Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 8.15, it's the Friday of Stravaganza, FLX Morning, it's our monthly visit with the wildlife rock stars, Bridges for Brain Injury program, bridgesforbraininjury.org is the website, look for the rock stars link, James and Casey are here, welcome back guys.
James, Casey: Good morning, thank you for having us.
Paul Szmal: Good to have you here, we're going cute and fuzzy today, people love when we do that, but before we do that, let's just get caught up with the latest, we're into the fall season now, is the calendar pretty booked up with schools and scout groups and things?
James, Casey: Yeah, we still have some presentations going on through the end of the year, but we are booking into 2025, so if you have any dates that you know that you may want to have us out, go to our website, go to the wildlife rock stars link, and you can book shows. We do still have an ongoing can and bottle drive, which all of the proceeds from that go to our animals and their care, so whether you want to bring your cans and bottles to our facility in Farmington, that works, or if it's easier for you, you can give us a call and we will come right to you and pick up your cans and bottles.
Paul Szmal: Any public appearances coming up?
James, Casey: Not too many right now, we actually, two weeks ago though, one of our nice events, we did the annual walk-a-thon for the Brain Injury Association of New York State to help raise money and bring awareness to traumatic brain injuries, so that was pretty special, that was held at Seneca Park, outside of Seneca Park Zoo. Our participants loved that and getting the recognition and being able to kind of socialize with other people that may have gone through the same trauma.
Paul Szmal: I know that you can always use donations of items to help with animal care, remind us, I know like paper towels and stuff, but what else can people help with?
James, Casey: Yeah, so paper towels, newspaper, if you may have some extra hay or straw bales, that's always helpful. We do have a wish list on our website that you also could go see, many more items that we could use.
Paul Szmal: Alright, and again, go to brain, bridgesforbraininjury.org, you'll see the Wildlife Rockstars link with all the ways that you can book shows and all the different kinds of theme shows and everything you can do, so let's meet our animal here today.
James, Casey: So today we brought Carlos, or Patagonian Cavey. He is also known as Patagonian Mara, or a fun little nickname is the Spare Parts Animal. He is the fourth largest rodent in the world. He has kind of parts of all different animals, he has rabbits, kangaroos, a little bit of a dog in him, and he's just a really cool animal from Argentina, southern Argentina. And he is about 15-ish pounds, but they can get up to 25-30 at full grown. They are monogamous, meaning that they mate for life, and they will have about one litter a year in the wild, and under human care they can have up to two to three, and that litter consists of an average of two babies.
Paul Szmal: Now what's really cool is when I googled Patagonian Cavey, one of the first things that comes up is a picture of you guys in one of your TV appearances, so everybody will see that when they look on Google. I can tell just looking at him, he's a sniffer and a nibbler, huh?
James, Casey: Yeah, so he is a rodent, so he does have that rodent teeth, so it's very helpful that we give him things he can chew on to kind of help get those teeth kind of chiseled down so they don't overgrow. And they are herbivores, so they eat a lot of vegetation and stuff like that, but they have to watch out in the wild because they are a prey species. There are a lot of birds of prey and foxes and other canines that will eat them, so the males typically are the defenders, as the females will take care of those babies in the dens, and then these guys will kind of stay alert and kind of be watchful out there for predators.
Paul Szmal: Our vinyl flooring is not the best for his claws, so do they climb at all?
James, Casey: No, they do not climb, but they are pretty quick and they can jump pretty high, which is really cool. Their defense is run away. Run away as fast as you can.
Paul Szmal: How fast can they go? I imagine with those big back legs, pretty good.
James, Casey: 26 miles per hour. So they can outrun most things, but there still are those predator species that will unfortunately be able to get them.
Paul Szmal: So what's the derivation of the name Carlos?
James, Casey: Carlos Santana.
Paul Szmal: Okay, I thought so. I just wanted to make sure. And he does have his mate back at your facility, and her name is Jayla.
James, Casey: Oh, nice. Wow. And where'd you get them from?
Paul Szmal: So Carlos was actually born at our facility. His mother, Willow, gave birth to him and his brother, Willie. And Willie, unfortunately, had passed, but Carlos is still carrying on their legacy. And then Jayla came from another wildlife sanctuary facility in Florida, and that allowed Carlos to have a mate. So now they are together forever.
James, Casey: Now I see, I was looking on the Wikipedia, they're limited to a pretty, maybe about half of Argentina. So they don't have a real big habitat.
Paul Szmal: Yep, they are endemic to Argentina, so you won't typically see them out in other countries unless they kind of ventured or made their way. But their populations are kind of all over the place in Argentina.
James, Casey: And so I guess it's kind of a desert area that they favor best. It says they like to be around the creosote bushes and things like that.
Paul Szmal: Yep. Yeah, so they love that terrain. And it's also interesting, they have these tiny tails because it helps them when they run away. They don't get caught in bushes and stuff like that, just like how rabbits have those short stubby tails. So the tail's super important for their survival and just all around what they do.
James, Casey: So are they related at all to like a big Texas jackrabbit? Are they in sort of that family?
Paul Szmal: So they're in the guinea pig family. So other than that, they're just in that giant rodent, the fourth. So they make squeaking noises and little humming noises when they communicate and stuff like that. Like right now, he is humming very softly, kind of sniffing around.
James, Casey: Yeah, he's checking out the room here. His first instinct, he wanted to hide a little bit. Do they have burrows?
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so they'll have like dens where they will kind of conjugate with a bunch of other mating pairs. And they'll kind of all kind of take care of the children. And the males are very defensive as they will protect their female from predators, but also other mates because they're monogamous, so they don't want any of that. And if a mate does end up dying, they will just go into isolation to be alone for the rest of their days.
James, Casey: So are they active day, night, or both?
Paul Szmal: During the day, they are diurnal.
James, Casey: It's Carlos. He is the Patagonian, sometimes called cavey, sometimes called mara. Now the spare parts animal, is that just because he's got the long lanky legs?
Paul Szmal: Yeah, it's like a little nickname he got over time just because he does have just all these crazy components from all these animals.
James, Casey: Alright, well maybe you want to book a show for your school, your scout troop, and again it's it. You've got to book early. You've got to be thinking well in the future because the wildlife rock stars are very popular. Go to bridgesforbraininjury.org and check out the calendar and help out with the needs if you can or make a donation. Guys, thanks for coming in. Always appreciate the visit. It's always great to see a new animal and have a chat. So thanks.
Paul Szmal: Thank you, Tim. Thank you.
James, Casey: Alright, thanks for your time now. It's 8.23. It's FLX morning on Finger Lakes News Radio.
