TACOMA, Wash. - When a baby wallaby's mother died of a bacterial infection in May, a zoo biologist volunteered to become its foster mother.
A.J., the orphaned Parma wallaby, grew accustomed to Jennifer Donovan's touch and smell. Donovan fashioned a makeshift pouch to make the 7-month-old feel comfortable, but she needed a better way to carry the wallaby around.
So, Donovan, a 34-year-old senior staff biologist at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, called her own mother, Toni, and told her to start sewing.
The result was a fleece-lined "joey pouch" Donovan hangs around her neck.
She feeds A.J. formula with a syringe because he refused to eat from a bottle. His weight has doubled to about 3.5 pounds since his mother, Alkina, died May 5. A.J. is about a foot long from nose to rump, plus a 12-inch tail. Average height for adult Parma wallabies is about 1½ feet tall.
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No good excuse
WASHINGTON - Just about every business and every government agency these days is worried about evildoers hacking into computer systems. So supervisers have been ordering employees to take stupefyingly dull security training. Naturally, employees do their best to weasel out.
But the Fish and Wildlife Service is wise to those malingerers, according to an e-mail a while back from David Smith, chief information security officer, to regional officials about dealing with waivers.
The only acceptable reasons for waivers, he said, were:
- Annual leave.
- Medical leave.
- Military leave.
- Retired.
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- No access to computers.
- Transferred.
- Resigned/terminated.
- Deceased.
Quite a quotes man
On this, the 196th anniversary of Phineas Taylor Barnum's birth, it's worthwhile to remember that P.T., as he's better remembered, not only delivered "The Greatest Show on Earth," but also some eloquent observations.
"Money is a terrible master, but an excellent servant."
"More persons, on the whole, are humbugged by believing in nothing than by believing in too much."
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"Every crowd has a silver lining."
"There's a sucker born every minute."
If there's something you want to see in The Rail, e-mail Features Editor John Lamb at jlamb@forumcomm.com
