What I failed to include in my previous blog post is an introduction of myself which, I now realise, may be helpful to provide a bit of context to my reflections and evaluations. By doing this, it might make it easier to understand how specific anecdotes I will mention in the forthcoming blog posts fit into my life.
So…what am I currently doing?
I have completed the first two years of my undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences and am now taking a year out of university to do a 10-month work placement (Sep ’17 – Jun ’18) in an international conservation charity. The organisation also runs a zoo which serves as its headquarter, and that is where I am based. Later this year in October, I will go back to university to complete my final year. I aspire to have a career in the environmental/wildlife conservation sector, hence why I am undertaking my placement year in a conservation organisation.
My placement is split into three main temporal components:
(1) Captive animal husbandry within the Bats & Marmosets section of the Mammal department for a little over three months;
(2) Captive animal husbandry within the Bears & Macaques section of the Mammal department for a little less than three months;
(3) Conservation research under the Academy department for the last three months.
In addition to my three main work duties as a placement student, I also work one day a week in the Communications & Fundraising department assisting the marketing officer as well as conduct another conservation research project during my weekends. The research project is independent of the conservation charity I work for, hence the reason why it is not included in the time frame diagram above and why I work on it during my weekends. Throughout the duration of my placement, I also participate in any training courses run by the Academy department.
Now, seven months into my placement year, what have I learned?
This topic will be split into two blog posts as the contents are too lengthy for one post, but both will reflect on key lessons I have learned and things I have noticed as a placement student in the organisation I work for. This post will specifically cover my time in the Mammal and Communications & Fundraising departments. In the next blog post, I will cover more general lessons I have learned throughout my placement year so far. Since I still have three months until I complete my placement, I will write up another post in July which will cover the research component of my placement as well as any other general lessons I have learned throughout my placement.
Mammal department
- Animal behaviour
In the Bats & Marmosets section, I got to work with fruit bats, tamarins, lion tamarins, marmosets, lemurs and Malagasy giant jumping rats. In the Bears and Macaques section, I got to work with Andean bears, Sulawesi crested black macaques, howler monkeys, meerkats, Asian small-clawed otters, Malagasy narrow-striped mongooses and ring-tailed coatis. By looking after them and working with the keepers on a daily basis, I learned about the behaviours of the different species.
- How studbooks work
Several keepers who I worked with held studbooks for the species they look after. They taught me how they acquired and manage the studbooks, and how genetic information of individual animals from the studbooks can form the basis of decisions made across zoos internationally with regards to captive animal translocations and captive breeding programmes.
- Zookeeping is much harder (both physically and mentally) than I ever thought.
A lot of cleaning and heavy lifting (e.g. food crates, animal crates, various equipment, enrichment items).
Need to have an adequate level of handyman knowledge (i.e. how to use drills and screws, how heating works, how the enclosures were built, how to install perches and ensure their stability).
Need to be alert and observant to animals’ behavioural cues.
Need to be careful to avoid making mistakes which may harm the animals or yourself (e.g. leaving enclosure doors unlocked, locking out/in animals overnight, leaving any equipment in the enclosure with the animals) and need to be quick-thinking when anything goes wrong.
Need a level of animal medical knowledge.
Effective teamwork and communication with other keepers are key (e.g. update others of any changes or anything unusual).
Need a level of creativity to come up with enrichment ideas.
- Many zookeepers prefer less people-to-people interaction, hence why they work with animals.
Most of the keepers I worked with preferred not to take part in activities which involve interaction with visitors (e.g. keeper talks, animal experiences, keeper for a day). Many of them do not have and/or do not want to have children as well.
- Everything that are given to the animals, be it food or non-ingested items (e.g. enrichment items), need to be made sure that they either cannot be eaten (e.g. large plastic ball) or are not toxic to the animals if eaten (e.g. kid-friendly paint, using yucca plant leaves as strings, no tape on cardboard boxes).
- Even when keepers try to create the best living conditions for the animals, they ultimately can never really predict what will happen to the animals and/or how the animals will behave.
This is because every individual is different and, when working with endangered species, not much might be known about the species.
E.g. Still-births may occur even when keepers try to provide living conditions which are as stress-free as possible; an individual may lose weight suddenly and drastically even when given extra food; babies may keep dying shortly after their births even when there are minimal disturbances to the mother.
- Am currently learning how to edit videos.
I have been tasked by the Mammal department to create a short video from multiple camera footage of a recent conservation trip.
Communications & Fundraising department
- How to deal with potentially negative media publicity.
Sometimes, it is better to post unfortunate news on your conservation organisation’s website/social media accounts before they get released by news outlets. This is so that you have control of what information comes out first rather than letting the public read misconstrued information from other sources first. However, having said this, it is still best if no negative news have to be released at all.
- Having a social media calendar which includes organisation’s important dates, environmental/wildlife days, etc.
It will help keep track of what social media content your conservation organisation should be posting and when.
- Make full use of helpful features on social media platforms.
E.g. Scheduling social media posts; ‘boosting’ posts’ outreach; post and page analytics
Certain social media platforms (e.g. Facebook) have tools which allow you to prepare posts beforehand and automatically upload them at a scheduled time, as well as an option to expand your post’s viewer outreach. Although it may come at a price, it is often much cheaper than printing advertisement boards and more effective than uploading more posts which will probably reach the same viewers, not new ones. Certain social media platforms (e.g. Facebook) also have analytics tools which allow the admin to see the demography of the organisation’s social media viewers.
- As a commercial conservation institution with a zoo, you need to know what your competitors (e.g. other attractions) are doing.
It can be events, social media posts, corporate packages, membership benefits, etc. It is also the same for non-commercial conservation NGOs, they should know what other conservation NGOs are doing and how they are engaging with the public. This is because at the end of the day, you need visitors to come into the zoo and you need members to stay engaged and make up part of your revenue stream.
- Weekly/monthly catch-up meetings are key.
They are an effective tool to keep everyone updated and feel like a team. In the Communications & Fundraising department, everyone is given a turn to speak while the head of the department chairs the meetings.
- Small but helpful ways to maintain healthy bonds between colleagues
Sometimes, just by offering to make coffee/tea for everyone strengthens your positive relationship with your colleagues and reduces the feeling of being distant. Also, asking how people are doing at the start of a work day/what they got up to over the weekend and having a short conversation based off of it (emphasis on “and”) creates a more friendly atmosphere and boosts the feeling of being a team.
One thing I would like to mention before concluding this blog post is that although zookeeping is not what I want to pursue as a career, working with such rare species has greatly enhanced my appreciation for my time being in such close proximity to these species on a daily basis. It is unlikely that I will get to see these species ever again in my life. My admiration for zookeepers has also grown a lot as I have come to realise that being a zookeeper requires a lot of hard work and long hours. I was lucky to have had the opportunity to work alongside passionate zookeepers who are not there to ‘just do their jobs’ but who truly care about the animals. Overall, despite the fact that my main work duties do not fall within the remit of the profession I want to have, this placement has deeply strengthened my passion for pursuing a career in conservation.
My Corner of Conservation 