Last Day of Internship

The only pictures I really have in terms of my personal life at internship are the ones where Tierra and I hung out after work, such as the one above. We had a lot of fun looking around at all of the animals in the rest of the park. Also, at the end of today, I walked around to look at the animals with my brother and his girlfriend and when we were looking at the elephants, I was able to tell them a lot, such as which were male or female and which were more dominant. I thought it was pretty cool that I was already using some of the things I learned during my internship.

Personal Learning Experiences:

I think one of the most important things that I learned was that you're not going to always be able to follow a set path in life. As you continue to learn and become more aware of your interests, you will be able to find your place. Some of the people that I talked to had no idea what they wanted to be when they were going to college, but they eventually found what they loved to do. I'm still going to try to pursue what I'm most passionate about right now, but that could change in the future and everything will still be fine.

Day 14

Resource Pictures:

This image shows the natural resources that are available to the animals.

This picture shows a resource that is very important for the elephant department; the fences. It also shows how architecture influences the work that the keepers do. With these steel fences in place, the keepers have to be able to work with the elephants through them and know which gates to close or keep open.

Day 13

I wasn't able to get a photo of my mentor, but he's an animal care manager at the Wild Animal Park in Escondido.

Interview: this is part of the interview I did with my mentor. There's a lot more to it and hopefully I'll be able to type the rest of it up because I really learned a lot from him sharing his experiences.

Tori: Where did you grow up?
Jeff: I grew up all over the place. I was born in Arkansas, lived there for many years. I moved to the San Fernando Valley for many years, around 10 to 11 years. Then I moved to Mammoth Lake, California, a ski resort in northern California, and lived there for about 2 years. And then I left Mammoth to go to college in San Diego in 1982 and I've been in San Diego ever since.
Tori: When you went to college, what was your experience like?
Jeff: College? College was a blast of course.
Tori: Did you like it better than high school?
Jeff: That's hard to say. I had a really fun high school experience. I was at a really small school and I had a really neat science professor. I was his favorite student and he was my favorite teacher and we did a lot of neat things together. I also skied every day. I was on the ski team for the high school and mammoth mountain. That's hard to beat. But college
Tori: But college was good too?
Jeff: College was just a blast. It was great. Those were good times too.
Tori: When you were in college, did you study specifically to get into a career working with animals?
Jeff: I did. My initial major was biology and I should have studied animal behavior. It's what I really wanted to study but I didn't know enough about it at the time and I couldn't find a major specifically in animal behavior. Zoology would've been a good field too but I was a biology major. I eventually graduated with my degree in social science not in animal science. But nonetheless I spent my first three years as a biology major and I was working specifically to learn about how to study animal behavior. That's one of the reasons I switched over to social science so I could take more psychology classes.
Tori: What was your first job? How old were you?
Jeff: My first job was a dishwasher at the mobile restaurant in Mammoth Lakes. That might have been my second job because around the same time I also worked out in the forest for a firewood company...
Tori: What was the most important thing you learned from either of those experiences?
Jeff: I learned to be careful and safe in the wood cutting job.
Tori: You worked at Sea World with the Orcas, right?
Jeff: I did, right out of college I got a job as a tour guide and eventually worked my way up to being a trainer.
Tori: Did you enjoy working with the animals there?
Jeff: it was great, it was wonderful. It's a lot of hard work. You've got to be very dedicated to do it. The most important thing working in a job like that is that you really do learn that you're not in it for the money you're really there to make a difference.

My Day:
Today was very interesting. I learned so much about different things, varying from elephants being kept at other zoos to the politics within the departments. I started out the morning by listening to one of my mentor's phone calls with a curator from Bush Gardens in Tampa. They were mostly talking about politics, involving all of the elephant departments in all of the zoos, and PAWS (Progressive Animal Welfare Society). Another thing they talked about is the research being done on the distance captive elephants walk vs. the walking distance of wild elephants. They're trying to get a GPS/accelerometer anklet for the elephants to wear instead of a collar because it would be easier and safer for keepers using protected contact to put on the elephants. After he finished this phone call, we went to a staff meeting which was mostly about how the Wild Animal Park is doing with the budget so far this year. They also talked about some of the new exhibits and attractions that were coming up. After the meeting, we went to talk to one of my mentor's bosses. They talked about how the elephant department was feeling anxiety because they have three babies on the way and the construction connecting the African and Asian yards together (and baby proofing the Asian yard) won't be complete in time for their arrival. It will be going on in the middle of all of the births. I learn a lot of things just by listening to conversations that my mentor has with other people. There's so much going on behind the scenes in zoos that I never even thought about before. It makes me think about how many complex organizations there are and how many people it takes to operate them successfully. It's very eye opening to realize how much there is in the world that you don't know about.

During lunch, I hung out with Tierra and her mentor. While Tierra interviewed her mentor, I talked to one of the other staff members there about internships. Then, Tierra finished and we started to talk about our POL's. After my lunch was over, I went back to the office to work finish up my project so that I could meet up again with Tierra at 3:00. We decided to go on the Journey Into Africa Tour. We got to see a lot of cool animals. I enjoyed that because this was the first time that I really got to see any animals other than the elephants. I've been so busy that I haven't had time to look around the park too much. We saw these animals that were really funny because they would run and then start hopping. It just looked so strange and it made us laugh. I got a video of it but you can't really see them very well.

After we finished the tour, we started walking back towards the entrance. However, on our way there, we noticed that one of the lions had walked up to the glass wall of the exhibit so we ran to it to take pictures. Then, another lion walked towards the glass and after a while, he started to roar. We were very excited about this because we always liked hearing the lions roar, and this time we were able to see them up close as they did. After that, I went home and my day was over.

Pictures:

This is a young lion. You can see that his mane is just starting to grow.

This is the big yard where they keep many of the mammals.

The JIA Tour was filled with many beautiful sights like this. We picked the perfect time to go because many of the animals become more active in the late afternoon and there were a lot of good picture opportunities.

Day 12

This picture shows two of the keepers working together. One of the keepers is holding the elephant and the other is scrubbing her back.

This picture shows a trainer working with an elephant. In order for the training to be successful, both have to do their parts.

Collaborating:

In a typical work day, I work with an average of 8 people. We all work together to get the yards cleaned so that we can put more food out for the elephants. Everyone works really well with one another which really helps things run smoothly. By collaborating, we are able to work efficiently to clean the yards faster and lay out all of the food. Today was probably the day where I most felt that I was part of the group. There wasn't one time where I stood there, not knowing what to do. I found things that I could help out with and the other keepers told me what I could do. I was more sure of what I could do when usually I wasn't as confident. This helped me collaborate with the rest of the keepers.

I guess any guests that come to see the elephants are indirectly affected by the work we do because they are able to enjoy watching the elephants without the place looking like a giant mess.

My Day:

This is one of the older baby elephants, but I'm not really sure who it is. Possibly Impunga or Kami.

Today was a great day. I met another worker from the Education Department named Cat. She was really nice and we talked a lot about school throughout the day. She told me that she liked college a lot more than high school so now I'm not as nervous about it as I used to be. She also told me about other internship opportunities during the summer in the Research Department which sound really cool so I think I might look into those. During this whole internship, I've found that there's a lot of useful things you can learn by talking to people who have experienced things, such as college, already. I really enjoy learning about how people have come to be where they are. A lot of times, they didn't know what they wanted to study in college, and even when they studied a certain thing, that's not always the career path they chose. I've learned that usually everything turns out fine even if you don't have a specific path that you want to set out on. It's okay to not know what you want to do because eventually you'll figure it out and be able to pursue it, as long as you don't wait too long :)

I also noticed that there were a lot more guests visiting today. There was one group of school kids and they asked the the funniest questions but I can't remember them because they were so random. One thing that was really fun was watching one keeper, Brittany, play with baby Ingadze. He was so adorable. I wish I was able to play with him because it looks like so much fun. Of course, they were separated by the fence, but she would chase him back and forth and he would shake his head and turn around so she could scratch his lower back. I can't decide if this was more fun than watching the elephants play in the mud or not. I think they're pretty much tied.

End of Week 2

This is the baby of the family, Ingadze. He was just so cute I had to take a picture :)

This week was pretty fun. I mostly worked with the keepers and watched them do training sessions with the elephants. The most challenging was probably working in the rain because it was cold, but it was also kind of fun because I got to wear a bright yellow rain suit. The best part about the rain was being able to watch all of the baby elephants playing in the mud. There are cameras all around the yard and while we were on our break, we were able to watch the elephants playing on a muddy hill. It was so funny because they would slide down on their bellies and then try to walk back up but they kept sliding back down. You could tell they were having so much fun in the rain. It let me see a whole side of the elephants that I had never witnessed before. I've never seen animals with such personality! It was also cute when some of the adults started playing with the kids. Even big Mabhu (their dad) was sliding down the hill with them.

Day 10

This picture sums up my day because I was working with the keepers out in the yard. While working at my internship I have mostly wondered about elephants in general, such as how they interact with each other and the different training styles people use. I often find myself reading everything I can about elephants because they are very interesting animals. Whenever I'm sitting in my mentor's office, I pull a book about elephants from his bookshelf and read as much as I can. Even at home, I use my free time to learn more about elephants and research more about what I read in the books. The most interesting things that I found so far and want to look up more about are the hybrid elephant "Motty" and the frozen baby mammoth "Dima". Wondering about these things for elephants also makes me wonder about how much I don't know about other animals, and most things in this world for that matter. Before, I was so caught up in my own life that I never really thought about things outside of school and home. Opportunities like this really open your eyes to amazing things that you never knew about before.

Possible Interview Questions:

1. Where did you go to college? What was your experience like during college?

2. What was your first job? What was the most important thing you learned from that experience?

3. As you were growing up, did you always know you wanted to work with animals?

4. What was it like working with the orca whales at Sea World? Did you enjoy it?

5. What is your favorite part about working with the elephants?

Day 9

Mentor Background:

So far, I know that my mentor graduated from SDSU and used to be a killer whale trainer at Sea World, but other than that I haven't really found out much about him. I'll be sure to find out more about him to start out my interview.