What makes up the zoo "family" (animals excluded)? Large zoos have a director, a resident or visiting veterinarian, a habitat designer, curators, and a photographer who may double as director of public relations. The backbone workers, of course, are the zoo keepers. Smaller zoos hire fewer people, and everyone does multiple jobs. Large or small, the zoo staff works hard to put on a "show" almost 365 days a year to present its residents to the public.
ZOO DIRECTORS/SUPERVISORS
Many zoo directors have come up through the ranks, with their experience as zoo keepers and curators making them ideal candidates for directorships. Or their job entry may be through a degree in Zoology, a background in animal management, or because of the letters "D.V.M." after their names. Whatever their field of expertise, zoo directors often have advanced degrees plus experience in business administration, an understanding of animals' natural habitats, and a dedication to animal conservation.
The director has to orchestrate a multitude of different activities of the zoo: animal nutrition; budget concerns; purchase of animals; creation of naturalistic displays; and everything to do with personnel.
In community and county zoos, the director may have similar duties, but could serve as well as curator, librarian, or even zoo keeper when the occasion warrants.
Salaries vary widely, depending on the size of the zoo's city or town. The salary figures quoted in this chapter are high, as the zoo most willing to share information on employee' earnings with the authors, is a prosperous and prestigious one. Supervisory positions there (and this involves "hands-on" animal involvement) range from $31,000 to $35,000.
ZOO CURATOR
Zoo curators are in charge of the various zoological units. While there may be only one curator in charge of all animals in a small zoo, large zoos have curators who are specialists in one area: birds, mammals, reptiles, and perhaps fish.
Each curator oversees the buildings that house the animals, creating a comfortable environment that also displays each animal to its best advantage. As curators go through their daily routine, they may meet a hundred challenges, from an unexpected animal ailment to signs of a hoped-for birth. They may supervise the carefully controlled shifting of animals from cages or habitats, finding the best possible site for each animal.
Here's the profile of a curator who is eminently qualified for her position. Chris Shepard, a Californian, is presently curator of birds at the Bronx Zoo in New York. Years of study preceded her entry into the zoo world. Chris received a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology before she put her academic background to work in her career with birds, her favorite subject. Fortunately for Chris, there was a curator-training program available at the Bronx Zoo. From this internship, she stepped into the role of curator of birds.
Her charges number into the hundreds, brightly feathered, exotic birds, that take over a building several stories tall. Many are there because Chris selected them. When she chooses her species, she considers compatibility with other birds, and breeding potential. Endangered birds, or those with diminishing populations, earn extra attention from Chris; increasing their population is a real challenge.
Curators generally have advanced degrees in Zoology or a related area, and have had some previous experience in zoo park management or zoo-keeping. In the high-paying zoo previously mentioned, a zoo that pays well because it is fortunate to have tremendous community support (other zoos do, too, but the funding often isn't there), a curator will have an entry-salary of $36,000 and can reach the apex of $57,000. Ph.D.'s are almost a "given" in this field, but this does not mean that those with Master's Degrees cannot get a foothold in the many areas that curators work in.
ZOO HABITATS
A revolution is taking place in the world's zoos, most of it within the last ten years. The creation of realistic landscapes for zoo animals, often called "landscape immersion," makes people visitors to the animals' world, not the reverse in which animals are caged and people roam. In many landscapes, zoo visitors are often the ones confined to paths and glassed-in areas, while the animals move freely in recreations of their natural surroundings, or habitats.
This revolution has many positive elements for zoo visitors and for everyone involved in zoo operation, from curators to veterinarians to keepers. Among the principal and proven advantages is the more natural behavior of the animals, especially when compared to the stress many species must endure in old-fashioned captivity with its cages and proximity to visitors. This natural behavior, in turn, has improved animals' health and has aided breeding efforts in captivity. This breeding preserves many endangered species in zoos, and can even help repopulate natural habitats.
These efforts are aided also by worldwide zoo activities such as the International Species Inventory System and Species Survival Plans. Zoos help one another in animal breeding efforts and with distribution of birds, animals, and reptiles.
Also, by making it possible for visitors to see the animals in surroundings designed to duplicate their native "homes," attention is focused on the need to preserve these natural habitats and save the animal populations from extinction.
The Philadelphia Zoo is America's oldest, but among the historic buildings, great changes are taking place. An area called "African Plains" recreates Africa's safari land. Here, zebras, giraffes, and many species of birds live as they would in the wild. In "Carnivore Kingdom," jaguars and leopards inhabit an outdoor exhibit through which visitors walk. These are typical of the unique exhibits being built at zoos around the world.
We are emphasizing the zoo revolution because it has created a greater variety of zoo-related careers. Although they work for specialized architectural and design firms, zoo designers and habitat designers-known most commonly as zoo horticulturists-combine the knowledge of botanists and biologists with the artistic training of the architect and the skills of the mechanical engineer. Many zoo "worlds" cost millions of dollars, and combine real landscaping with forests, streams, and rocks built of fiberglass, metal, poured concrete, and other manmade materials (many animal species would soon destroy totally natural landscaping).
Other zoo jobs have come about through the change in the zoo's role from a source of entertainment for visitors, to caretakers of the world's animal populations. Many of these are not so much "care" jobs as "knowledge" jobs. The individual responsible for an elephant habitat must know these giant creatures and their habits intimately. What do they eat? Where do they like to sleep? In what greenery are they most happy? How can we meet these needs and still make elephants accessible to visitors?
Great advances have recently been made in zoo-related sciences such as veterinary medicine for exotic creatures and animal ecology, subjects barely considered even a few years ago.
ZOO KEEPER
Zoo keepers are primarily responsible for the direct care and feeding of the animals in a particular "house." Whether it is the lion, bird, monkey, or reptile house, as a zoo keeper, you would have intimate daily contact with these animal residents. Cages must be cleaned and hosed or swept (the occupants are usually moved to another cage while this is done) and the animals must be given fresh water and their allotment of food.
But zoo animal keepers are far more than housemaids. They are also nursemaids-or at least keen observers of their animals' well-being. Should a monkey, crocodile, or kangaroo show signs of illness, the zoo keeper as trained observer reports any symptoms to the veterinarian, the curator, or others responsible for an animal's condition.
A zoo keeper may also be an expert on animal breeding, be familiar with the irregular habits of rare species, and be capable of arranging animal habitats and assisting with exhibit planning and building.
Mothering-or fathering-is another duty of the zoo keeper. Often, animal-infants are raised in a nursery away from the parent. The animal mother may not "mother," ignoring or rejecting her offspring as she sees fit. Or the litter may be so large that a small creature might lose out on the mother's love and nourishment. In this case, the keeper becomes surrogate parent, feeding, rocking, or playing with the baby animal.
Later, when the animal is ready, the keeper may reestablish the youngster in the family setting. The keeper does this with a watchful eye and often, a prayer. Some animals simply do not get a happy reception, and are summarily rejected by parent or siblings.
Animal education (in zoology or animal husbandry) or extensive work with animals is prerequisites for the job of zoo keeper. Although this is the entry-level job in the field, it requires more training than you might expect.
Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida, is one school offering an Animal Technology program leading to an Associate Degree. It takes 18 months to complete the program's five semesters. These include general education courses (English, math, and the sciences) and instruction in animal nutrition, breeding, mammal and aquarium culture, aviculture (bird study), and herpiculture (reptile study).
The program is particularly appropriate considering that the role of today's zoo keeper is not simply maintaining animal cleanliness (although there is plenty of that!), but it also calls for knowledgeable observation of behavior, understanding of nutrition, and awareness of everything involved in animal environment. Zoo keepers are in the front lines of those pursuing the goal of preserving endangered species and practicing animal conservation.
Students learn the details of animal conservation and rehabilitation. The students learn by working in their own 14-acre zoo with a full complement of animal species. In addition to the academics, the instruction is very much hands-on. The work/school day runs from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and students even act as tour guides for the many groups of schoolchildren who visit the zoo. Under these conditions of hard work and steady instruction, students soon learn whether or not they are suited to this career.
Santa Fe graduates are in demand. One student, told by a big-city zoo that her bachelor's degree in biology did not qualify her for a beginner's job as zoo keeper, enrolled in Santa Fe. The school's graduates are quickly hired by major zoos and biological parks. Although some Santa Fe graduates go on to four-year colleges for further education, 80 to 90 percent find zoo jobs right after graduation. Many zoos that hire one Santa Fe graduate will put in a call for more!
Most but not all zoo keepers are union workers, and their salaries depend on the zoo's location, endowment and budget, union or non-union status, and the zoo keeper's years of experience. The more modest zoo keeper salaries may be held to $8.00 per hour at entry-level with periodic raises. At the other end of the spectrum, the more affluent zoos may pay the beginning or assistant zoo keeper $12.00 an hour and the senior zoo keeper $14.00 an hour-rates that translate to yearly salaries of $25,000 to $29,600.
Those who aspire to zoo keeper careers can join volunteer zoo-training groups. Interaction between future zoo workers and the large and small animal residents gives a person confidence to continue in this unique field.
WILD ANIMAL TRAINER
While zoo careers offer close contact with animals, they do not bring you as close to members of the animal kingdom-literally-as wild animal training.
To succeed in this field, you need two very different characteristics: an empathy or kinship with wild animals, and the courage and agility to face and deal with them. You will also need long and extremely thorough training. Most animal trainers say their own training never ends, nor does that of their animals.
There are several large circuses and quite a few smaller ones where you could work if you have the necessary skills. Some thirty circuses still exist, along with other hundred or so smaller traveling shows that entertain in shopping malls, at state and county fairs, and similar "grandstand" locations. There are also safari parks near major cities where animals perform, as well as some zoos that offer animal acts, and ‘Seaquarium’ attractions with their showoff seals and sea lions.
The animal trainer is basically a performer, tuned-in to the cheers of the crowd and willing to accept the often difficult conditions of seasonal travel-constant movement, long hours, and less than luxurious surroundings. As an animal trainer, you are in "show biz," putting on one or more shows a day, and spending long hours in between caring for your animals and always improving your act. A large part of your eventual success as a personality will come from the creativeness of your act-the exciting combination of daring, showmanship, and originality.
Make no mistake, animal training is a hazardous way to earn a living. The two basic rules are: one, be aware 60 seconds of every minute of the moods of your animals (and know that they have a "sixth sense" for your moods); two, never allow yourself to get in a situation where you have to trust a wild animal even for a moment.
Part of the thrill for an audience is the very real danger in which the trainer works. Whips, chairs, and guns that fire blanks aren't used by trainers for show, but serve to distract an animal and keep it in line when the trainer senses it is about to do something that's not on the program!
There is no school for animal trainers except the real world of experience. Even a youngster whose parents are animal trainers starts learning just where the outsider does, at the beginning.
That "beginning" can come while you are still in high school, provided you are able to find summer work with a traveling show or at a safari park. At the start, it will probably not be with animals; the idea is to get a job doing whatever is available, from selling popcorn to taking tickets. Once you are in, be persistent about working with animals and maybe you'll get a lucky break. You might feed the beasts or clean their cages. It will at least prove your ability to move around animals, and will certainly help you to understand them.
Whether or not you work with animals at first, take all the time you legitimately can to watch the trainers at work. This is definitely a learning-by-doing career, but it must be preceded with a long period of learning-by-watching.
If your luck holds, you will become apprenticed to a trainer, and will later serve as an assistant. Your involvement will, of course, be the dirty work: loading and unloading the animals, feeding them, and keeping them and their environment clean and healthy.
Feeding is the key to your early instruction in wild animal training, because all training works on a reward system. A leopard can be trained to hop on a stool if meat is placed on it. And other animals can be taught to perform, provided the reward appears on schedule. If you as the trainer are always the person associated with the reward, you are the one for whom the animals will perform.
If this sounds easy, it isn't. Some animal trainers say it takes up to two years of constant work to create a good animal act, perhaps twice that time to make the act exceptional.
One of the duties you will perform before you can begin to work with animals is assisting the trainer as part of your apprenticeship. Among other things, you will be called upon to watch the trainer's act. You will observe all the animals all the time, to see things the trainer cannot: what the animals not under the trainer's direct control are doing, or thinking of doing. To do this job well will take weeks, even months, of careful observing and understanding of each animal's nature and temperament. You would, of course, observe from outside the training cage and warn the trainer of anything that might seem to be going wrong.
In training, your approach to the animals should be extremely patient, as though you were training a very young child. The keys are constant repetition of each command with its necessary action such as tickling or prodding the animal, always followed by praise and reward. Animals can also be taught what you do not want them to do, by adroit use of a prod, whip, or even slaps to discourage misbehavior. This is a form of instruction in the hands of a skilled trainer-never carried to the degree where it verges on cruelty or causes the animal to attack.
Working with more than one animal or more than one type at a time is a necessary part of developing an animal act. This calls for a long period of getting the different animals used to each other. To start with, tigers, and lions, for instance, are caged next to each other, then "introduced" in the same cage but controlled with collars and chains. The trainer gets them to look forward to this mingling by giving them meat as a reward. Gradually, the animals are worked with longer chains as they accept the presence of the trainer. The collars and chains are removed as the actual training progresses. Patience, kindness, vigilance, and courage are essential during every second of the process-in fact, during every second the trainer works or performs with animals.
In addition to lions, tigers, and elephants-the most popular animals-monkeys, bears, kangaroos, and sea lions rate high with audiences. Training of dogs and horses as performers also calls for patience and stamina, but does not involve the high risks of wild animal training.
The trainer may well have a long day-especially if he or she is touring (which usually means rocky sleep until you get used to it). The animals must be fed twice a day, cleaning must be done, costumes and props readied, rehearsals and more training carried out, and one or more shows performed. Life is a bit easier-but not much-for animal trainers who work in safari parks and other non-touring attractions. Should an animal get sick, that, too, becomes the trainer's responsibility.
After a suitable paid apprenticeship with at least one trainer but often with more (to gain varied experience), most trainers go out on their own just as any theatrical performer does. He or she usually owns the animals they perform with, once they establish their act. The pay for independent trainers varies according to their skills and reputations. A top-rated act may pay very well; a relative beginner might be lucky to break even. In addition to the cost of the animals, ongoing expenses include food, medical care, costumes, props, and pay for an assistant or apprentice. Should the trainer be injured-a not unlikely possibility-the costs go on even if the act does not. The ever-present personal danger is the greatest drawback to this profession-one reason why it is relatively un-crowded.
As for opportunities, they do exist, although the American circus is no longer "in the center ring" of entertainment. As we have seen, many circuses still tour "under canvas." In addition to the stationary amusement centers mentioned, there are also opportunities in training animals for use in TV shows and motion pictures. The Star Wars creature, Bantha, was really an outrageously costumed elephant, and the "actor" who rode between its giant curved horns was its trainer, Bob Spiker.
INTERNSHIPS-A PATH TO ZOO WORK
We mentioned the zoo keeper program at Santa Fe Community College as a great opportunity to put an elephant-sized foot ahead of others looking into the field.
There is another way to get into zoo work and that is through a zoo internship program. The Philadelphia Zoo has two intern programs for students. One is the Junior Intern Program for junior-high students. The other is a program for college students or college graduates.
The Junior Intern Program introduces young people to zoo curators, veterinarians, and researchers, as well as to the zoo inhabitants themselves. For someone wishing to go into zoo-related work, this is a great opportunity to see all aspects of zoo life.
If you are a college student or college graduate, the internships take place both in the summer and in the fall. Some pay a small salary; others do not. This program is a much more sophisticated version of the junior high internships. The college students learn exhibit management, zoo administration, and instruction for children who visit the zoo exhibits. They are also assigned to a zoo department, ranging from public relations to video work.
Many zoos offer internships at various levels. Call your nearest zoo (or one in a nearby city you can reach by bus or train) and find out what programs are available. You've heard people say "I can't get work because I haven't had any experience." Well, here's a chance to gain the experience. It could later put you a notch ahead of others seeking zoo work.
AQUARIUM WORK-ANIMALS OF THE WATERY DEEP
Just as there has been a revolution in zoo habitats, large-scale aquariums are also opening up around the nation. (The highly successful National Aquarium in Baltimore started this rush of aquarium-building with an emphasis on realism.) The newest to open is the Thomas H. Kean New Jersey State Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey. Other cities with new aquariums (or those to open soon) include: New Orleans, Louisiana; Louisville, Kentucky; Corpus Christi, Texas; and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
These vast new aquariums now opening mean jobs in a very special area of the animal world. It is not a traditional animal field, to be sure, but it has its own unique appeal. Some of you who have had jobs in small aquarium pet shops may be fascinated by the beautiful fish, sea turtles, and other exotic creatures you worked with. Thus, public aquarium work could be exactly the thing you enjoy most.
Aquarium job titles are as unique as the water inhabitants. At the New Jersey Aquarium, the Director of Husbandry tops the career ladder. He or she is the equivalent of Animal Curator at most zoos, including the Philadelphia Zoo, which is affiliated with the Aquarium. Next in line is the Animal Collections Manager. This individual is in charge of the Aquarists. Aquarists feed the fish and other sea animals, clean whale-sized exhibits, report on the health of all the sea creatures, and even dive among these fast-moving inhabitants. The divers actually answer queries from visitors peering into the exhibits. They field the awed questions of children and adults alike via microphone as sharks and other fish cruise casually by.
Both visitors and employees are intrigued by the accessibility of the exhibits at the New Jersey Aquarium and at many of its newer counterparts. Instead of craning one's neck to see the large tanks of fish or other marine exhibits as had been the tradition, the New Jersey Aquarium visitor enjoys the performance from a sunken amphitheater which features an amazing 170,000-gallon harbor seal habitat.
Another mind-blower is a 3-D recreation of the edge of the Hudson Canyon-a point many miles off the East Coast where the Continental Shelf ends. Here, the ocean floor drops thousands of feet into an abyss formed over millions of years.
A job as an aquarium worker probably sounds a lot like being paid to have fun. But despite the job's appealing features, those who work at aquariums are responsible for keeping careful track of the health and well-being of their charges.
