I may have found what I was meant to do with my life.

[yourstruely_rachel]

Does anyone out there by chance know how one becomes a zookeeper?

What kind of schooling is involved? How available are the jobs? Is it seasonal or year-round? Would I make enough money to be able to do it for the rest of my life?

I'm sure I want a career working with animals, but I just don't know enough about the field to know what direction to take. Advice?

[Rogue628]

Try calling your local zoo. They should be able to tell you something. My daughter has been a volunteer at our local zoo for years and loves it! I'll ask her when she gets home if she can give me some info to help you. Or maybe get on bp and tell you since she's a member (she's not a forum type of person lol)

[jmitch]

I do not know how old you are or if you could do it. If you want to work at a zoo what I would do is go to college to be a vet. Then look into being a vet for a zoo. I think that would be cool.

[yourstruely_rachel]

Well i'm 19 and just graduated high school. The reason I didn't go straight into any kind of college was because I hated high school so much. And with the school system putting so much emphasys on traditional career paths (humsn services and computer technology) which didn't really appeal to me, I really had no idea what i wanted to do untill recently. A few hours ago actually. While stocking shelves in a grocery store thinking about how theres no way I could do this forever.

[ShockBunny]

Unfortunately, it doesn't really pay well enough to fully support yourself in most cases. But if there is a zoo or aquarium near you it's worth looking into volunteering. I did that for a while, and it was really great. Hard work, sweaty and smelly work, but very gratifying.

As far as the zoo vet thing goes, prepare to work very hard starting from your freshman year of college. You pretty much have to have a 4.0 to get into vet school these days, as it's quite competitive. After vet school, you would have to spend a couple of years training/apprenticing to work with large exotics. I wanted to be a zoo vet when I was in high school, but the harsh reality of my own academic inadequacy hit me about sophomore year of college. XD Now I'm heading to grad school for wildlife conservation and management, which is almost as exciting.

[jmitch]

Well i'm 19 and just graduated high school. The reason I didn't go straight into any kind of college was because I hated high school so much. And with the school system putting so much emphasys on traditional career paths (humsn services and computer technology) which didn't really appeal to me, I really had no idea what i wanted to do untill recently. A few hours ago actually. While stocking shelves in a grocery store thinking about how theres no way I could do this forever.

I understand that I went to college and did not want to go anymore so I had to find something to do. I ended up in the Navy and love it, and I am almost done with my BA. The best part is 10 more years till I can retire.

[Clementine_3]

Zoos aren't the only jobs/careers for 'working with animals'. My son has his degree in Wildlife Management and is a Certified (by the National Wildlife Society) Wildlife Biologist. He is scouting for a school for his Masters now and currently works at the Jones Center/Ichaway Research Center in GA. His main focus is Gopher tortoise research but he works with everything he comes across in the field (just found his first Indigo!).
He has worked for many places (grant work usually) and has done work with bats, loons, salamanders etc. all up and down the coast.
He's gone all over and wrangled/researched all sorts of cool critters. He is having the time of his life, getting paid for it, working in his chosen field and just loving it!
I rambled, sorry, was just pointing out that there are all sorts of options.

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[yourstruely_rachel]

Zoos aren't the only jobs/careers for 'working with animals'. My son has his degree in Wildlife Management and is a Certified (by the National Wildlife Society) Wildlife Biologist. He is scouting for a school for his Masters now and currently works at the Jones Center/Ichaway Research Center in GA. His main focus is Gopher tortoise research but he works with everything he comes across in the field (just found his first Indigo!).
He has worked for many places (grant work usually) and has done work with bats, loons, salamanders etc. all up and down the coast.
He's gone all over and wrangled/researched all sorts of cool critters. He is having the time of his life, getting paid for it, working in his chosen field and just loving it!
I rambled, sorry, was just pointing out that there are all sorts of options.

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i'd love to do something like that! i'm really bummed out that after all those college fairs my class went to none of them really offered anything like that. i always felt like my choices were limited by what was popular.

[cmack91]

The zoo here hires quite often, my sisters friend works there and she just went in and applied. All she does is scrape up poop and feed some of the non dangerous animals, but theyre traing her up, just very slowly. But she said there are alot of perks, she got to see the leopards being born, she got to ride an elephant (i think), pet the penguins, a whole bunch of stuff. Unless you have some schooling or something thats probably what you'd be doing, just go apply and see what happens and good luck

[Clementine_3]

i'd love to do something like that! i'm really bummed out that after all those college fairs my class went to none of them really offered anything like that. i always felt like my choices were limited by what was popular.

I am pretty sure they didn't tell him about it at a college fair either. He started out in meteorology but couldn't get beyond calc II, he left mid-semester, took a year off and 'found himself'. Realized one day what he wanted out of life, found his school and off he went!
He will eventually get his Masters but is in no rush, having too much fun tubing Diamondbacks and finding everything but Gopher torts in the burrows.


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