Three of the ferrets that the Philadelphia Zoo has came from my ferretry.
They have other ferrets, but if the ferrets you saw were dark sable, they
are two females and a male, born May 1, 2002.  Their father is Thunder
who was in last month's Ferrets magazine.
 
Those who know me know that I am one of the pickiest people around.  If
I did not think that they were capable of taking care of them and
presenting them well, they would not have them.  Over the years I have
worked with several vets and techs who have worked at the Philadelphia
zoo and they all had nothing but praise for their animal care.  The
Director of the children's zoo and some of her staff came to my house
personally.  We keep in touch all the time.  They have done everything
that I have recommended, from caging and bedding to shots and ADV testing
their ferrets before mine went there.  I have forwarded the concerns from
the FML to her.  She has given me permission to send her response to the
FML.  I can completely identify with what she is saying.  Yes, employees
should represent their employer well and it does reflect badly when the
employee makes a mistake.  They are human, they make mistakes.  I also go
through this every year with the summer help.  You get new people, they
are nervous, they make a mistake, sometimes they just plain do or say
dumb things.  It is very hard to find good help these days.  I am glad
that the ferret community is looking out for the ferrets and I hope this
one faux pas by a volunteer will not sour people on the Philadelphia Zoo.
I know Zoos are taking quite a rap these days but not all zoos are bad.
Below is the response from Marina Haynes the Director of the Children's
Zoo.
 
Pat Stauffer
Weasels
http://pages.prodigy.net/staufferp/
 
Hi Patricia, the kits are fine and thank you for letting me know about
this.  This time of year is when we have new volunteers starting in the
CZ and they are taught to bring an animal fact book out to the exercise
yard with them so they can correctly answer questions from the public.
Obviously this did not happen this weekend!  We have a 135 page animal
fact book for all the animals in the teaching collection and it can be
quite daunting for new volunteers to learn all the facts quickly, which
is why we ask them to have the fact book with them when they are out
exercising the animals.  They are also taught not to ever make up an
answer to a question and that to say "I am not sure" is much better
than making up an answer (which is NEVER acceptable).  I have already
identified the volunteers in the yard and will be speaking to them
regarding this.  I am really disappointed that this happened and my staff
are going to take steps to make sure it does not happen again (we have
decided that we are going to create a "cheat sheet" booklet to have with
volunteers all the time).  The challenge is that we want to get all of
our collection animals outside for exercise for their health and well
being and in order to do this, we need to utilize our volunteers which
are still learning the facts on the animals.  Our first and top priority
is to make sure that anyone working with the animal collection knows how
to handle and care for them correctly, followed by learning animal facts.
The safety of our collection and staff/volunteers is paramount, as it
should be.  Hopefully, our "cheat sheet" will allow new volunteers to be
better informed on the collection animals they are talking to visitors
about.  Anyway, you may share my response and please let me know if you
have any other questions.
 
Marina Haynes
Director, Children's Zoo
Philadelphia Zoo
3400 West Girard Ave.
Phila, PA 19104
[Posted in FML issue 4888]