rpanons | You sound fat

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Behind the scenes, so I get to see all the animals but don't directly interact with them.

Do you have any animals that are your favorite to just watch when you have the chance? And/or did working in a zoo change your opinion on any particular animals?

I love watching bears wander around. they're very expressive and curious animals and I could watch them roll about and scratch their heads with their back paws for hours. I used to not really have an opinion on apes but after being close to chimps for this long I've really come to loathe them. My boss describes them perfectly as "perpetual teenagers who are put in prison." they hold the exact same temperament for the rest of their life after they turn two years old.

(calling a zoo "prison" is a joke, the animals are very content and have ample space to run about. just in case anyone comes in rallying to free the animals a la Curly from Hey Arnold)

god i also hate apes

any horrible ape stories?

their indoor containment has a hallway right beside it that I have to walk down to do work. my boss told me, "Take a trash can lid with you," and I didn't understand, so I just grabbed one and held it while walking past. the bars are criss-crossed like chain link fence in a way, and yet I still instantly got feces thrown at me through it and one of the chimps threw a plastic outdoor toy against the door in an effort to scare me. worked very well. I realized that the lid was a poop shield.

chimps are horrifyingly smart.

would you say it's worth it to go into this line of work because i've always wanted to work at a zoo

yes, absolutely, so long as you can deal with bureaucracy. most zoos are owned by the government and that comes with its own host of problems, from shit pay with rare if any raises to horrible equipment due to lowest bidder mindset. money is always scarce. but I love it for the message we send and the fun we bring to kids and adults alike, that every day presents new challenges, and of course working with animals. we renovated an area recently and I've had guests stop me to tell me how wonderful it is. people will perk up when I mention where I work and fawn over how much they loved visiting there as a child. it really makes it worth it, in my eye.

i mean, sometimes you watch an elephant take a shit right in front of you, and sometimes you get to pet a goat for an hour while it rolls all over you. there are pros and cons to every job, I think, but for me, I love my job a lot.

how did you get the job?

sweat, pain, and tears

but really, I just applied to an entry level position and got hired. I'm very lucky - zoos are notoriously difficult to get hired into because of low turnover rate and the need for experienced workers. I applied at the right time, apparently.

da but how much education do you need for it?

late reply because I went to bed, but I have a bachelor's in a science field. if it want to be a keeper, your best bet is to start with an internship or volunteering though.

have you ever gotten to be around hippos and if so how terrifying are they?

what's the scariest animal in the zoo you have to work around?

nope, we don't have hippos at my zoo; however, I can most definitely assure you that they are just as terrifying as you would think a mouth living in a swamp would be.

the scariest is hard to say because I generally feel rather safe at work despite being around elephants and rhinos and great apes, but occasionally when I'm near big cats I realize very suddenly just how quickly and easily they could rip me to pieces. the recent news from Florida of a keeper being mauled by a tiger really hit everyone here hard - the whole zoo community, really. it's sad, but it's a good reminder of why we do the time-consuming safety practices we do. I was in one of the big cats' viewing areas when the cat was locked inside its holding area and a keeper called to ask if I was still there, as they wanted to let the cat out into the viewing area. sometimes I think about how if they had been assumptive about my position, I could be dead within seconds. it's definitely made everyone much more serious about safety, and we're already very obsessive about it to begin with.

out of the great apes do you have any favorites?

I like the gorillas we have, they're rather laid back and rarely act out. Though ours are rather old, so that makes sense - we're about to get some youngsters, I believe, so many my feelings on them will change.

You sound fat

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