hi guys I'm Erin and this is Colleen and we are two of the zoo keepers here at Cincinnati
Zoo and Botanical Garden welcome to our Home Safari and this is Lucille
a binturong now they're going to be feeding Lucille doing a little bit of
training today and in addition to that we're going to be telling you all about
this incredible animal and at the end we're gonna have a special activity for
you guys to do as well yeah if you guys have any questions please just start
sending them in and we're going to try our best to get to as many as we can and
also if you can comment where you guys are watching from we'd love to see how
many people were reaching all over the world with this Home Safari so the main
event here is Lucille now we're going to call her a couple
different kinds of animals as this Facebook live experience happens she is
known as a binturong as well as a Bearcat and we've actually had her since
she was about one month old she came to us from the Nashville Zoo when she was
very small and we actually finished raising her you guys might notice some
fun bubbles appearing in in Lucille's space we actually just introduced her to
bubbles yesterday and she is not sure what to make of them I think she likes
them as much as I do
Lucille came to the zoo for a very special reason and that's also the
reason why Colleen and I are not in uniform today yeah you guys might notice
if you look really closely at Lucille's collar she's wearing a University of
Cincinnati Bearcat collar and there was a Bearcat blanket hanging and Erin and I
are both wearing Bearcat shirts and that is because Lucille came to our zoo to
be an ambassador and go to all the different UC sporting events so we take
Lucille to basketball games and football games and baseball games so that she can
be an ambassador for her species and she can help get the crowd really really
wild and and ready to go through the game now we already got one question
that I'm gonna address right up front why is this animal called a Bearcat and
I think as you guys look at her you might be able to observe the reasons why
they're called that Bearcats have faces and whiskers that look a little bit like
a cat just got those very long whiskers and they're very good climbers just like
cats and then they have the body that almost looks like a bear except they
have that nice long prehensile tail so I think if I were to get to rename bearcat
I would call them Bearcat monkeys the funny thing about them is that they
are not bears or cats or monkeys they're actually belonging to a family called
civets are there related to things called civets and they're their only animal
Colleen where can we find these guys in the world yeah so Lucille especially
called a Palawan binturong so there are all sorts of different
subspecies of binturong some say six some say nine but Lucille is a Palawan
binturong so she is specifically from the Palawan Islands which is part of the
Philippines so Southeast Asia think Asia other side of the world that's where
we're gonna find animals related to Lucille and as you guys can see Lucille
is very curious and she does a lot of playing we also have all sorts of fun
toys and other enrichment items for her to hang around with today she's still a
very young animal and she's extremely curious and playful which is one of the
reasons why we love her so much yeah a really fun question from Zoey
Zoey thank you for your question she wanted to know why are there whiskers so
long and I think that's an excellent question because if you guys have
noticed as we've been up close with Lucille she does have some crazy long
whiskers and that is because these guys are primarily nocturnal and if you know
what nocturnal means it means that you are out and about when it is super dark
and nighttime so Lucille uses those whiskers to help her feel around in the
forest and up in the trees where she lives because she's an arboreal
animals living in the trees so what helps her finding a party foul is
feeling anyway the whiskers help her navigate the forest where she lives
we have another question from Elliot are all bearcats black now actually this
is something that's it's pretty cool about Lucille especially she's actually
the blondest Bearcat that we've ever seen and we've talked to a lot of other
zookeepers and other zoos who have taken care of bearcats and she's actually
the lightest in color that we've seen in general although Bearcats are all black
fur and and even where you guys see this kind of blondish brownish fur they're
all black except for those white white whiskers and sometimes those white
markings on their ears we got another really fun question that
I like to talk about from Maggie so Maggie wants to know do Bearcats live in
groups and actually Maggie know that Bearcats are solitary animals primarily
however they do come together once in a while mommy dad will come together to
start a family and then we'll usually have one two three days and then those
babies are going to stay with mom for a little while so that she can raise them
and help them grow up now as Lucille is wandering around they talked about this
just a minute ago but she has this really nice long strong tail and that
tail is prehensile she uses it like a lot of monkeys do and she uses it to
crime so you can see her wrapping that tail around those branches and even
supporting her weight with it it is incredibly strong and powerful and she
has been learning how to use it since she was very very small in fact one of
the fun things we got to do with her when she was really little was we were
the ones who got to teach her how to climb if you can all the way down no
you're just gonna hang out halfway
so Bearcats are an arboreal species these guys love to live up in trees and
for that reason she feels the safest when she is up on one of her zookeepers
just like you and me takes a lot of practice to learn how to be a Bearcat
and to learn how to do anything very well and so not only am i learning how
to handle Lucile and keep her happy and healthy and safe here at the zoo she's
also learning how to climb on me so we're going to get her down to the
ground and let her start running around a little bit now she is like I said very
young and still learning she actually has some growing left to do she is about
how much did she weigh yesterday Colleen yesterday she weighed sixteen point three
three pounds so she is getting pretty big Lucille's very fast she likes to run
around she's very very playful so you guys might see her come in and out of
the camera as she's running playing with toys and even chasing up as we're
talking and it takes a family to raise a Bearcat so we actually have several
zookeepers who help take care of her when she was little and they're the ones
that she feels most comfortable hanging out with since they're the ones who have
been around since she was very teeny tiny yeah so I got a question just a
minute from Abby and Ashley and then also
from Linden that often be kind of related so Linden asked why I'm wearing
gloves right now and Abby and Ashley want to know what Lucille and bearcats
in general like to eat so I'll show you guys I'm feeding her some slimy
mushed up bananas right now we'll see if she'll take them where she's too busy
playing sometimes she just likes to play while she's eating
so she's eating some mushed up bananas right now we found that's one of Lucille's
favorite foods because of the wild these Bearcats are going to eat a lot of fruit
that's gonna a main thing they like all different kinds of fruits they also really like
figs sometimes they'll eat eggs once in a while they'll eat small mammals and
small birds so they are omnivores they both veggies and meat and fruit I am
wearing gloves right now just because I want to make sure I don't get any of my
germs on Lucille as we're all trying to be so careful to stay home and stay
healthy right now some of Lucille's other favorite treats include she's got
kind of a sweet tooth so she definitely loves things like apple and her banana
as you can see we've given her things like pear flavored baby food
let's see sweet potato baby sweet potato baby food is a big favorite and then she
also loves hard-boiled eggs and she actually eats the eggs with the shell on
which is pretty silly to see I think I brought one with me actually hey Lucille
would you like to show them she's like hold on there's so many things to
explore there we go kiddo
whenever I meet a new animal I like to take a look at its face to get a good
look at what sense I think it uses the most now when I was here with you guys
last week and Rico the porcupine Rico has a big giant nose and teeny tiny
little eyes and pretty small little ears now Lucille has pretty big ears and
she's got a nice long pointy nose from all those whiskers and she also has
teeny tiny eyes yeah so that usually tells me what in what sense
senses the animal uses the most so I think Lucille her eyesight is not very
good but her sense of smell is excellent no no thank you to hard boiled egg oh
thank you today but once in a while she just doesn't feel like eating it but
that's okay that's okay that's why variety is important it's nice to eat
different things every day yeah omnivores do yeah so you were
saying Erin she's got those teeny eyes she's got those teeny eyes she does not
use those she's been sniffing around this entire time so she definitely uses
that noses a whole lot and and those ears that stick out nice to the side she
definitely uses those fun to hear very well Ashlynn is asked if she has a
favorite toy Colleen does she have a favorite toy let me actually she's gonna
show you she went straight to it though that University of Cincinnati Bearcat
pillow seems to be Lucille's favorite toy
she likes to snuggle with it when she was really little she would sleep on top
of it and she plays with it and sometimes she carries
her enclosure and she does lots of fun stuff with it if you guys have any cats
at home you know that sometimes they'll need pillows and blankies where they
kind of do the stepping back and forth she does that on her pillow too and she
purrs and just hers and hers and she plays with her pillow because fun fact
Bearcats make you lot of noises lose feel it's always talking to it she's
going to be tired right now and she's busy playing but when she wants her
attention boy does she yell and tell us now we've
been working with Lucille since she came to the Cincinnati Zoo when she was about
one month old and that involved a lot of work Colleen we were with her 24 hours a
day for a couple days and then after that we were with her every couple hours
for most of the day thankfully she's a really good sleeper so after the first
week or so she was sleeping through the night and we did not have to be with her
but we were the ones who weaned her off her milk and introduced her to solid
food and got her used to all sorts of sights and sounds since she is an
ambassador to the University of Cincinnati we have been also getting her
used to the sights and sounds of the stadium and Colleen can tell you a
little bit about what went into that work yeah so that was super fun training
something I haven't actually gotten to do before is teaching an animal how
to go to basketball games kind of go crazy things so what we started by doing
is we would take Lucille just in her crate which is kind of like
the animals car and we would take her to those basketball to the basketball
Stadium and just let her sniff it out and get used to the atmosphere of the
stadium and then every time we would go to the stadium we would add something
new and exciting and maybe even a little bit scary so sometimes it was bouncing a
basketball sometimes it was cheerleaders doing
flips in the air and sometimes it was the loud music or the videos on the
jumbotron and Lucille was a champ she moved forward in her training faster
than we could have ever imagined or hoped that she would so Lucille this
season got to go to several basketball games when we weren't actually sure when
we started their training if she was gonna make it this season here's Lucille
playing with a tunnel that is probably too small for her but she doesn't know
that one of the things I like best about her is how curious she is she really
explores the world and doesn't seem to be afraid of too many things and I think
that that is what I admire about her the most yes she teaches us to be brave
every single day absolutely sad does she have a favorite keeper that is a
question that Colleen and I might fight about later I would say no I'm gonna say
no I think that she actually loves us all fairly equally the important thing
with Bearcats is a is good consistency which means that she has to
expect the same things from us every single day she has a very strict routine
and even though we do fun things like come on to exercise she knows that she
can expect her breakfast at a certain time and her dinner at a certain time
and she can expect us to come in and work on her training at a certain time
as well routine is really important to these guys and so as
long as her keepers follow the routine and and all at the same around her that
she is a very happy bearcat we've put some live crickets over here into
one of these pools and we'll see if she wants to come play in general Lucille
seems to like to be wherever we are we'll see if she wants to come
tackle this in a second and in the meantime we got a really fun question
asking why Lucille's tail curls and I think that this is such a fun question
because her curly tail has to be one of the top 5 cutest things about the way
Lucy looks now my theory is that curly tail is because it is so long it is so
long she has to make sure it doesn't drag on the ground and get dirty or get
caught on things so if she can curl it up like that it's a way that she can
walk around and have it hanging behind her without causing any problems so here
she is digging around in a mulch bin now this is a this is actually an extra
enriching experience because we let some other animals dig around in here as well
and so Lucille is probably smelling some of the other animals that we take care
of here at the Cincinnati Zoo I think that house is too small for you Lucille
I'm not sure she also has multiple things in her house for enrichment sometimes too
just for fun her doing it so she might just see it as something kind of
familiar exactly
does she make noises so Lucille is not really making any noises right now
unless you guys can pick up a little bit of super loud sniffing but as we
mentioned just a little bit ago Lucille does make some crazy noises so
when she's really happy she's actually gonna purr which is another reason
people probably called them Bearcats when they first got named and she also
will growl as she's not happy and she will yell sometimes and if we walk in
the building and she wants our attention she will let us know by yelling to us
now that was perfect I just mentioned that meeting like cats actually Lucille
is litter box trained so she goes in a box that has a wood shavings in it so
not not normal cat litter you might come home for your cat's but Lucille goes in
wood shavings and it's really nice it makes it really easy to clean up after
her so they are pretty clean animals well one fun crazy crazy fact so I can't
believe we haven't mentioned yet it has to do with that litter box
you guys went up but bearcats smell like popcorn
I thought the what I'm not even kidding they smell like buttered popcorn but you
mostly smell it when you're cleaning a litter box now that sounds pretty gross
and it feels very weird completing the litter box and I think kind of oh gosh
that's her litter box with my clean smelling but it is the crazy fact and
one of the most fun things about bearcats so I'm hoping that you guys have
learned a little bit about our bearcat today and bear cats in general and we
have a challenge for you now the information is going to go up with a
Cincinnati Zoo website in a little bit but here's the gist of it bearcats are
not a bears nor cat they're fun combination of both even though they're
not related to either I wonder if you guys can come up with different animal
combinations and create them either by drawing them or putting them together
with whatever materials you might have around the house now if you do that you
can send them in to the Cincinnati Zoo and be a little show them to Lucille and
see which one she loves oh there she is being cute
she's having a little bit of a bath getting that head clean and I think that
we're not going to be able to get anything better than that so we're
probably going to wrap it up thank you guys so much for joining us today
happy birthday dad and we will see you tomorrow at 3 p.m.
same time same place yeah I remember to tune in every day for our Cincinnati Zoo
Home Safari