A Rainy Day

The older I get - and especially the longer I worked in zoos as a keeper - the more that I came to hate rainy days.  I don't like being cold and wet, and the rain, especially the heavy storms, made such a mess, and literally made everything harder and worse.  Well, almost everything.

If there's one thing I came to appreciate about rain, it was the cleaning powers.  Yes, I know I also just said that the rain makes a mess, and it does, especially when drains clog up and things start to flood.  But one thing rain does especially well is clean things that are hard to reach and hard to scrub off.  I'm especially thinking of perching in some of our larger bird exhibits.

Every once in a while, a fit of ambition would hit me, and I'd laboriously haul a ladder from aviary to aviary, haul in a big bucket of warm soapy water and a scrub brush, and then spend the day either trying to bring the bucket up the ladder with me, spilling half of it in the process, or make countless trips up and down.  This would be all in the name of scrubbing off the bird droppings... but usually it just ended up looking white and smeary.  Now, a good, slow, steady soaking rain, on the other hand, can really clear things off... without me having to do much.

I sometimes wonder if custodial staff feel that way about some of the stains around zoo grounds in the public areas.

Rain also other benefits for the animals, in moderation.  It's enriching, changing the environment, creating new mini-water features for animals to bathe in, changing the smell and feel of the exhibit.  It can let birds preen their feathers and get themselves clean.  Even just forcing the animal to make a decision about whether it wants to be out in the wet or dry under shelter (and the animals should all have the freedom to make that decision) is empowering for them.  For that reason, some indoor zoo exhibits, especially rainforest buildings, also give their animals mock rainstorms.

But from an employee perspective, all I can say is, at least it gets some of the tough stains up.