19 May 2008

I woke up praying my clothes dried over night as washing and drying is by hand and air. Mostly this worked out but my towel could stand a few more hours. Regardless everything went in a bag and we had a 1-hour trip to Mysore which was mostly taken trying to get out of Bangalore which has a sprawl stretching pretty far out. There is graffiti everywhere, and posters plastered along the city walls so much that the bear walls seem out of place. Ornate temples spot the scenery with bright colors accenting the ornate sculptures of deities. It is a strange place but pleasant at the same time. The only thing I worry about are pickpockets, but I am bound to lose (and have) more than they would ever be able to take from me. I do not feel out of place or uncomfortable around here, it is nice (aside from the smog).
Mysore zoo is very well kept and organized. I got to help feed elephants with the group, which was extremely exciting. The mouth of an elephant is a really strange sight, as the teeth seem to be only in the back. We are told the digestive tract is exactly the same as if they were a large horse. We also got to hold a baby leopard cub, which was precious. A blind leopard was an interesting sight as well. They had captured a wild tiger that killed 30-40 head of cattle in a town, and said it was “well on it’s way to being tame.” Most of us were skeptical as it lunged the bars of the cage roaring. Apparently a few weeks ago it was basically climbing the ceiling of the cage it was in, so had calmed down much. We met Wally, a chimpanzee that would drink from a bottle the zoo keepers held and hit Matt, Tamika, and Myself with a good spit. Better than some others that got some urine on their shoes from a nearby chip that has pulled out all his hair, giving it the very haunting appearance of a strange old man. It has been a good day so far, and it is about to get better. We went to help with a vasectomy of a Spotted Deer. So the Deer populations at the zoo over produce themselves for the enclosures they have, and they must be controlled.


Unfortunately if you castrate them, they lose many of the traits that make them so attractive (such as antlers). One of the Doctors shot the deer with a dart rifle while they were feeding the herd. They were after a subadult male, and got him right in the back leg. In about ten minutes he was out, and they went to place him on a net and tarp to carry him to the front. They scrubbed him in, removing the hair with an actual hand razor, not an electric one, and did the vasectomy. Some time through the surgery, the jugular IV fluids blew. The asked someone to place it in the cephalic, and I obliged. Unfortunately, this too blew, even though it went in fine…twice. After this, Matt had a chanse to put it in the jugular on the other side. He hit it fine too but it rolled out, and so the doctor stuck it straight in at a perpendicular angle. We have never tried this before…but it worked pretty darn well for the deer. It seems our labs with cattle helped us find the right anatomy, but didn’t give us the right technique for a new animal. We then helped carry the deer to the isolation area so it could recover well before joining back with the herd. After this we went to Brindavan Garden, home to the famous musical light show. It was like an extremely packed carnival that you crossed a bridge loaded with people to get to. The fountain light show was pretty exciting, and all the people in the crowd knew every song they played. We spent the night at a golf club that one of the zoo veterinarians was a member of, and watched Kindergarten cop in our (Matt and mine) room with Vibha and Tamika.

18 May 2008

We stopped quickly at a veterinarian’s house that raised dairy cows. They were lined up outside and perhaps some of the cleanest animals I have yet to see. They almost looked ready for show. Even as we were there, as soon as an animal defecated, someone would run up and sweep it into a pan to discard. These cows are kept in the back of his house where he and his family live. Families are quite large here, with the husband, wife, and husband’s parents living in a house with their children. The house is quite nice too, and we are offered some Indian soft drinks. Glass bottles of Limca (lemon lime soda) or Thumbs-Up Cola were quite refreshing. Several of the cows had an extra teat, which seems to be somewhat common. He has sold some cows for about RPS 55,000.
We were traveling now outside Bangalore to see how silk was manufactured. Perhaps one of the earliest bioreactors, the silkworm caterpillars have been harvested for many years to produce their valuable fiber. We saw the process in reverse order, but for sanity’s sake, I’ll rearrange it from start to finish for the reader(s). Male and female Silkworm Moths are placed in small containers where they mate and the female lays her eggs. The eggs are laid on the bottom of the container, which is actually a sheet of paper with disk outlines where the container fits over. These papers are hung up until the baby silkworms hatch. The hatched eggs are placed in a basket of shredded mulberry leaf where the young caterpillars eat to their hearts content. The livestock is kept organized by the number of molts it undergoes. They are generally kept in dark cool rooms. The leaves don’t seem to be changed, even when they dry out, but the caterpillars make it through just fine. After the caterpillars mature, they are placed in large boards with concentric circles of woven plant forming compartments where the caterpillar will form their cocoon. The cocoons are harvested and sold at market by the thousand. The cocoons are bought and brought in baskets to a room where they are placed in boiling water. A spinning wheel catches the fiber that is released in the water, weaving together a thread of silk to a large spinning wheel. This silk is then brought to another machine that spins together three of these threads into one single thread. The discarded cocoons can be used as cattle feed after they are dried in the sun. The silk threads are then treated with dye to take color. This also seems to have a softening affect on the fiber, creating a truly wonderful feeling tread. The thread is then woven by semi-automated machines that follow a pattern dictated by punched holes in wooden blocks, much like a player piano, or old computer. The thread can be mixed with other fabric threads and have metallic accents added to create spectacular vibrant patterns. The finished product is six feet of material suitable for a saree.