THE LEGEND LIVES ON!

It is not easy sharing a work space with a major celebrity but someone has to pander to his every whim and control his adoring fans so it may as well be me I suppose.


The legend that is Harrison the Box Turtle, was called upon again this week to grace the local media with his presence. This guy has more publicity than Paris Hilton (and he is far better looking!)


They wanted a reprise of his publicity role for our Critter Cam exhibit. Of course when it comes to getting more screen time, he is always happy to oblige!


We headed out to WGN and Harrison did a thorough tour of the studio, just to check everything out, introduced himself to the camera crew (just to make sure they got his best angle), met the presenters and then he was ready to do his piece.


And here it is. (you will have to excuse the first piece of film that they show, they mixed things up and showed the Blandings turtles swimming, not Harrison, he is terrestrial not aquatic.) I think you'll agree he did an excellent job. Of course he added another adoring female fan to his collection as the presenter was totally taken with him!
As a reward for all his hard work he was compensated in true celebrity style with some tasty snacks and a pretty young lady box turtle - well he does have his image to maintain!!!


Photo Credits - CJT

ANOTHER STRING TO MY BOW! (Not for the faint of heart!)

I always say that my job is a rather random series of tasks with the only common link being animals. In my life I have successfully wormed dogs, cats, horses, snakes and, when I lived in Africa, myself. But on Friday I had to worm four EXTREMELY unwilling box turtles. Claire, one of our Box Turtles had been appearing a little below par so I took her to the vet for a check-up and he found a couple of pin-worms in her fecal so he suggested that it would probably be a good idea to worm them all just to be on the safe side. He demonstrated how to do it with Claire and then sent Jamie and I back to the Museum with the wormer for the remaining four turtles. 'Good luck' was his parting shot! Hmmm that can't be good! So how many people does it take to worm a turtle? The answer is three!
First hold the turtle upright so that it stretches it's neck forward.


Then very quickly grasp the turtle round the back of the neck, below the jaw and hang on tight as they try to pull their head into their shell.


Turtles have a very hard beak so this next step looks worse than it actually is.


Insert a metal spatula between the upper and lower mandible and force open the jaws.


Bear in mind that this is called the 'sword swallowing technique' so you have a good idea what is coming!


Very gently slide the syringe all the way down the turtle's throat


Then slowly depress the plunger to administer the medicine


Then slowly and carefully remove the syringe


Hold the turtle upright for a few moments more to avoid them 'loosing' all the medicine and tell them how sorry you are for having to do something so horrid to them!


Take a deep breath and repeat for the remaining turtles! Just another day at the office..........


Photo Credits - Otter

HARRISON DOES IT AGAIN!

I have posted about our media hungry Box Turtle, Harrison before. He has done various TV pieces over the years and he seems to relish all the attention. His latest project is as our promo-guy for our current exhibit, the National Geographic, Critter Cam. We got a tiny little spy camera which is light enough that it doesn't inhibit him at all and he made a little video piece which I posted recently.
Last Saturday Harrison and I had a very early morning as we headed down to the NBC studios for an appearance on the morning show. As usual he was a total star and won the hearts of all the lady presenters. Unfortunately the link that they sent us of the piece is very swirly and I have not managed to work out how to download it onto my blog. However he did do another piece for a local college media website and I do have the link for that here. (Sorry about the occasional pixilation on the video.)
Is this turtle a natural celebrity or what!?


Photo Credits - CJT

HARRISON'S FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME

I have mentioned before that we have a particularly charismatic box turtle at the Museum called Harrison. During the warm summer months I try to get him and the female turtles some time outside whenever possible to give them some natural sunlight and enrichment.


We are soon going to be having a new temporary exhibit from National Geographic called Critters Cams which shows all the research projects that have and are being done around the world using small cameras attached to various different species of animals. In order to publicize this upcoming exhibit we were racking our brains for an novel idea and one afternoon when I was out in the park with Harrison, watching him rambling around, I came up with the solution. Enjoy!



Here is the star with his special tiny, lightweight camera attached.


Needless to say the local media are delighted with the publicity potential of this piece so Harrison is likely to become even more of a legend!


Photo Credits - CJT
Video Credits -
Filming - Harrison
Editing - Brian
Voice-over - CJT

ABC WEDNESDAY

Well I have been looking forward to 'H' in ABC Wednesday ever since I started. It was a no brainer for me, it had to be.... H is for Harrison. For those of you that have followed my blog for a while, you will have already been introduced to him, but for more recent readers, I hope you will become as hooked on this hilarious character as the rest of us have.
Harrison is an Eastern Box Turtle Terrapene carolina carolina. He lives at the Museum where I work and his home is in my Lab. He is a hard working turtle and he takes his duties very seriously. He is used for public programs, introducing city children to live animals, up close and personal. He also goes out to schools for special programs and partakes in classes at the Museum for home schooled children. He is also rather a celebrity, he has been on TV a number of times and he is a shameless poser whenever a camera is around!


We also have four female box turtles all of whom Harrison adores, however the feeling isn't mutual so his conjugal visits are limited in order to preserve the ladies sanity! Lets just say Harrison isn't exactly subtle in his advances! Harrison has a half log tunnel in his cage which turtles usually use to hide under, but not Harrison, he sits on top of his and watches everything that goes on in the Lab as you can see from the picture above.
When we clean out his cage we let him free range around the Lab. In order to make sure he doesn't get tripped over, he has his own special sign.



When he is wandering around the Lab he usually comes round to check out my desk and then goes to the windows of the Lab which reach down to the ground, because if there is one thing that Harrison likes to look at, it is his reflection! Not that I am suggesting he is vain or anything like that!! Lets just say he knows just how handsome we all think he is!!
In the summer when it is nice and warm outside I take him out into the park for a little R & R.


He really seems to enjoy these changes of routine. He likes to ramble off across the grass and he is surprisingly quick for a turtle.


When he has done with stretching his legs, he likes to explore a bit


He also likes to stare down the local Squirrels and Canada Geese and they always loose courage because they can't work out why there is a little rock walking towards them.
Of course there is always time to stop and pose for the camera too


He is very good at posing. We recently had a camera man at the Museum who was working to put together a video for our annual charity event and I was asked to bring out an animal. Of course I chose Harrison and he had the cameraman hooting with laughter because every time he put the camera down, Harrison would walk straight up to it and stare into the lens!


I suspect that Harrison has a slight identity crisis and thinks he is a dog! He seems to really love interacting with people, especially ladies!! He loves having his head rubbed and weirdest of all he cuddles with me! Yes really! He will see me walk past his cage and come running to the front of it and start banging on the door so that I don't ignore him. When I open the door he climbs out onto me and stands on my chest with his head tucked under my chin - now I find that a little odd for a turtle. Don't get me wrong, I love it but it just doesn't strike me as turtle type behavior! He is very entertaining though. We have all fallen for the charms of this funny character!

For many more 'G' posts, check out ABC Wednesday.

Photo Credits - CJT

GIRLS DAY OUT

In a previous post I had mentioned that Harrison the box turtle had a hareem of four ladies, well today it was their turn to go out for a walk in the park. Above is Charlie. We all have a soft spot for Charlie, she was not given the correct balance of nutrients when she was younger (before she came under our care) and so her shell didn't develop properly. If you see her from behind she looks rather like one of those infamous Britney Spears photos where everything is 'hanging out!' Obviously in the wild she would not survive but we are very happy to have her here at the Museum.This is Claire (above). When we took them outside the parks workers had just dumped a huge pile of wood mulch and of course the girls thought this was wonderful. Charlie spent her time climbing up to the top of the heap and sliding back down again - who said that animals don't have a sense of fun?! Pretty Girl immediately buried herself (below.)
Whilst Claire and Gorgeous spent their time tunneling into the mulch and popping back out again. This is Claire peeping

And this is Gorgeous.
When they tired of that they climbed to the top of the pile but by this time Charlie had laid claim to being 'Queen of the Heap' and kept chasing away all trespassers! They seemed to have a great time, Charlie was actually not ready to come in and kept trundling away every time we went to pick her up. We promised that we would take them all out again very soon.

Photo Credits - CJT

HARRISON DOES LINCOLN PARK!

Harrison seems to be by far the most popular character that I have blogged about, so here he is again. One of the things I try to do, where possible, is provide the animals in my care with a little enrichment and for the Box Turtles this involves walks in the park.When the weather is nice and sunny, not too hot and not too cold I carry one of them outside and let them wander around for a while. Today was perfect so it was Harrison's turn.He seems to really enjoy the change of scene, he actually moves surprisingly fast too! I usually start him off in a spot that is on the edge of shade so he has a choice of sun or shade, he normally heads very determinedly out into the full sun and snuffles around in the grass.Today, of course, was different because as soon as he saw I had a camera, the posing began. If you have read my previous posting about Harrison you will remember that he cannot resist posing when there is a camera around!Here he is setting off across the park (above) he has been known on previous excursions to face down squirrels and Canada geese! Nothing like that today, just a rather startled sparrow that didn't quite know what to make of this moving rock!Trees are usually a great source of exploration and this one is a particular favorite because it has an almost turtle sized hollow in it.After having thoroughly checked it out, it was back to posing for the camera again! We spent over forty-five minutes outside but when it was time to come back in he went trundling off across the grass again. As usual when we did come back inside he took a quick bathe and now is relaxing on top of his log.I guess he doesn't have such a bad life!

Photo Credits - CJT

THE (OTHER) LOVE OF MY LIFE!

I suspect working with animals is rather like working with children in that one should really try to avoid favorites. However it is almost inevitable that certain characters are just more appealing than others. This would certainly be the case with me and Harrison. Harrison is a male Eastern Box Turtle Terrapene carolina carolina and he first came to my attention when I was a volunteer at the nature museum. He was kept in a very small tank and really was pretty inert. A number of years later I started working at the museum and Harrison was still in his little tank and still rather a non-entity. Eventually I was promoted to a position where I made the decisions about how and where the animals were housed and one of my first priorities was to get Harrison an 'upgrade.'
Harrison now resides in a much larger enclosure with his own 'bath', hide box and log tunnel and boy what a change in personality! When I talk about a turtle with character people tend to look at me as if I am somewhat crazy, that is until they meet Harrison. Harrison is an incorrigible flirt and loves visitors. If a new person comes in to the lab I will walk up to Harrisons cage and say 'hey you have got visitors' he will immediately rush up to the front of the cage and demand that it be opened by banging against it. He especially likes lady visitors and will gaze deeply into their eyes!
Now it is slightly disconcerting when he gazes into your eyes because his eyes are a very bright orange which none of these photos really do justice to! He also has a passion for the ladies of his own species too. We have four female box turtles at the museum and although none of them share Harrisons 'enthusiasm' they do get to take it in turns to do their tour of duty with Harrison! If ever there was a turtle porn star then Harrison is it! Any one who tries to tell you that animals do not mate for pleasure and only do it to reproduce have not seen Harrison in action! He really is a shocking exhibitionist and I swear all he needs is a cigarette in the corner of his mouth to complete the entire decadent picture!! Because he is so keen, none of the females have to stay with him for more than one night at a time and invariably when we come into the lab in the morning Harrison will be sleeping blissfully and whichever of the females is in there will be in the furthest corner away from him, firmly locked up inside their shell! (The reason box turtles are so named is because they have a hinged plastron which means they are able to close their shell up so tightly that you can't even get a knife blade between the two halves.) The female turtle is rescued and returned to the 'girls cage' and Harrison goes back to a celebate life for another week or two. If you leave him too long without a visit from the ladies he gets very fractious and bashes at the front of his cage and tries to climb out and find one for himself!
When we are cleaning the turtles cages we let them have a free run of the lab and in order to ensure that no one trips over them we have a custom sign. Although as far as Harrison is concerned it is not entirely accurate as he is surprisingly fast for a turtle! (Of course Harrisons time for roaming around the lab is not the same time as when the females are out!) They are fed as varied a diet as we can get for them, with a full range of fresh fruit and vegetables that changes depending on what is in season. At present we are getting blackberries which are a particular favorite and they all end up with purple smeared all over their faces from the juice. They also get mealworms, waxworms, earthworms and crickets. Harrison, being a true red blooded male finds all the fruit and veg vastly overrated and much prefers to eat just the meat!!
Harrison is also an outrageous media whore. One of his favorite members of the museum staff is a very attractive young blond lady who works in the marketing department. She is responsible for booking any media events for us. A while back we were promoting a reptiles exhibit that we had at the museum and we were going down to one of the local TV studios with some live animals to do a piece. The young lady came in to the lab to tell Harrison that he was going to be on TV (Yes Harrison has that kind of standing within the museum!) Needless to say he seemed to respond in a way that would suggest that he thought this was a good thing. Anyway as it turned out the piece was changed slightly and Harrison was no longer required. I went off to the studio with the requested animals, did the piece and came back to the museum. Harrison was in the back corner of his cage (which he never does) with his back towards us (which he also never does) and his head pulled into his shell (totally unheard of for him!) And before you say anything - I KNOW - I am not supposed to anthropomorphosise! But, Harrison was sulking. I called the girl from marketing and she came over to try and apologize and very slowly Harrison forgave her and after talking to him for about fifteen minutes he eventually turned round, came to the front of the cage and had his customary head scratch! Something that would usually takes about fifteen seconds!
A couple of weeks later we had another media request which was going to take place on site and I suggested that it might be a good thing to include Harrison this time. It was an early morning call but Harrison was more than ready for his close up! When we arrived one of the camera men had put his camera down on the ground and the first thing Harrison did when I put him on the floor was rush straight up to it and start posing in front of it! He was kept busy with that for quite some time but none of us really had the heart to tell him that it wasn't switched on! After the filming was finished and we returned to the lab, Harrison climbed up on to the top of his log tunnel (his favorite vantage point) and gazed out on the world contentedly for the rest of the day! Only I could end up with a star struck turtle!!
All that being said, in spite of, or maybe because of being an outrageous flirt, having a gargantuan sexual appetite, refusing to eat his greens and being media hungry he is a truly delightful character who invariably brings a smile to my face and makes each day just that little bit better.
Thanks Harrison.

Photo Credits - CJT