The Great Zookeeping Road Trip

Shipping animals by air is one of the easiest ways to safely, quickly get an animal across long-distances.  It does have its drawbacks.  It can be expensive.  It can be weather-sensitive.  It can be logistically challenging - it only works well, after all, if there is a suitable airport close enough to your starting point, and another close enough to your end point.  There can be restrictions of what kinds of animals can ship, or on what kinds of crates that they can ship it.  

Most of all, there's the gut-wrenching moment of dread that you experience when the cargo crew has taken your animal in its crate behind the counter and you know that, for the next few hours, its fate is in the hands of a non-animal professional.  Having witnessed the chaos of airport cargo facilities behind-the-scenes, it can be a chilling thought.

It's not too surprising that sometimes (often, even), I throw up my hands and say, "Heck with it.  Let's just drive the damn thing."

Driving has practical benefits.   Most importantly, you are with your animal for the entire time.  You can judge if it is too hot or too cold, or if it needs more food or water.  If it seems agitated or upset, you, a familiar caretaker, can comfort it.  If it, say, starts to break out of its crate, like a certain pair of otters I could mention, then you can respond quickly and promptly - whereas the alternative might be an animal getting loose in the cargo hold of a plane and wreaking havoc there.   

My favorite part of the road trip might be that it gives a chance for there to be some overlap between the old keepers and the new.  Whether the animal is being delivered or picked up, there is a chance for the caretakers to meet, to observe the animals together, to observe the current facility or the new one, and to share ideas and insights about diet, training, enrichment, and other aspects of care.  

The golden rule of road trips with zoo animals is - drive.  Once you have the animal, you drive until you get to your destination, unless it proves unsafe to do so - say, if you're exhausted and need to sleep, or to wait out a storm.  Other than that, bathroom breaks, gas breaks, and drive-through/take out food are acceptable reasons to stop, apart from checks on the animals.  On the non-animal leg of the drive, you can stop, stretch your legs, have a decent meal, maybe even visit another zoo along the way, which has been a great chance for me to meet up with old friends on the road before.

If the drive is very long, sometimes it works best to meet at a central location.  I often recommend doing it at another zoo - giving them a heads-up first, of course.  That way, if there are any unexpected problems - you need a new crate, or a roll of duct tape or some zipties, or a little feed, or, heaven help you, a vet, you're in the right place.

Driving has its drawbacks as well.  It can take a long time, which can take a toll on both you and the animal.  It can be deceptively expensive - instead of plopping down a big wad of money for airfare, you get nickeled-and-dimed with charges for gas, meals, tolls, etc, to say nothing of wear-and-tear on the vehicle.  Paperwork-wise, it can be a hassle, as you have to check with each state on your route to make sure they don't have any laws or permit requirements that you need to be aware of.  Plus, there is so much uncertainly - weather, vehicle problems, delays.  A curator I knew once told me, "When an animal goes up in a plane, the plane is either going to land, or crash.  Either way, it comes back down.  When you transport by road, anything can happen."

Having dealt with car crashes, crazy delays, awful directions, temporary escapes (thankfully confined to the vehicle itself), freak weather, etc, I can confirm.  Anything can happen.

You can meet the worst traffic on some of these backroads.