July 15-21 was National Zoo Keeper Week. This is one in a series of blogs written by our keepers sharing a “typical” day. Be sure to read Caring for Hoofed Stock!

As National Zoo Keeper Week comes to an end, I would like to share with everyone what a typical work day for a keeper in Tiger River involves. As Marcia brought up in her blog, It’s National Zoo Keeper Week, keepers do a lot more than just cleaning and feeding. Here is a brief overview of one of my days.

My day starts at 5:45 a.m. when I walk through Monkey Trails to get down to the Tiger River team room. Along the way, I pass by the clouded leopard exhibit where I say hello to 5-year-old sisters Dottie and Tevi, who chuff back a greeting and run down from the branches to see me. (Tevi is pictured here.)Then as I walk along Tiger River, I pass by Baby the fishing cat, who is usually waiting in her bedroom for her breakfast, and Rose the Malayan tapir, who is asleep in her room but perks up her ears when I say hello. My final morning check goes to our two female Malayan tigers: Danai, who is in the tiger bedrooms, and Mek, who has spent the night out on exhibit. Once I know that all of the animals under my care look good and are where they should be, I go into the office to plan my day. I check the “redbook” to see if there are any animal procedures (vaccinations, trips to the hospital, etc.), behind-the-scenes tours, meetings, or special projects scheduled for the day. Once I have an idea of how my day will look, I am ready to get started.

First, I prepare medication for Rose, who has some dental problems. Her antibiotic capsules are hidden into banana pieces (her favorite treat). She comes right over to the door of her bedroom and takes her goodies eagerly. Next, it’s time to get her exhibit ready for her. I drain, clean, and refill her two pools, turn on the waterfall, rake up leaves and leftover browse, and check to make sure she ate all of her herbivore pellets from the day before. I also check all of the plants surrounding the exhibit and water them if needed, or talk to our gardener, Oscar, if anything doesn’t look right or needs special attention. I check the wall surrounding the back of the exhibit for any cracks and make sure the glass at the front viewing is in good shape. I’ll then hose down the rockwork and walkway and clean out her automatic drinker. Once the exhibit looks good, it’s time to set out Rose’s breakfast of ficus browse, herbivore pellets, yams, carrots, and apples. Then I’ll put out some enrichment on exhibit, something different every day, to make things interesting for her. Today I’ll put some of her herbivore pellets into a heavy-duty plastic Boomer ball with small holes cut into it. Rose will have to push the ball around her exhibit to get the pellets to fall out so she can eat them. This usually keeps her busy for awhile!

When it’s time to go out, I’ll turn on the hotwire around the glass viewing area, lock the keeper door, and then open Rose’s bedroom door into the chute. This is an area where Rose will sit or lay down to get brushed. She really seems to enjoy this part of the morning! This is also a great way for me to check her whole body for any cuts or scrapes, lumps or bumps, or anything else that doesn’t look right. We have also been able to do ultrasounds in the chute when she was pregnant and take X rays of her teeth. As long as we don’t stop brushing her, she’ll let us do just about anything! Once the brushing is done and everything looks okay, Rose goes out onto the exhibit for the day.

As I walk up the trail to the fishing cat bedrooms, I watch Rose eating her breakfast and note what her interaction is with the enrichment that I offered for the day. If she doesn’t respond to the enrichment or if it is too difficult or even stressful for her, this is noted in the enrichment notebook. I’ll also write down if it is something she really responds well to (which is what we hope for!) so we know that this is something to offer again.

When I get to the fishing cat bedrooms, I’ll close access doors to the exhibit so Baby is locked into her bedrooms while she eats her breakfast and I clean her exhibit. She quickly eats her diet of ground beef, mouse, and trout while I check the hotwire and exterior fence line, rake up leaves, clean her litter box cave, pick up any enrichment from the day before, clean her drinker, and check the pool and waterfall. The pool has a filter system, so I only need to drain and clean it every other week. Next, I’ll set out the enrichment for today, which is a portion of her breakfast hidden in a wooden feeder box with holes that she has to stick her paws in to bat the food over to another hole to then pull out. When I open up the shift door from her bedroom, she runs out and jumps into a transfer crate before going outside. She does this every day, so she is very accustomed to the crate. Twice a month I will weigh her in her crate to make sure that she is in her target weight range of 8 to 9 kilograms (18 to 20 pounds), and once a year she will go to the hospital in her crate for vaccinations. But today I let her right out, and she runs directly to her feeder box and works to get her food out.

Next I’m off to see Dottie and Tevi, the clouded leopards. The girls separate from their exhibit into two transfer tunnels to eat their breakfast of ground beef, so I am able to make sure that they each get their fair share of food. Each diet is weighed out by the gram, so it is important that Dottie doesn’t try to take Tevi’s amount, which she will do if she has the opportunity. Both girls have the tendency to gain weight very easily, so I weigh them both weekly to make sure they stay in the range of 13 to 14 kilograms (29 to 31 pounds). While they’re eating, I prepare their exhibit the same as I did with the fishing cat. The pool for the “cloudies” doesn’t have a filter, so it needs to be cleaned every day. Today’s enrichment is perfume sprayed on branches in the exhibit. Dottie is in heaven! She rubs and rolls in it, drools a little, and opens her mouth to show her big canine teeth – I swear it looks like she’s smiling! Tevi, on the other hand, isn’t interested in the least. That’s the way it goes sometimes!

It’s just after 8 a.m. now, so I head back down the trail to take care of the tigers. Danai has had access to four bedrooms overnight, and since we never go into the same space as the tigers, I close and lock one of the bedrooms that she’s not in, put in her breakfast of ground beef, then shift her into that room. While she eats, I shift Mek into the transfer tunnel from the exhibit, then walk her down to the bedroom that I have placed her breakfast in. Tigers are solitary animals in the wild, so we won’t house two tigers together unless they are cubs with their mom, adolescent siblings, or a male and female for breeding. Danai and Mek really don’t like each other, so we don’t even put them in bedrooms that are next to each other, because they will try to fight through closed doors. So, with Mek at one end of the tiger bedroom building and Danai at the other, I go into the tiger exhibit to clean up, wash windows, check fence lines and pools, water plants, and set up enrichment. Now it’s Danai’s turn to go out on exhibit. On her way out, she travels through the squeeze chute or “hugger” used for training sessions. Like the fishing cat and her crate, the tigers go through this hugger every day and are comfortable with it. On exhibit, Danai finds a new “toy” – a hanging bungee with a ball attached to the end for her to pull on. Since she has never seen it before and doesn’t quite know what to do with it, I had placed some meat from her diet on top of the ball to entice her. It takes her awhile, but she finally pulls on the ball to get the meat down. Success!

Now it is 9 a.m. and the Zoo is open to the public. This is when I do a lot of behind-the-scenes work such as preparing diets for tomorrow and cleaning up everyone’s bedrooms to come into at night. This takes quite awhile, as it involves chopping fruits and veggies, weighing out meat diets, cleaning up old enrichment items (shredded phone books, cardboard boxes, paper bags, etc.), hosing and scrubbing bedroom floors, walls, and benches, and setting up new enrichment items in each bedroom so the animals have something fun for them when they come inside at night.

When that work is done, it’s time for training sessions. This is one of the best times of the day! First, I roll several pans of meatballs to use as rewards for all of the cats. Since Mek is inside the tiger bedrooms today, I’ll start with her. We will usually go over her behaviors that she already knows: lie down, sit, stand on hind legs, touch her nose to a target, open her mouth, jump to her bench, and go from point A to point B. We’ll also work on some new behaviors that she is still learning. Then I’ll move her into the hugger for behaviors that allow me to safely touch her. There we go over mock hand injections in her hip for vaccinations, blood draws from a vein in her tail, and a new behavior: training for an ultrasound of her abdomen. We are working on this behavior in hopes of detecting a future pregnancy when we eventually bring in a male tiger to breed with her. When Mek’s session is done and she has eaten all of her meatball rewards, she will go back into her bedrooms and it’s Danai’s turn. She will come off exhibit briefly to work in the hugger. The session usually lasts only five minutes, and then she’s back out to the exhibit to finish her training. I’ll walk down to the back wall of the exhibit where I’ll ask her to do some behaviors for visitors to watch.

Baby the fishing cat is next in line for training at the back fence of her exhibit. She is new to training, so we are still working on touching her nose to a target and remaining calm. She has a tendency to hiss and swat (that’s just her personality!), so most of the time I’ll just reward her for “nice” behavior. Once she understands that, we’ll move on to some of the behaviors that the tigers know.

Dottie and Tevi are next, and they will usually wake up for a training session midday. They are very active at night and sleep most of the day, and today Dottie wakes up for a treat, but Tevi isn’t in the mood. That’s okay, it’s her choice to participate or not. Dottie, however, shifts into her transfer tunnel and touches her nose to a target, opens her mouth, and stands on her hind feet so I can look at her belly. Today we work on “hold,” which is a cue for her to continue doing her behavior until I “release” her. I ask her to open her mouth, then I say “hold,” and when I blow a dog whistle, that communicates to her that she can close her mouth and receive a meatball reward. I start slow, and only ask her to hold for a second. As she starts to understand the cue, we will increase the time in short increments until she’ll hold it open long enough for me to examine all of her teeth.

When training sessions are finished, I double-check all of the bedrooms and exhibits to make sure that everything is secured and all animals look good. Then I’ll go back to the team room and fill out paperwork. I’ll write a daily report to the vet staff, managers, and curators indicating any medical or behavioral issues, medications that I administered, construction work done on any of the exhibits, or anything unusual that happened that day. Then I write a detailed report about the day in the area “redbook” for my supervisor and other keepers to read to keep up on the area. Next are the enrichment records for every animal, and reports on any of the training sessions and how the animals responded. If one of the animals wasn’t doing very well with one of the behaviors, or if we made some progress on a new behavior, that will be noted.

Now it’s 2:30 p.m., and time to go home. As usual, it has been an exciting day. The late keeper, Nicole, will give the cloudies and fishing cat access to their bedrooms when the Zoo closes and bring Rose into her room for dinner. Danai will spend the night out on the tiger exhibit, and Mek will sleep in her hammock in the bedrooms. As I walk out, I say goodbye to each animal and start planning what things we’ll do tomorrow!

Bridget Mulholland is a senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

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