Lovie, the lovebird, went into surgery today. He's back home and resting up after his stressful ordeal. He's been struggling with a fungal infection in his beak since he came to Animal Wonders. In the beginning it was small and the vet diagnosed it as a bruise inside his beak. When the "bruise" did not grow out as his beak grew, it was apparent that it was not what we thought. The dark spot slowly grew bigger and he was prescribed anti-fungal medication. We had to wait to see if the dark in his beak would grow out, when it did not, we had to take more invasive measures. The vet, Dr. Card, dremmeled the infected part of his beak down and then cauterized the area. He went on anti-fungal medication again and we were hopeful that it was taken care of. As we waited for his beak to grow out we watched carefully for a re-occurrence. His beak grew in different than before and it was difficult to tell if the dark area was infected or just the beak trying to recover. Lovie started dropping weight and we knew that he was not well.

He went on an anti-fungal medication again as well as an second anti-fungal applied topically. His surgery was scheduled and we kept him as comfortable as we could. He was still active and quite chipper, though his discomfort was obvious as he continually rubbed his beak and readjusted his lower mandible.

Today he was anesthetized and his beak was dremmeled back until there was no infection left, then cauterized again. This time the removal was a bit more aggressive in hopes that we could kill the infection for good. His beak is very short and he will have to learn how to eat with his new beak, but tonight he did munch on some banana. We're hoping the double anti-fungal and the removal of the entire infected area will beat this and he will be able to move on with his life.

He is such a love and we only want the best for him. His sweet personality should continue to be shared with many more and we're doing our best to make that happen. Hang in there little buddy, we all love you so very much!

The animals have been busy this weekend doing Creepy Crawly shows for all those kids in costumes enjoying the holiday. Boo, the smokey ghost millepede was by far the biggest hit. He was made for Halloween! Fluffy the tarantula, the cockroaches, and Professor claw the emperor scorpion were also stars. The kids enjoyed being creeped out by the many legged and no legged alike. Lizzy, the legless lizard, had her debut at the Missoula Children's Museum where she taught the audience the real difference between lizards and snakes (it's not the legs).

So from the animals and from us, Happy Halloween!!

Last week Animal Wonders and the animals were honored to meet many Montana teachers. We presented the animals and our educational programs at the MEA-MFT conference that we held right here in Missoula. This was our first time participating in the conference and we had a lot of fun!

It's interesting giving a presentation to an audience that isn't there just to have fun and learn something in the process. Fortunately the teachers were very forgiving of our somewhat juvenile jokes and childlike references. k-4 is of course our target audience, though the adults in our audiences seem to relive their childhood intrigue more often then not. We purposely kept the presentation true to what the teachers could expect in their classroom so they would get a good feel of what we're all about. It's one thing to hear or read about what Animal Wonders does, it's a whole different thing to experience the animals for yourself. We hope that we made some new advocates for live animal education. The Animal Ambassadors are eager to teach about wildlife and their environments in more schools in Montana. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if all of our next generation knew what a brush-tailed bettong was, why they are important, and how we can help them and prevent a similar situation from happening again. Click on the link above to read about Quigley our brush-tailed bettong.

Our goal is to spread understanding and knowledge of wildlife and their environments across the state of Montana. We only have one zoo in our entire state and it's not focused on international animals. We would like to change that. By allowing the students to see, feel, learn about, and experience the animals up close in their classrooms, the students will be able to make a connection to the real world. They will be intrigued and inspired to learn more about the animals and their environments. This could lead to a heightened interest in zoology, biology, or general science that they would not otherwise have pursued out of their own curiosity. We hope to inspire that spark in their curiosity which leads to appreciation and enjoyment of science education. We would love if you would like to join us in this vision. Please schedule a presentation or sponsor a school today. We have had numerous requests from schools who are looking for a scholarship or private donation to help sponsor presentations for their students.