Zookeepers at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore provide animal enrichment everyday to keep them stimulated and doing things that come naturally. On special days, the animals and visitors get an added treat made possible by the zoo’s Enrichment Team. The team was formed in January 2006. The volunteers assemble once a month to make colorful paper maché animals, balloons and other containers that will be filled with meat or produce and given to the animals on “Enrichment Days.”
From November to February the Conowingo Dam attracts over a hundred species of birds, but the bald eagles are the star of the show. What draws them to the giant hydroelectric dam, which located on the Susquehanna River, is the way it makes energy. As the dam produces electricity, a large volume of water and fish are sucked through the generators stunning the fish into “floaters” as they exit the dam downstream. The easy prey becomes an excellent food source for bald eagles and other birds.
Six Marylanders look back on the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963, and its effect on their lives. Said Joyce Dennison, 71, a retired Baltimore schoolteacher: “It didn’t matter what socioeconomic group, religion or ethnicity you belonged to. There was a great feeling of humanity.”
Story by Jonathan Pitts
Portrait photos by Kim Hairston and Algerina Perna
In a test of physical and mental strength, plebes challenged themselves during Sea Trials Tuesday in a daunting 14-hour obstacle course that marks the end of their first year at the Naval Academy. The training exercise is modeled after the Crucible by the Marine Corps and the Navy’s Battle Stations recruit program and includes a wide array of activities from shore defense to Spartan relay, paintball, land navigation, hill assault and water tactics, according to the Naval Academy.
Photos taken by Baltimore Sun photographer Kim Hairston.