We started the day with a tour of the White Oak Conservation Center's facilities and animal collection. There were tons of interesting and unique animals, most that I had never seen before (a full list is here: http://www.wocenter.org/index.asp?id=wocc/animals.asp). We got to watch the staff run the cheetahs--they laid out a course made up of a dog toy that moved around a wire in a large pasture, and the cheetahs were released one-by-one to chase the bait. We also saw a variety of rhinos, including a mother and four-day-old baby white rhino pair, and a juvenile Sumatran rhino--supposedly one of only four Sumatran rhinos in the US right now. We also saw 3 cassowaries: one female, and one male with a juvenile--the male cares for the baby and the female is territorial. Some other highlights included giant eland, giraffes, grevey's zebras, and okapis. After a break we drove out to Midway, GA, and took a boat across the intercoastal waterway to St. Catherine's Island for the weekend. We had dinner and set up camp, anticipating a long, hot, humid, mosquito/tick/chigger-ridden weekend, full of herps, amphibians, other marine animals, and beaches.
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