The day in the life of a zoo keeper:
7:00 - Arrive at work. Get changed and talk to co-workers about their weekend/life/need for coffee
7:15-9:00 - Morning health checks. Feed baboons, lynx, caracal, coyotes, cheetah, cougars, eagles, Arctic fox, Arctic wolves, and any other wildlife that steals your food
9:00 - 9:30 - Coffee break. For me, since I don't drink coffee, it was a granola bar break
9:30 - 11:30 - Feed jaguar, clean baboon stalls, feed bears, projects! (project include: cleaning beds, pooper-scooping, trimming blackberry bushes, weed-whacking, organizing the cat house, or enrichment)
11:30-12:30 Lunch. Unless it's Wednesday then I would be with the vet out in the field, not eating and frowning
12:30 - 15:55 Grab food for the afternoon.
13:00 Lion and Tiger feeding/pubic talk. Feed baboons, bears and bat eared foxes. Projects and afternoon health checks.
16:00 Home time! (Unless there's an animal emergency, then I'm still here.)
That's pretty much how my days goes but everyday is different depending what the animals want to throw at you - both figuratively and literary. My schedule also varies depending on the time of year. In the winter I have more project time because the bears are sleeping (I only have to check on them every 2 days), no blackberries growing like weeds and no Lion and Tiger feeding. In the summer I run around like a maniac trying to fit everything in but I get to talk to public after my shows and that's always lovely. Sometimes I also have committee meetings which I have to make time for so I go twice as fast.
And that's my day!
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