Raised by the Zoo

Many zookeepers are a fairly young group, often recruited right out of college, and I was no exception when I started in the field.  My first weeks walking around grounds at my first job, dressed in my brand new uniform, I'd see coworkers from other departments, folks that I hadn't met yet, slow down and study me as they'd walk by, trying to figure out what I was.  Another newbie keeper?  A high school intern?  A kid working concessions?  It was too hard for them to tell at that quick glance.

As young as I probably looked then, I started off in the zoo world even younger.  I was barely a preteen when I started volunteering.  I think I spent every free moment of my high school years at the zoo.  Things were a little less (well, a lot less) regulated back in those days, and I still can't believe some of the things that they let me get away with back then, or had me do.

Now, a decade and a half later, I look at entry level keepers and gasp to myself.  They're just kids!

But neither they - nor the young teen volunteers - are even the youngest faces I see when I walk around the back of the zoo.

It's not entirely uncommon to occasionally run into the children of zoo employees (I mean, those employees that aren't essentially children themselves) visiting their parents at work.  Some become fairly frequent visitors, to the point that I joke that they spend more time in the zoo than some of the animals do.  Especially at some of the smaller, privately-owned, unaccredited facilities that I've known and worked at, it's not uncommon for the zoo to become a family business, with kids working at the zoo at a very young age and being expected to take over from their parents when they grow up.  This was commonly how things were - and to a degree, still are - among animal handlers and other performers in circuses, and there has traditionally been quite a bit of overlap in the cultures of circuses and zoos.

It's kind of wild to spend time in the company of kids who, essentially, grew up in zoos.  I was once challenged by a very young girl to see which of us could name all of the world's crane species fastest (I maintain that I let her win).  One older man I've work with fondly recalled being chased screaming across his father's zoo by an angry male mandrill as a small child after it busted loose from its cage.  Another told me how he'd been sent to school with egg-salad sandwiches for lunch ostrich egg salad sandwiches.  When other kids accused him of lying about his lunch, he'd brought an entire hard-boiled ostrich egg to school the next day.  Another zoo director told me how his teen son, when he'd been much younger, had developed a special bond with a sick, elderly rhino, and would spend hours sitting in the barn with the rhino, talking to him to keep him company.  When I mentioned that story to the son, now a jaded mid-teen, the boy actually teared up a bit at the memory.

I was very curious as to what it would be like for those kids growing up among animals.  Would they fall head over heels in love with the animals?  Get bored or frustrated by their unconventional upbringing.  Or would the frequent exposure to animals leave them jaded?  I've known some folks who have followed their parents' footsteps and become keepers as well.  Others who've run and never looked back... or at the very least expressed zero interest in working with animals.  One zoo-man told me that it took a lot to impress his kids when they visited a zoo later on, as they'd become accustomed to up-close encounters and behind-the-scenes access. 

For myself, I considered my time at the zoo to be the most magical, memorable part of my high school years.  I can't imagine ever having grown disillusioned with it... and probably would have loved it if my introduction to life in the zoo had started a decade or so earlier.