Veterinary Technician

Apart from the zookeepers (and their supervisors - the lead keepers, collection managers, and curators), the most widely known position in the zoo to the general public is the veterinarian.  The size of a zoo's veterinary practice can vary widely.  Some of the larger zoos employee several vets.  A mid-sized facility typically has one or two.  The smallest facilities might not even have one, instead contracting out the services to an independent vet.  

If veterinarians are the animal equivalent of human doctors, than the vet techs (sometimes called "para-veterinary workers") fill the role of nurses.  These are the professionals who are responsible for much of basic running of the veterinary program, such as the administration of medications, changing bandages and cleaning wounds, assisting with surgeries, and other medical procedures.  In some situations, the vet tech may work largely independent of the vet; this is especially true at smaller facilities in which the contracted vet may come in only every week or so, leaving the majority of the operations to a vet tech who is employed at the facility.  At some facilities vet techs also double-function as zookeepers, caring for the animals that are kept in the zoo hospital, including those currently in quarantine. 

Like the veterinarians, vet techs must have familiarity with a wide variety of taxa, knowing what is normal for those species so that they can better diagnose when something is abnormal.  A knowledge of medications is also essential - how different drugs interact, how different species react to the same drugs (what cures one animal may kill another), and how best to administer them.  They also have to have experience working with a variety of technologies and materials, ranging from the high-tech, such as digital x-rays and anesthesia, to the much more low-tech, but still challenging, splints and bandages.  They also tend to be among the most experienced in direct handling of animals in a safe, effective manner.

The vet techs are a group of employees that I've never envied.  Unlike the zookeepers, their exposure to the animals is mostly limited to when things go wrong.  They have more exposure to the illness and injury of the collection, which means that they tend to deal with more than their fair share of death.  This is worsened by the sense of urgency and responsibility that they feel, a burden coming from the rest of the animal care employees that sometimes manifests itself as the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) question, "Why isn't it getting better?"  This question is seldom appreciated by the vet tech who has stayed up all night trying to nurse a sick animal back to health, only for it to succumb.  

The veterinarian is typically one of the most celebrated and respected members of any zoo staff, and competition for the positions can be very strident due to the low number of vacancies.  Even the most knowledgeable and respected vet, however, would typically accomplish very little without the skill and dedication of their vet techs.