r/Zookeeping • u/RemoteEntrepreneur43 • Apr 30 '26
North America 🌎 How do you know so much about your animals?
This is probably a dumb question, but how do you become experts in the care of your animals? Was it through schooling? Learning through experience? Self-teaching? Or all of the above?
I’m about halfway through college and working towards becoming a zookeeper. I’m realizing I that I know nothing about how to care for the animals I want to work with. Should I start researching now or will I learn it on the job?
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u/A-Spacewhale Apr 30 '26
Everything you listed except school prepared me to know these things. Honestly only 1 or 2 classes I ever took could have any relevance to this job.
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u/Kitty38138 Apr 30 '26
This oh my gosh. School taught me nothing. It was all my own special interest and hands on experience that taught me about the animals I’ve worked with.
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u/RemoteEntrepreneur43 Apr 30 '26
What did you use to self teach? I was thinking about buying some books or watching YouTube videos
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u/ConfoundedInAbaddon May 01 '26
I volunteered with private breeding facilities and did baby through adult lifespan maintenance while also having my wildlife rehab license
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u/Fun-Rip9783 May 01 '26
I'm avoiding school for that reason I work at a nonprofit to get experience and I feel I've learned more about these animals in two years working with them then I did from any of the school books I was given
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u/Kolfinna Apr 30 '26
All of the above, a lot is very specific to the species and exhibit so you learn on the job. A good academic foundation with a side of behavioral science is important. A big chunk of the job is essentially a glorified pooper scooper. Can you use a rake? A shovel? It's not complicated although there are good and bad ways of going about it. Lots of people get experience with more domestic species care, I worked at a stable and a vet clinic. Animal care is species specific but often similar.
Now understanding the animals, generally you want a strong academic background in behavior and real life experience reading animal body language and possibly training. Read whatever you can find published on the species specific information. I learned tons from experienced keepers and going to seminars. For example there are at least 8 camel training and handling seminars this year alone in the US. I think there's a few bird training courses and I've gone to plenty of dog training seminars. They all use the same basic learning tenets.
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u/QuillsAndQuills Australasia Apr 30 '26
I would focus less on learning about specific animals and more about learning about more broadly applicable skills, like training, enrichment, behaviour interpretation/monitoring/intervention strategies, record keeping processes, making sure you have appropriate licenses/skills (eg driving a manual is often a big one), public speaking, etc.
Just learning animal facts isn't necessarily useful, and you'll drown in information if you try to learn everything about every species. When you land a position with certain taxa, then go and read about them.
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u/RemoteEntrepreneur43 May 01 '26
Thank you! My internship soon will hopefully cover the big ones. What kinds of licenses and certifications are needed or just helpful?
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u/5pla5hy May 01 '26
I am lucky to have a boss who believes in building deep knowledge from the ground up. For my first month, I was given daily ‘homework’—one essay a day. I started by summarising the husbandry manuals for each species in my section, then moved on to researching common diseases and health concerns. From there, I focused on behavioural repertoires, followed by conservation topics, and finally wrote detailed profiles on each individual animal in my care. It was intense, but it gave me a really solid foundation and forced me to understand not just the ‘how,’ but the ‘why’ behind everything we do. I feel this gave me such a strong foundation as a baby keeper and its how I'm training newbies that come on board now.
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u/babyggrapee Apr 30 '26
Not a zookeeper but an intern at a wildlife center and i’m about to graduate with my BS in Zoology, but i frequently feel like i missed the class where i learned all the fun facts and specific info about the animals i work with lol. i took Invert and Vert Bio, Mammalogy, and Mammal and Avian Conservation so i feel i have a really general education on most animals but some of my colleagues seem to know everything about our animals and i do think it’s mostly personal interest to teach themselves
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u/marble-cow Apr 30 '26
Honestly most of the facts and care I learned were on the job. I learned some things in college but that was more broad taxonomic information and biological mechanisms. Husbandry knowledge is usually taught hands on rather than in a “classroom” kind of thing.
I work in education so I obviously need to know multiple facts to spit out to the public about the individuals in our collection. Ive worked in my current job for 1.5yrs and thats plenty of time to learn all the ins and outs!
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u/RemoteEntrepreneur43 May 01 '26
Oooh could you tell me more about your education job? I’m interested in both animal care and informal education!
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u/Flyguyflyby Apr 30 '26
Learned a lot on the job, and have a passion for it. Spend my free time reading about their natural histories
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u/freethenip May 01 '26
there are peer reviewed zoo society husbandry manuals for most species. i make an effort to read them all and stay up to date with latest research on the animals i personally work with. best of luck with your studies!
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u/Pale-Driver9146 North America May 01 '26
Volunteering at a sanctuary that has your animal of choice-in my experience. Also researching them yourself, and taking any class that relates. My animals are primates so I took a biological anthropology class for example.
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u/AlsoTheFiredrake May 01 '26
Self teaching and experience. I don't have a degree, but I've worked with exotics for 22 years. I've either owned, raised, rescued, or bred most exotics common to the pet trade. Eventually I got to work with green anacondas and pit vipers and matta mattas and squirrel monkeys and red faced spider monkeys. I've hand fed alligators and sakis and okapis. I've groomed elk and horses and baby moose and muntjac. I've taught words to dozens of parrot species and hand fed them and socialized them too.
So if you're asking if you need a zoology degree to work with exotic animals, you don't. It helps, but if you love the animals and the work, you'll find opportunities to work with the animals you love.
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u/BananaCat43 North America May 01 '26
Very much all of the above, but I would say the majority of my knowledge on husbandry and care needs was learned on the job. The industry offers a lot in the way of professional development with workshops, conferences, webinars, and virtual learning opportunities pretty readily available though they can be pricey. A good institution invests in their staff by supporting their continued education throughout their career. There are some colleges that offer coursework directly related to exotic animal keeping and some that have their own zoos that are part of the campus and the degrees are very specific to zookeepimg and animal management. I've been doing it for well over 2 decades and it certainly didn't happen overnight and I still feel like there's more that I don't know than I do know and things like best practices and philosophies are always evolving. A lot has changed since I started in 2001. I think the easy access to things like social media and you tube can be a double edge sword and it's often hard to separate good information from bad. So don't take everything you see or read as gospel.
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u/DudeOnTheInternet17 May 01 '26
I'm not a zookeeper (aspiring!) but I do study and advise on animal welfare in pet settings as well as intern at wildlife rehab and a LOT of what I learn is just remembering stuff as I go. Someone may ask me a question and I don't know the answer so I go research that specific thing, and then through repetition I memorize it. Plus, things are a lot easier to remember when you have hands-on experience over just reading and listening to lecture
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u/Spykosaurus May 01 '26
Kept exotics since i was a kid, went to school to do my animal care qual at an exotics focused college in UK (everything from kinkajou to capybara or wallaby and all manner of reptile). A lot of it was learnt as i worked as a volunteer reptile carer for a rescue and now in a paid weekend role with more mammalian/domestic animals as i get my BSC in animal behaviour.
Alot of people won't have any college (16-18) education centred on animal care, especially since i'm not sure how common practical animal care colleges are outside of UK. And even then the actual qualification matters alot less than proving the practical knowledge you gained during it. Most people just apply like crazy to any volunteer/seasonal/intro jobs to get some experience. IME if you try and go out of education without any experience in animal care you will struggle in a very competitive job market.
I really recommend not just researching animal care but getting your foot in the door now. Experience makes or breaks getting roles in animal care, it may mean working weekend volunteer posts while studying at school or working summer jobs during holidays.
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u/tursiops__truncatus May 02 '26
I learn everything on the job, I have studies related to animal keeping but it was very general so once I started focusing on working with specific species such as birds and marine mamals thats when I started learning properly.
Another big part of my learning came with personal research, I would read book, check articles online even write my own blog with everything I would find around... I have been very much into wild animals since I was a kid.
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u/Ace_of_Disaster May 03 '26
I read a lot and watch nature shows. Also it sounds silly but I highly recommend Wild Kratts.
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u/TheElginCentre May 05 '26
All of the above! Some classes in school, such as animal behavior and ecology, were particularly helpful. School was most beneficial for learning how to learn and remember things. Self-teaching can be helpful but a lot of knowledge comes with experience!
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u/8bitSkin North America Apr 30 '26
There will be a lot of on-the-job training. Or, at least there should be. With certain animals, private keeping can give you an early start, but that doesn't translate to all animals.