The Rut

Alot of the deer here at Dartmoor are starting to lose their velvet off their antlers, the sika deer have lost all their velvet now and the fallow and reindeer are starting to lose their's.

The growing antlers of deer are covered by skin and hair and is composed of cartilage with a rich blood supply, this makes them quite sensitive when they are touched. The antlers can grow up to an inch a day! The growth stage is called the 'velvet antler' because the skin and hair give it a velvet feel which is very soft. Once they have lost all their velvet the antlers calcify and become insensitve bone, breeding occurs around this time, which is known as 'the rut'. Around November to December time the male reindeer antlers drop off but the females keep their's until spring time once they have given birth. This is so that the females can defend the best grazing as they will hopefully have a baby on the way to feed.

Yesterday morning we moved our reindeer from their stable to their outside paddock and noticed that Blitzen our male had lost a few bits of velvet off his antlers but when we walked past early afternoon we saw that he had rubbed the majority of the velvet off. At this time of year the male's can become quite stubborn and now we will have to be very careful when we walk him around. At the moment he is fine with us walking him but we will monitor him daily and if he starts getting aggressive with us we will leave them in their night paddock and just take the girls for their walk every day.

Volunteers Wanted

Here at Dartmoor we are looking for some volunteers to help on the animal department. We are looking for people who are reliable, physically fit and able to be trusted to work on their own when needed. We need people who can work 8am - 5pm, it doesn't matter how many days a week you can work as long as it's a set day each week. The more days the better for us as it takes a while to train people up.

Duties will include:

• Helping the keeping staff with their rounds such as feeding and cleaning the animals


• Preparing feeds


• Public talks


• General tidying of the park


• Helping the education department

At the present time we have one volunteer gardener, Mike, who comes in and works his way around the park tidying the flower beds, raking leaves and doing any gardening work he feels needs doing. We are very grateful to him for giving up his time and helping us, as the keepers are kept very busy with the animals and don't always have enough time to do these jobs. If anyone would like to help Mike we are sure he would welcome it as it's quite a big job he has to do! The days and hours are not as important as on the animal section so any free time people have to pop in would be great.

Please contact the zoo if you are interested in volunteering or email will.walker@dartmoorzoo.co.uk

Monkey Mayhem

Here at Dartmoor Zoo our current Vervet Monkey enclosure is long overdue a major overhaul. The current enclosure is one of the oldest in the zoo and although the monkeys have plenty to do we would like to upgrade it and give them a larger home. Modern zoo standards have many more guidelines that zoo's have to adhere to these days. In order to comply we have proposed a new site just around the corner of their current enclosure, opposite the wolves. There is currently an empty enclosure in its place which will be removed and the new monkey enclosure will incorporate the whole wooded area. This will provide our troop with a much larger area to play, including three fully mature trees and a vast amount of natural enrichment for them.

In order to do this the keepers and education department are organising a fund raising week during the half term from Saturday 24th October - Sunday 1st November, this will include:

• Cake sales, on an animal theme



• Animal fancy dress



• Face painting



• Catch the monkey



• Monkey quiz treasure hunt and trails



• Raffles with great prizes



• Monkey guy competitions for school
  and much more!

We have put next to our current monkey enclosure a board with some information about our proposed design and also a collection box as we need to raise at least £4500! Any donation, however small is gladly accepted and we hope you are able to visit us during Monkey Mayhem Week.

Reptilian Romance

At the beginning of July, we received two new additions to the classroom. A baby Herman Tortoise and a female Yemen Chameleon both of whom have been doing very well.

It has now come to the time for Temani, our Yemen Chameleon to breed. It is recommended that female Yemen Chameleons are given the opportunity to breed as fertile eggs are less likely to lead to a Chameleon becoming egg bound than infertile eggs. Becoming egg-bound can be very dangerous for Yemen Chameleons and is potentially fatal.

As we do not have a male Yemen Chameleon, we asked a local reptile shop if we could take Temani to their male for an afternoon. They were more than happy to help as they had a suitable male.

The meeting was successful and we hope that in 30 to 40 days she will lay some eggs.

Blotch tries to kill the Boomer ball

We thought you would like to see these photographs of one of our Amur tigers, Blotch, apparently attempting to drown and suffocate a large boomer ball! They were taken at lunchtime today. Tigers, unlike most other cats, enjoy water and Blotch was oblivious to the fact that she was also splashing guests in her excitement! We provide our animals with enrichment such as Boomer balls to challenge them and to encourage natural behaviours. Blotch appeared to be treating the ball like a prey animal and would not let her younger brother Vladimir, or her twin sister Stripe, too close to it! For a few minutes at a time Blotch would grapple with the ball and attempt to take it up onto the bank. If it slipped out of her grip she would reach out and pull it back in again and under control.

As mentioned in an earlier blog we hope to give the tigers a hanging boomer ball soon. They clearly provide a good workout, keeping the carnivores fit and mentally stimulated.