On Memorial Day weekend, the Oregon Coast Aquarium will be opening their new Swamplands exhibit. Besides the full-time exhibits, OCAq has a "traveling" exhibit that changes every couple of years. In the past there have been exhibits about jellies, frogs, bats, etc. Swamplands will be trying to educate visitors about the importance of swamps in general by focusing on cypress swamps, mangrove swamps and the South American Panatal swamp. The exhibit will have lots of reptiles, fish and amphibians including red-tailed boas, Burmese pythons, piranhas, alligators, an alligator snapping turtle, a Florida soft shell turtle, a red-eared slider, grey tree frogs, and, possibly most impressive of all, a pair of anacondas:
This big girl (the males are considerably smaller) just arrived the other day. I haven't even seen her yet. And, although I have been training to handle some of the critters, this is NOT one of them. They have developed a very specific, safety-oriented feeding protocol, etc. for her so we don't end up having job openings in the animal husbandry department.
I do get to handle the boas, the turtles and the pythons and am looking forward to opening weekend.
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