Did you know?

In order to mark their territory, spider monkeys pee on their hands and then stick their little stinky handprints everywhere to tell other spider monkeys where their turf is.

I can share this little interesting factoid with you because yesterday's comminuty service project took me and my team to the Folsom Zoo and Sanctuary where we spent the day helping out the staff with building shelters, moving big rocks, making perches, wiping up pee, picking up mountain lion poo while the poo-maker hung out in his cage (!), and monkey-proofing a new habitat. We really lucked out with this service project... we had a great time while helping out a fantastic organization. Our help was really appreciated because some construction projects had been pushed forward by about a month. Instead of having a nice leisurely stretch of time to relocate the monkeys and macaws and other folks, the staff was scrambling to get temporary shelters together for their animals. Apparently, the prison crew who had come in a few days before was not nearly as helpful as we were. We were quite proud to hear this compliament.

The Folsom Zoo is different than most other zoos that I'm familar with. Instead of taking care of endangered or rare animals or having the goal of breeding in captivity, the Folsom Zoo acts like a rescue organization. They take in animals that have been injured or abused and nurse these animals backto health. Most of the time, the animals will spend the rest of their lives at the zoo; they don't have the necessary skills to survive in the wild. Some of the animals are a little mundane (squirrels?) but the zoo also takes care of bigger animals like two tigers named Missy and Pouncer, brown bears, a bald eagle, and some assorted farm animals.