brought rain boots, a rain jacket and a set of clothes to change.

Wednesday is one of my days off and, when the rain stopped for a bit, I took the opportunity to go out and take a few pictures. It felt so peaceful, quiet and lush, and most of the animals were out of their dens. Moments like these are a huge reward for the hard day-to-day work!

Here are a few pictures, the complete set is posted in flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/swirly/sets/72157636009480285/