Zookeeping

As species extinction, environmental protection, animal rights, and workplace safety issues come to the fore, zoos and aquariums need keepers who have the technical expertise and scientific knowledge to keep animals healthy, educate the public, and create regional, national, and global conservation and management communities. This textbook offers a comprehensive and practical overview of the profession geared toward new animal keepers and anyone who needs a foundational account of the topics most important to the day-to-day care of zoo and aquarium animals. The three editors, all experienced in zoo animal care and management, have put together a cohesive and broad-ranging book that tackles each of its subjects carefully and thoroughly. The contributions cover professional zookeeping, evolution of zoos, workplace safety, animal management, taxon-specific animal husbandry, animal behavior, veterinary care, public education and outreach, and conservation science. Using the newest techniques and research gathered from around the world, Zookeeping is a progressive textbook that seeks to promote consistency and the highest standards within global zoo and aquarium operations.

"One of the chosen few: an enduring contribution to democratic thought."—Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University

"Includes more than 20,000 internship opportunities"--Cover.

Imagine feeding a hungry tiger or trimming an elephant's toenails! This dynamic title gives readers an up-close, out-of-this-world look at zookeepers. Inviting, easy-to-read text pairs with oversized, action-packed photos and Fact Alert boxes to reveal what it's like to work as a zookeeper, including daily tasks, unique challenges, and the special gear and tools used. Readers will also learn about the history of zookeepers, safety methods, and required education and experience. This book concludes with ways for readers to explore the work of a zookeeper, leaving them with a lasting look at this extreme job! A table of contents, a glossary with phonetic spellings, and an index are included. Big Buddy Books is an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.

The unbelievable true story of the Cold War’s strangest proxy war, fought between the zoos on either side of the Berlin Wall. “The liveliness of Mohnhaupt’s storytelling and the wonderful eccentricity of his subject matter make this book well worth a read.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis) Living in West Berlin in the 1960s often felt like living in a zoo, everyone packed together behind a wall, with the world always watching. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, East Berlin and its zoo were spacious and lush, socialist utopias where everything was perfectly planned... and then rarely completed. Berlin’s two zoos in East and West quickly became symbols of the divided city’s two halves. So no one was terribly surprised when the head zookeepers on either side started an animal arms race—rather than stockpiling nuclear warheads, they competed to have the most pandas and hippos. Soon, state funds were being diverted toward giving these new animals lavish welcomes worthy of visiting dignitaries. West German presidential candidates were talking about zoo policy on the campaign trail. And eventually politicians on both side of the Wall became convinced that if their zoo proved to be inferior, that would mean their country’s whole ideology was too. A quirky piece of Cold War history unlike anything you’ve heard before, The Zookeepers’ War is an epic tale of desperate rivalries, human follies, and an animal-mad city in which zookeeping became a way of continuing politics by other means.

Do you enjoy going to the zoo? Do you love wild animals? Read this book to learn about working as a zookeeper.

Zookeepers are highly trained individuals who manage animals in captivity for conservation, or, to be displayed for public enjoyment. Zookeepers are responsible for cleaning and feeding the animals, behavioral observation, and educating the public through presentations. This jovial book explores various branches of the field and covers pertinent training, education, job duties, career path, and employment opportunities. Lively text profiles professionals on the job, and also delves into the emotional side of a career committed to serving animals. This in-depth view gives young readers a true glimpse into the world of zoos and a zookeeper.

The New York Times bestseller now a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain. A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history. Drawing on Antonina’s diary and other historical sources, best-selling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina’s life as “the zookeeper’s wife,” responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their “Guests”—Resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto. Ironically, the empty zoo cages helped to hide scores of doomed people, who were code-named after the animals whose names they occupied. Others hid in the nooks and crannies of the house itself. Jan led a cell of saboteurs, and the Zabinskis’ young son risked his life carrying food to the Guests, while also tending an eccentric array of creatures in the house. With hidden people having animal names, and pet animals having human names, it’s small wonder the zoo’s codename became “The House Under a Crazy Star.” Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. With her exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman explores the role of nature in both kindness and savagery, and she unravels the fascinating and disturbing obsession at the core of Nazism: both a worship of nature and its violation, as humans sought to control the genome of the entire planet.