Reply to I was a zookeeper at National Zoo. AMA.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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?[/quote]

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?!"[/quote]

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