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.
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