When you shake your keys the animals come out, thinking you're their keeper
I was right on time at the zoo gates, 8:00 a.m., where I was met by Kalyn, the program coordinator and one of the Primate Forest keepers. She gave me a a brief orientation in which I was mostly reminded that these are Wild Animals and if something went down - like the cougar they were tranquilizing and transporting across the zoo grounds suddenly woke up and started rampaging - I was to obey whatever orders the keepers gave me. Then I was handed off to Cindy, the Hoofstock primary keeper. Cindy is a little older than me and, like me, fairly recently arrived in Salt Lake City, having come from several other zoos back east as well as a stint with the Ringling Brothers' circus.
We stopped by the "Commissary" and loaded up on "diet" for the critters: lettuce, carrots, yams, spinach and other fresh veggies - donated by the local supermarkets when the produce becomes too unsightly to sell - and applesauce on whole wheat sandwiches, on which we sprinkled glucosamine for the aging female camel and llama.
The antelope enclosure was the first stop, seeming a little empty what with the unexplained deaths of both zebras at the end of 2009. Cindy sadly told me that she was the one who found them on her early morning rounds - one of the worst days in her life, she said. We poured pellets for the antelopes into their dishes, cleaned their water buckets and swept up a bunch of tiny round poops.
Peccaries behind the scenes
Next were the peccaries which look like a cross between porcupines and pigs. They're pretty good sized but their feet are tiny, dainty even. We "shifted" the peccaries from their outside enclosure to their indoor pens so we could pick up poop and scatter fresh lettuce, apples, yams and spinach around for them to find. Peccaries are picky for pigs: they picked out the apples and yams first, leaving the spinach for last. Cindy told me that usually the peccaries will squeal and get all excited when they see her, knowing that it's feeding time, but all hoofstock are wary of new people and there was no squealing with me around, just suspicious looks.
Cindy showed me the Hay Barn where she spends a lot of her time, full of grass hay (for most of the hoofstock), alfalfa hay (for the tender-tummied giraffes), straw for bedding, and lots of sticks, giant kong balls, bells and other hoofstock enrichment items. She told me that one of her favorite parts of the job, aside from the actual time spent with "her" animals, is coming up with new enrichment ideas. These have to be approved by the head keepers and the staff veterinarians before being allowed in the enclosures.
Shaker
The bison, Shaker and Junior, were next. H and I hadn't seen these guys when we went to the zoo in December since the only way to see them is to buy a ticket for the silly little train ride: the train tracks go right through the bison enclosure. Apparently Shaker - a huge fellow so named for his habit of shaking his massive head (and trying to hook you with his horns) when he thinks dinner is not coming fast enough - sometimes likes to push his food dish onto the tracks to stop the train. He also likes to stand on the tracks and then they have to wait until he gets bored and moves away. Again, Cindy shifted the bison to an auxilliary pen for their pellets while we picked up bison poop (much bigger than antelope poop) and put out fresh hay.
Larry, Harley and Rosa
We then headed off to the llamas. These guys, Rosa, Larry and Harley, are gentle enough that I was allowed into their enclosure to sweep up poop without having to shift them. In fact they all watched me very closely, since they didn't know who I was, and I felt a little bit as though they were critiquing my work. As I was cleaning, Cindy cleaned their water (Larry apparently likes to put his front feet into the waterer which makes quite a mess) and put out pellets and fresh hay for them. She gave me some carrots which Harley was bold enough to eat from my hand; Cindy fed Rosa her whole wheat, applesauce and glucosamine sandwich. Rosa is old for a llama (I forget how old exactly) and she's wicked homely: snaggle-toothed and arthritic, rickety-looking legs.
At this point, Cindy dropped me off at the giraffe building for the "animal encounter" portion of my KfaD day. I was given a bucket of carrots and allowed out onto the little catwalk as the giraffes came in to investigate. There are only four giraffes currently since baby Jamal died from "failure to thrive" - I tried to ask the giraffe keeper if they'd been getting a hard time from the public in the wake of Jamal's death but she deflected the question. (The federal investigation turned up no wrongdoing on the zoo's part, by the way.) The oldest female and the one male were brave enough to take carrots from my hand. Up so close, their heads are just huge and their eyelashes at least a couple inches long. Their tongues are long, purplish and prehensile, wrapping around my hand to take the carrot pieces. They were beautiful but only in it for the food: when the carrots were gone, so were they. Lisa, the giraffe keeper, took lots of pictures while the feeding was still going on, however.
Mmmm - carrots!
I had been given a voucher for my lunch so the giraffe keeper handed me off to Celeste (small mammals and wolves), who was pretty reserved at first, but who warmed up later, who took me to get my cheeseburger and fries. We ate at the behind-the-scenes picnic tables with a bunch of the other keepers, all young (mid-twenties to mid-thirties) and incredibly jaded. It was hilarious and yet understandable at the same time: these zookeepers clearly adore their charges, trading stories and anecdotes, but border on misanthropic because their jobs require so much public contact, most of it in the form of screaming groups of schoolkids. The keepers whose animals are in buildings are responsible for keeping the glass free of hand smudges and also cleaning up any vomit; Cindy, whose animals are spread out all across the zoo, has trouble driving her little golfcart through the crowds because people just won't move out of the way (and she's not allowed to use the horn).
My day was technically supposed to end with lunch but the reptile keeper, Dorian, had offered to let me feed a baby crocodile (mealworms rolled in calcium powder since reptiles are often calcium-deficient) and also one of the tortoises (strawberries). I also tagged along with Celeste for a bit as she fed the wolves, showed me the pregnant meerkat and proudly demonstrated how the African porcupines will come running to see her when she goes into their enclosure.
Finally I let the keepers get on with their work without a tag-along and spent about another hour or so walking around the zoo on my own. I managed to catch Cindy as she was in with the camels: Mabel ate her applesauce and glucosamine sandwich too.
Cindy (keeper) and Mabel (camel)
It was a great day and I'm so thrilled to have gotten to do it (thanks, H!). The Hogle Zoo isn't a fabulous facility: it's old and small, and unable to expand much due to its location right in the middle of the city. But the keepers clearly love their animals. I saw no signs of neglect, just animals being well cared for and the keepers - unsung, low-paid, cynical heroes - doing hard, messy, stinky work and loving being able to do it.
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