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So I finally got to go back to the zoo after so many weeks from being away. Of course everything had to fall apart while I was gone. I think about 10 animals died at the reptile house, and probably more won't make it much longer. Not only that, but the vet doesn't know why they are dying. They just are turning up dead. Very suspicious, very disconcerting on my part. Hopefully whatever it is isn't contagious to humans...

Anyways, so the new red panda, Yin, when up on exhibit last month, and after a few days she escaped. No big surprise, the only thing keeping her from the rest of the grounds is a 2 foot hight plexiglass wall. So nobody was shocked when this highly arboreal animal simply climbed the wall. So the director thought he would outsmart the panda, and put hotwire on the inside of the wall, so she can't climb it. So the zookeeper and I are in the exhibit, the first time I had been there, and we are wandering around looking in the couple trees, trying to find the panda. While we are looking we get a call on the radio, saying that someone had spotted the panda in a tree by the duckpond. And hence, the chase ensued.

The panda was in a tree on the edge of the pond, so all the zookeepers got together with a bunch of nets and a container to put her in when she is caught. While the smart plan was to simply wait it out, since Yin hadn't been fed since yesterday and lure her down with food, the big macho elephant keepers decided they were going to take things into there own hands. One of the keepers climbed the tree and cut the branch that the panda was on down. While the red panda lives almost entirely in trees, so it was no problem for it to simply jump to a different branch, run down the tree, and run off. With the entire zookeeping staff chasing her. So we all ran after her until she ran up another tree. Unfortunately I never saw whether or not they were able to get her down from that tree, because I had to go. But when I left the zoo director was planning on climbing the tree (which is very stupid because red pandas are very vicious when they are cornered). I was rather disappointed because I was really looking forward to seeing the director (whom I really dislike) get his face clawed off by a panda, but I had to leave. Oh well, I'm sure it will be in the newspapers tomorrow. Just one more day in the life of a zookeeper.