Everyone is different when it comes to choosing a career that best fits their interests and desires. A good place to start when it comes to deciding if a job is right for you is to look at what the job really entails. If you are thinking about being an animal keeper, the first thing you should know is that your days would not consist of just playing with animals. In fact, if you would rather not clean, get dirty,Read more
Posts tagged: #keepers
Spotlight: Cassidy Walpole
A few weeks ago Kristen wrote a post about our new keeper, Cassidy. I first met Cassidy about 13 years ago when she started volunteering in the animal department. She was a great “youth partner”. So great, that in 1998 she was the Durham Volunteer Center’s Youth Volunteer of the Year and won the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service that same year. She went off to college, and my interaction with Cassidy was limited to providing references for her,Read more
Rubber donkey you’re the one…
Just a quick post to show you a donkey dust bath. Lightning the donkey gets to go on a walk in the mornings before the museum opens. One of his favorite things to do while out is to scrape up some stone dust and roll around in it. Lots of mammals take dust baths to add to a layer fine grit to their coats. The powdery material is irritating to small insects and thus cuts down on the annoying fliesRead more
Spotlight: Kent Carter
Kent has been working as an Animal Keeper at the Museum for almost 12 years. I remember when I hired him he said I asked him the best interview questions ever. Kent is one of the animal department’s Senior Animal Keepers. His focus is on special projects. This includes things like working with groups of kids from schools on projects, mowing the bear yard, venomous snake work, and much more. Kent is the keeper who does most of the potentiallyRead more
The many aspects of being a keeper
According to one of our blog polls (to the left of the screen), some of our readers are interested in learning more about life as a keeper. Many of our previous posts give an inside look at the sorts of things we do, such as operant conditioning with Max’s red bucket training, preparing for emergencies by staging a fake black bear escape, and outlining the tools we use when working with venomous snakes. We also post videos and stories aboutRead more
A New Outdoor Area For Inside Animals
Spring is here and we are trying to finish work on an outdoor playpen for some of our inside animals. The enclosure used to be indoors and housed an iguana, so it needs some modifications for it to be usable outdoors. Some of these modifications include extra locks for security and replacing plastic wiring with metal so that animals cannot chew through it. It will also need some material put on it to provide shade. Once we finish that, weRead more