Day 1: "Here's what I think of the new intern"

I started my first day at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo today as an Intern Giraffe Zookeeper.  This zoo has the largest giraffe herd in the nation and has a very successful breeding program.  The subspecies, about to be its own separate species in a few months, of giraffe that I am working with are Reticulated Giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis reticulate).

There are 20 giraffes in the herd and one of my challenges as an intern is to be able to identify each one; this is proving to be difficult as they all look identical to me!  But after spending more time with them, I am starting to be able to tell them apart by their coloring, chest patterns, and personalities.  It is humbling as an identical twin to have to tell them apart! So honestly I cannot tell you which one this is yet!

This is my zoo crib.  I am staying IN the zoo during my month here and I can already tell it's going to be crazy.  First there was an epic battle between me and a bunch of moths who think they can live here too.  We have come to some sort of an agreement, which means I have pretty much given up trying to get rid of them all.  Then during the middle of the night the carbon monoxide alarm went off for about 5 seconds--this scared the crap out of me, I had no idea what was happening.  Lastly there were many sounds all night from the exotic birds and snow leopard that lives right by me.  I haven't explored the zoo at night yet, but that is for sure to come.

This is my neighbor and also one of the birds that kept me up all night.

This is the view outside my window.  You can see the famous Broadmoor Hotel below.

Me feeding one of the giraffes on my first day.  The real work begins tomorrow.  After a tour of the zoo and meeting my Zookeeper Allison I called it a day.  There will be more to come soon and probably a lot of poop scooping stories!