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Just like everyone, Rachel Thomas likes to spend Christmas with her family. Unlike everyone else, Ms Thomas’ family includes some playful otters, a couple of food-loving tortoises and a tawny frogmouth who likes to sit in a festive gift box. Luckily, Ms Thomas is a senior wildlife keeper at the National Zoo and Aquarium which means she and the other keepers will spend at least part of Christmas Day caring for the animals. “Usually how it works is we have a keeper that comes in the morning to do the feeding and a keeper that comes in the afternoon and we just feed them, spend some time with them and then swap over for the day,” she said. “Christmas is about family and for us, the animals are our family. We’re still spending Christmas with our family so we’re happy to do it.” While the rest of Canberra had to wait until Christmas Eve for Santa Claus to make his delivery of Christmas presents, the National Zoo’s animals were lucky enough to get a visit from Santa Paws earlier in the week. Not only were they treated to their own personal Christmas feast of all of their favourite foods, but the treats were also wrapped up. And just like a pet at home, the gift wrapping may have just been the bigger hit. “They had quite a lot of fun. We had to stop the otters from dragging the paper into their stream and spreading it everywhere,” Ms Thomas said. “The paper is a different texture so they love playing with it. It’s something different that they can scrunch up and they love ripping it into a million pieces as well, which creates extra work for us the next day trying to find all the paper pieces. “It’s been a tough year for everyone so we thought we would get into some festive fun and give them some different types of enrichment.” READ MORE: The mild start to summer has also proved to be a Christmas gift for the zoo’s animals. Not only are they enjoying not being out in the hot sun, they’re taking advantage of the milder days, meaning the weather has also proved to be a Christmas gift to animal lovers. “A lot of people seem to think that the best time to come to the zoo is during the summer, but the hot weather is when the animals are actually the least active because it’s quite hot,” Ms Thomas said. “The cooler weather you’ll find everyone is a lot more active and moving around. They’re engaging with their enrichment puzzles. “This cooler weather is actually the best time to come and visit the animals at the zoo.” While the milder weather is good news for those who have visited the National Zoo and Aquarium in the past week or so, it isn’t expected to last forever with the warm weather is starting to make an appearance. Sunday is expected to reach 31 before cooling down again. “We are starting to think about the weather warming up over the summer,” Ms Thomas said. “Some of the treats that we make the animals is we do some ice blocks that will freeze some of their food, and we give that to them in the hot weather too. And we like to turn on the sprinklers and irrigation and help cool the animals down as well.”
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Just like everyone, Rachel Thomas likes to spend Christmas with her family.
Unlike everyone else, Ms Thomas’ family includes some playful otters, a couple of food-loving tortoises and a tawny frogmouth who likes to sit in a festive gift box.
Luckily, Ms Thomas is a senior wildlife keeper at the National Zoo and Aquarium which means she and the other keepers will spend at least part of Christmas Day caring for the animals.
“Usually how it works is we have a keeper that comes in the morning to do the feeding and a keeper that comes in the afternoon and we just feed them, spend some time with them and then swap over for the day,” she said.
“Christmas is about family and for us, the animals are our family. We’re still spending Christmas with our family so we’re happy to do it.”
While the rest of Canberra had to wait until Christmas Eve for Santa Claus to make his delivery of Christmas presents, the National Zoo’s animals were lucky enough to get a visit from Santa Paws earlier in the week.
Not only were they treated to their own personal Christmas feast of all of their favourite foods, but the treats were also wrapped up.
And just like a pet at home, the gift wrapping may have just been the bigger hit.
“They had quite a lot of fun. We had to stop the otters from dragging the paper into their stream and spreading it everywhere,” Ms Thomas said.
“The paper is a different texture so they love playing with it. It’s something different that they can scrunch up and they love ripping it into a million pieces as well, which creates extra work for us the next day trying to find all the paper pieces.
“It’s been a tough year for everyone so we thought we would get into some festive fun and give them some different types of enrichment.”
The mild start to summer has also proved to be a Christmas gift for the zoo’s animals.
Not only are they enjoying not being out in the hot sun, they’re taking advantage of the milder days, meaning the weather has also proved to be a Christmas gift to animal lovers.
“A lot of people seem to think that the best time to come to the zoo is during the summer, but the hot weather is when the animals are actually the least active because it’s quite hot,” Ms Thomas said.
“The cooler weather you’ll find everyone is a lot more active and moving around. They’re engaging with their enrichment puzzles.
“This cooler weather is actually the best time to come and visit the animals at the zoo.”
While the milder weather is good news for those who have visited the National Zoo and Aquarium in the past week or so, it isn’t expected to last forever with the warm weather is starting to make an appearance. Sunday is expected to reach 31 before cooling down again.
“We are starting to think about the weather warming up over the summer,” Ms Thomas said.
“Some of the treats that we make the animals is we do some ice blocks that will freeze some of their food, and we give that to them in the hot weather too. And we like to turn on the sprinklers and irrigation and help cool the animals down as well.”
