I was a zookeeper at National Zoo. AMA.
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Anonymous
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S/O of the FONZ thread.
Ask away 
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Anonymous
| What did you study in college? |
Anonymous
Biology, with an emphasis on ecology/zoology. For aspiring zookeepers, I recommend doing biology rather than animal science. If you can’t get a job, it’s way easier to find a backup with a bio degree and an animal science degree. |
Anonymous
| What is your advice for volunteers at the zoo to get a gig interacting with animals? |
Anonymous
| Why does the preservation of species, genetic research or public advocacy outweigh the natural right to freedom that all sentient beings possess? |
Anonymous
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Are you retired or what is your current job?
Highest level of education? Highest salary as zookeeper? Do you like it when visitors talk to you when you're on your rounds? |
Anonymous
Do you mean to get a gig volunteering, or for a volunteer to get a job? To volunteer- be proactive. Check the website regularly, but also find out who runs the volunteer department and reach out to them. When you're at the zoo and you see a keeper or volunteer hanging around and they're not too busy, strike up a conversation. Ask about the animals they care for, and then Segway into asking if they're taking any volunteers or who to contact for volunteering. To get a job if you're a volunteer - you really have to be at 100%. That's how I got my job there. I volunteered 2 days a week, I always showed up early and stayed late, I went above and beyond in everything, and I was a pleasant person. You need to show that you'll make everyone else's lives easier by being a good coworker and team player. Multiple volunteers go for the same job, you have to be better than all of them. |
Anonymous
| The only animals that seem happy are the naked mole rats. |
Anonymous
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I worked at the Smithsonian too, not the zoo. Did you find it was difficult to move up to higher paid positions at the zoo?
Do you have to pay for parking? |
Anonymous
| Do you think the zoo is well managed? What is the best managed zoo? |
Anonymous
Conservation is the biggest scam zoos ever pulled. They don't conserve species. Most species in zoos aren't even endangered. No zoo animals will ever be released into the wild. They would very quickly die - captive animals don't have the skills needed to survive in the wild. It's exactly as if you or I were dropped into the middle of the woods and told to survive and procreate. We'd die. AZA zoos have a program called the "Species Survival Plan" which sounds like conservation work, but it's actually just a program to guarantee the survival *of the captive population*. So every individual of a species in AZA zoos is tracked and paired with mates that will offer the most genetic diversity to prevent inbreeding. Occasionally, if genetic diversity is needed in the captive population, wild individuals will be captured. The whole program is just to ensure that zoos continue to have animals to display. A handful of zoos like National Zoo and San Diego have offsite facilities where they conduct research that does help wild populations. But it's usually not sexy - it's more along the lines of studying an illness that is killing entire frog populations, rather than trying to save the popular animals like pandas and elephants. In my own opinion, the main purpose of zoos is to 1. Educate the public so that they care about protecting wildlife and ecosystems 2. Raise money with the fun animals that can then go towards helping the animals nobody really cares about (which are the ones that need it the most). What actually helps conservation is protecting huge amounts of land and having breeding facilities that are not open to the public, where animals can be bred and trained for release. But I do believe that the education and connection piece is important. My love of animals came from a trip to Sea World, where I fell in love with orcas. I spent a decade working towards becoming an orca trainer, before I got older and realized orcas don't belong in captivity (plus, it's SO DANGEROUS to work with them). Would I have developed a love for animals and conservation without that first encounter with an orca? I don't know. |
Anonymous
Current job is completely different - I do freelance work. I had kids, and zookeeping is VERY hard to do with children. I tried, and it was too stressful. Demanding hours for very little pay. It's quite sad, most women leave zookeeping once they have children. Most of the female keepers I worked with didn't have kids, or were men. And almost nobody in upper management, like curators, are women with children. Bachelor's degree. National Zoo pays well compared to most zoos. Most zoos pay around $12 an hour. I believe National started at $25 an hour when I left. Max you can make as a keeper is around $50k a year, and that's at only a handful of zoos like National and San Diego. But, those are in expensive areas, so no matter what you either live with a bunch of roommates or you need a spouse who makes more. I LOVED when people talked to me. Most keepers hate dealing with the public, but it was the best part of the job for me. My greater purpose was to connect people with animals so they would love them as much as I did. The best thing in the world was when a kid would ask me a million questions - I always wonder if they grew up to also work with animals. Although I did hate the jokes! Every day while I was cleaning exhibits I'd get jokes like "look! it's the biggest monkey in the world!" or "what kind of lizard is THAT?!" |
Anonymous
Ha! I actually worked with the naked mole rats for a bit and they were the WORST to clean. It took about an hour, you'd have to scoop out all the bedding of every single chamber by hand. And the room has to be kept hot since they have no fur. They're vicious, too. They instinctively keep their colony size in proportion to the space they have, so when the queen had babies, they would eat them. |
Anonymous
| Where does the meat that loons eat come from? |
Anonymous
| Where does the meat that lions eat come from? |