It Takes a Village

As I may have mentioned from time to time on this blog, when I was growing up, the only thing I ever wanted to be was a zookeeper (which, considering how many of my classmates wanted to grow up to be professional football players, astronauts, President of the United States, or princess ballerinas, seemed fairly reasonable to me).  I was in preschool and kindergarten back then.  All I knew was that I loved the zoo, and the zookeepers were the folks who worked there.

Which is true.  But they aren't the only ones who work there.

Every month or so, my zoo has an all-staff meeting.  It's a decent sized zoo - not one of the mega giants, but still a fairly large one with a large staff.   Without fail, every time I go to one of these meetings, I'm immediately struck by the question - who are all of these people?

The animal department represents only a fraction of them - a sizeable one, perhaps the largest individual piece, but by no means the majority.  As younger me didn't realize, running a zoo takes a village.

Some of the folks there have the sorts of jobs you might see at any organization - HR, marketing, finance, custodial.  There are other positions, however, which are somewhat more unique to the zoo world - not just the animal keepers, but a host of other positions which are needed to keep the zoo functioning.  At some zoos - like some of the very small ones I've worked at - their duties might be absorbed by keepers.  At very large zoos, they might represent separate departments.  At mid-sized places, maybe it's just one person per job, or one person taking on two or three jobs.

So this month (which happens to also feature National Zookeeper Week), I'm going to shine some light on some of the less-celebrated by still-essential folks who make the zoo go round.