Zookeepers Rock!

From July 20^th to July 26^th, we celebrated the incredible work, resilience, and passion of keepers everywhere for National Zookeeper Week! So, what better way to show our appreciation for zookeepers than by highlighting the achievements and hard work of our keepers here at Wingham Wildlife Park and showing you a behind the scenes glimpse of what our job entails.

Superheroes

But first, what first comes to mind when you think of the word ‘zookeeping’? Is it caring for the weird and wonderful? Or maybe its advocating for the conservation of species globally. Maybe it’s even battling all types of conditions to provide animals with the best welfare possible. You wouldn’t be wrong in thinking all of those things. In fact, there are countless aspects to being a zookeeper.

It takes a special kind of person to do this job. Determination and hard work. Focus and adaptability. Thick skin and a willingness to throw yourself into every situation the day presents you with. Keepers are not only responsible for the animals in their care but also the wellbeing of guests, the maintenance of zoological facilities, advocating for conservation, and inspiring the next generation to protect our planet. We’re behaviourists, midwives, public speakers, window-cleaners, mechanics, dieticians, horticulturalists, tour guides, detectives and so much more all wrapped up in one. Rain or shine, keepers are out there doing it all – with a smile on their face… and most likely some mud.

The Day-to-Day

One of the best parts of this job is how diverse and unique every day is. No day is the same and that keeps us on our toes and ready for whatever the day has to bring. No matter the section or species a keeper works with, we follow daily routines to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Usually, the day starts with planning. Keepers review what tasks need completing and distribute jobs within the team. We then get everything needed for the day ahead; collecting and cleaning tools, getting diets ready and any extra equipment that may be required.

Next, and most importantly, we go say ‘good morning’ to all our wonderful animals! Morning checks are crucial to make sure everyone is happy and healthy. We conduct both visual and physical health checks on each individual, looking for any abnormalities in their condition or behaviour that may have changed from the previous day.

Morning feeds, enclosure cleaning, perimeter checks, and other husbandry tasks follow after our initial checks. It’s important to make sure our animals are receiving the very best on a daily basis, whether that’s providing a restaurant-quality breakfast, or making sure their enclosures are squeaky clean and safe with lots of fresh bedding and water.

Animal talks and experiences are also an important part of our daily routines, and it’s an amazing way for us to connect with our visitors and share our incredible animals with all of you! We love to share our knowledge and fun facts about the species at the park, and bring visitors closer to animals in a way that creates lasting memories and inspires them to want to protect their wild counterparts. (Definitely check out our incredible animal experiences if you fancy getting face-to-face with some of our beautiful species).

Another essential part of our day as keepers is making sure we keep our animals stimulated both mentally and physically. Environmental enrichment is our secret weapon and it simply relates to novelty items and toys that we can provide the animals with to allow them to exhibit natural behaviours, explore their environment, interact with different stimuli and keep them engaged by using their mind and body. You might see this on your trip to Wingham – our big cats playing with a buoy, the coatis enjoying rolling around in the scent of animal-safe perfume, or even the lemurs and giraffes interacting with puzzle feeders and browse balls.

After we’ve refuelled at lunch, keepers crack on with diet prep. We spend hours organising and preparing every animal’s diet, making sure we give them top-notch quality food. Some species, like our sugar gliders, need their food diced up small and served on a silver tray (literally), whereas some get fruit and veg whole to encourage natural behaviours. In fact, we present our animals with their food in many ways that do this, including scatter feeding pellet to allow animals to forage, or creating ‘skewers’ for animals like our bats. Wingham also sources its own browse for species like our giraffes, tapirs, capybaras, great apes, and more!

Each species has unique dietary requirements that we carefully follow and prepare every day. We make sure they’re getting all the nutritional benefits they require to live healthy and fulfilled lives here at the park. So, next time you see one of our keepers feeding our animals, just know we spent lots of time making sure it was perfect. 

Late afternoon hits and the hard work continues. Keepers do their final rounds to make sure every individual animal is content, comfortable, and ready for the evening. We top up waters, give out final feeds, conduct our last enclosure checks, and say ‘goodnight’ to our animals. Once this is complete, we fill out lots of important information forms that tell us how the day went, including enrichment we introduced, behaviours observed, and any additional information that may be necessary for the next day. And obviously, we have to clean up after ourselves – making sure all our equipment is disinfected and popped away and our kitchen and keeper spaces are clean and organised.

Each day is different and presents new challenges and tasks for keepers. But it also presents us with new opportunities to learn from our animals and provide them with the best welfare possible. One of my favourite sayings in this industry is “our quality of work is their quality of life” and this honestly couldn’t be more true.

The Unseen

As you can see, our days are full-on and include lots of aspects of both animal care and overall park maintenance. There are countless other aspects of being a keeper and what our days include but here are some of the unseen parts that are just as crucial to providing expert care for each and every animal here at Wingham Wildlife Park.

Animal Training

Animal training is actually another form of enrichment for our animals and is also a crucial aspect to providing the best care and welfare for each species. We train ‘husbandry behaviours’ which allows our animals to voluntarily contribute to their own care. We can train animals to go into a crate so we’re able to move them in a safe and stress-free manner for vet appointments or to other collections, and ask animals to stand on scales so we can closely monitor their weight and overall health, to be proactive in diagnosing issues. Animals can also be trained to touch targets and hold position for closer health checks. Our giraffes have also been trained to put their hooves on a block so we can file them down if necessary and even take X-rays of their legs.

Animal training relies heavily on trust from both the animal and keeper. The animals are never forced to participate in these sessions but they do receive tasty positive reinforcers if they do a great job! We spend a lot of time getting to know our animals to be able to do this work and it’s my absolute favourite part of the job, allowing us to form the most remarkable relationships and trust with our animals.

Make sure to check out our other blogs from our Head of Animal Training, Georgia, to learn more.

Park Maintenance

At Wingham, we are very fortunate to have an amazing maintenance team that ensure the park is running efficiently; making sure your visit is always enjoyable. Keepers also play an important role in this too. When we’re not working with our animals, delivering talks and experiences and prepping diets etc, we are most likely doing the ‘less glamourous’ jobs that visitors usually don’t see. This includes weeding enclosures, cleaning windows and information signs, changing bins around the park, scrubbing bird poo off rails, checking fences, and keeping public areas safe and tidy.

Though it may not seem like much, these jobs are just as essential to our roles as zookeepers and hopefully help make our visitor’s experience of the zoo as positive as possible. We hope that your day is just as good as our animals’ so we take a lot of pride in these parts of the job too.

Thank you, Zookeepers

I have only been at Wingham Wildlife Park for a month but I am beyond proud and privileged to call myself a zookeeper for this incredible zoo. Being surrounded by amazing, likeminded people; all with the same goal to provide the very best for our animals and fight for the conservation of species worldwide, is something I am immensely grateful for. Forming the most remarkable relationships with the animals we care for and witness our hard work contribute to their quality of life is the best feeling in the world and I love that I get to share that with each guest who visits the park. I count myself very lucky to wake up everyday knowing I get to live my dream alongside the best team of keepers.

To all keepers – past, present and future, you are incredible. Your hard work, passion, dedication, and resilience is beyond awe-inspiring and deserves to be celebrated.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this insider view into zookeeper life and appreciate the work we contribute to daily. But we really couldn’t do this without the support and kindness of our wonderful guests – a huge thank you to all of you!

Sophie Pogmore, Mammal Keeper