Category: Exotic Animals

I also had to go in to the enclosure with the Bactrian camels in order to separate out the one we needed to work with. I wasn’t comfortable with this at all, but had little choice in the matter. Once again there were three of us that went in together. Vusi and Bheki had worked with these animals for many years and knew what to watch out for. I decided to keep them between me and the animals, and call out instructions on what to do. In this instance we were trying to get certain of the camels to accept a head halter.

As is normal at a zoo, there are always visitors spending their free time enjoying the sights and unusual animals. Or should that be animals and unusual sights? What happened was this……

Vusi and Bheki were closing in on our selected camel (with me neatly tucked in behind) and trying to entice her to accept the head halter. A party of school children wandered down the road, and the teachers decided that the situation looked decidedly promising, instructed the children to stop outside the enclosure to watch our performance. Now these camels were separated from the public with a split pole fence. There were eleven camels in the enclosure. Our session was going very well, with Bheki having persuaded our camel to have the halter placed on her head (which she had to lower to man height) and being duly rewarded (clicked and treated) by Vusi. Training any large animal is generally a team effort. I was right there with them – well OK – behind them, when one of the male camels decided he didn’t like us on his turf. So he spat and charged. (Ever seen a camel spit? It’s disgusting. Very frothy and bright green. And it stinks.) There was no choice for us – we had to run for it.

As Vusi and Bheki are both considerably younger and fitter than I, they soon outdistanced me (afterwards they told me that they knew I preferred to be behind them, so considerately moved in front of me during our flight). They reached the split pole fence and with skill born of long practice, dived between the slats and landed up back on their feet amongst the children. I took note of their technique as with a final burst of speed I made it to the fence. With gay abandon I hurled myself between the slats (there’s nothing like being chased by a camel to give you a bit of speed). Unfortunately I hadn’t thought to practise this exercise. My top half shot through the gap, my middle connected with the horizontal bar and my legs cannoned out underneath the slat. I ended up in a crumpled heap on top of half a dozen amazed children. The teachers very kindly gathered their charges and moved them off to see the cheetahs – their giggles changing to roars of laughter as they moved down the road. I do hope they remember some of the animals they were taken to look at that day, and not just the sight of me trying to bisect myself on a split pole fence.

Whilst visiting my mother at Sandown Retirement Village in Pinetown, Kwa Zulu Natal, I met a friend of hers who had formed a relationship with a pair of woolly necked storks. These are a very gentle member of the stork family, and although wary appear to be quite happy to interact with humans. The adults have red eyes.

Over the past few years Professor Ken Knight has been putting out food for this pair of storks. During this time he has conditioned them to fly to the Village at 12 noon every day for a meal of chopped chicken bones, or similar type of food. The birds appear on the other side of the little dam at about 10 minutes before the hour, and strictly at 12 noon, they fly across the water and march up to their feeding area. In breeding season, they nest in New Germany, but still make daily visits for their midday meal. On several occasions they have brought their young across to be introduced to Ken and his food. If for some reason the food is not ready on time, the birds will go up to his lounge doors and shout for it. This type of animal training is always mutually rewarding. The birds get a meal provided for them, and Ken and his wife have the pleasure of the birds company.

According to Roberts Birds of South Africa, woolly necked storks “usually occur near water, banks of rivers and lagoons where they wade about feeding, also on open grassland. Seldom settle on trees outside the breeding season and frequently seen standing about apparently in meditation”. These storks naturally feed on insects, crabs, molluscs, fish and lizards. After every meal, the storks go down to the water for a drink before flying off.

I was asked to train an adult female Bengal tigress, who had come to distrust humans in general. She was so suspicious that she would not even enter the night room if there were people in the corridor, There can be no doubt that if by some dreadful mistake someone happened to be in the enclosure with one of these tigers, they would never get out alive. Most wild animals are extremely reactive, and would probably maim you before they were even aware of what they were doing.

I was asked to get a number of behaviours from this tigress by her keeper – she needed to be taught to enter her night enclosure without exhibiting fear or trying to intimidate the keepers. A charging tiger is a terrifying experience to have to face, even with stout bars between one. The first time she charged me it was over before it began – she rushed into the night room screaming her head off, threw herself at the bars level with my head and then disappeared again, the whole process taking about 3 seconds. Bearing in mind that one swat of her paw could kill you, let alone getting chomped between those fearsome jaws, it was not an experience for the feint hearted. And of course if you show fear, you’ve virtually lost the game before it has even started. And so I started to clicker train her…….

Once she was comfortable coming in to the night room (this took two sessions, each of about half an hour), she had to learn to stand on her back legs with her front legs extended above her body. This was so that her stomach and paws could be examined without the necessity of darting (*2) her. Similarly we taught her to lie down close against the bars so that her back and face were clearly visible, and to roll over on her side. She also learned to open her mouth wide and keep it open for a minimum of 10 seconds at a time so that her teeth could be examined.

With clicker training, the training process actually progresses amazingly quickly. The first thing to do is to learn something about the species you are working with – what are its likes and dislikes, what does one need to be aware of, what does the animal like to eat, etc. In the case of the tigress, she was initially frightened by humans in or near her night enclosure. So to get her more relaxed and happy to enter the night room, we simply placed food inside where she could clearly see it from her outside run. The keeper and I would be standing in the corridor running alongside all the night enclosures, positioning ourselves just behind the meat. (and behind the reinforced bars). At all times we and the food were clearly visible to the tigress should she choose to look through the door. The moment the tigress put her head into the night room to see what was what, we would leave. Very quickly she learned that when she entered the night room, we left and she found some tasty meat. The clicker was clicked whilst she ate her meat, thus giving her the association of the sound with something pleasurable (initially our absence and her feeding). After that trust has been established, training went very fast. She learnt to stand on her back legs on cue in about 10 minutes (in this case the cue was a hand held as high as possible on the bars). Even when we stood on tip toe with our hands extended as far about our heads as we could reach, the tigress was far taller than us. Each time she attempted a desired behaviour, she was clicked and treated with a piece of meat impaled on a long stick and pushed through the bars towards her. After about four training sessions, she would come eagerly into the night room to see what cunning trick we had for her to solve today.

This training proved very useful, as the keeper was able to pick up a problem with her eye (a scratch caused by one of the other tigers or a stick), and this was then treated with antibiotics in her food before it became infected and caused a problem. It is interesting to note that once an animal has learned the association between the click and treat, it starts to think about what it is doing to earn the treat. This thinking process in itself often becomes rewarding for the animal, and they really look forward to being given a puzzle to solve to get us to give them their click and treat.

(*2) Darting – a process of shooting the animal with a dart loaded with a sedative. This process can be stressful for the animal, and often results in issues of fear and distrust of humans.