Hunter Gleason's Page

Ahh yes, Well I had a good week leading up to the 4th of July, I have really taken a liking to the friendly people who I work with at the zoo. Makes it a lot more fun when everyone is joking around. This week consisted of course of stall cleaning and such, but I got to try out demo this week with the sloth bears. Demo is basically enrichment for the bears, because, by nature sloth bears dig up and eat termites where they live in Sri Lanka. Here at the zoo they have built a fake termite mound that has a hole that leads to the outside wall. That’s where I come in, I connect a tube into the hole, and then with a crate of mealworms (we can’t have termites of course) I put them in my hands so the people can see and the bears suck them out with their extremely fleshy lips making them like giant vacuums. It’s actually very neat. The reason for their fleshy lips is because they have very little nerve endings, thus they can handle the stings of the angry termites with far less suffering. The 4th of July was wild, I went at saw the rehearsal at the Washington memorial on July 3, and there was still a massive crowd. I t was fun they had all kinds of talented musicians, and of coarse sesame street. On the 4th, I helped Leslie set up for her party; it was fun to cook and such. That night the fireworks were spectacular from her roof that has an absolutely unbeatable view of the action. (Sorry was lame and didn’t get any pictures) Then I went out on the town and simply enjoyed the primo people watching with my friend David, who is a intern at the I.T. department. Washington is proving to be a very fun city, iv been attending Sunday drumming jams on sixteenth street, which is where all the people from that neighborhood come together and drum till dusk, and there dancing and soccer, and I got to do some slack lining with some folks I met, but a very fun experience indeed. Well terrific week, defiantly.