Education
By communicating our successes
with colleagues, students and the
community at large, the strides we
make in animal wellness improve
the care of animals both locally
and worldwide.
Show and Tell
When it comes to animal wellness, who better to learn from than
the professionals who make it happen every day? Through scheduled
chats and training sessions, our keepers relay the importance of
training, enrichment and nutrition, sometimes recruiting guests to
help carry out these tasks.
Outreach
Our animal wellness team visits community centers to teach the
public how to enhance their pets’ lives through habitat complexity,
enrichment and training. We lead workshops with keepers at other
facilities on behavior-based enrichment. Through our work with
scrub-jays, we’ve shown conservation partners our best practices
for working with birds in the field.
The Next Generation
Internships are a must for budding professionals in any field. Between
2015 and 2018, our ability to sponsor interns increased nearly sevenfold,
and a total of 55 college students and recent graduates have participated
in this program. In addition to the hands-on experience gained by working
alongside keepers, interns participate in structured curriculum that
culminates in a project and a presentation.
In 2017, we introduced the apprentice keeper program—
a “next step” for young animal care professionals with
internship experience already under their belt.
21
Apprentice keepers perform tasks similar to those assigned to interns
but make a longer-term commitment and receive payment for their
work. When a full-time keeper leaves their position, an apprentice keeper
“waiting in the wings” may be hired to fill the vacancy; because they are
already familiar with the Zoo and our animals, the transition is much
easier than it would be with an outsider.