Hello all Thought I'd do a little introductory post! I'm Jess from Lancaster in the UK. I've recently graduated from MMU with a Distinction in my Masters degree of Zoo Conservation Biology. I have previously done a placement at Blackpool Zoo, volunteered at Lakeland Wildlife Oasis and worked seasonally at the Lakes Aquarium. I am an aspiring zoo keeper, hoping I'll get lucky one day if I volunteer enough (not practical right now obviously!). My special interest is felids, and snow leopards in particular. My research project concerned the sociality of a captive snow leopard family, and particularly how the father interacted with his cub. Hoping to do more research on snow leopard sociality and father-cub relationships with all Panthera. My favourite zoo out of all I've visited is Highland Wildlife Park in Scotland and the next zoo I want to visit is Paradise Wildlife Park! Hoping to learn more about the zoo world, develop my husbandry knowledge and meet new people while I'm at it.
Welcome to Zoochat and congrats on your degree! My favourite animal is in the same genus as yours (leopards) Good luck with your aspirations, though I'm sure you don't need it
Thank you! To be honest, Amur leopards are a very close second although the leopards at YWP seem to evade me everytime I visit.
Great to have you here! I also had a short placement at Blackpool Zoo back in the summer of 2018 - what section were you on? I was mostly doing ZIMS/Studbook/RCP work... Lakeland is a favourite of mine - I can only guess that you developed your love for leopards there with Pavan, Tara and the recently departed Chris.
I was also there in 2018! I was in the education department sadly. My placement was organised through my MSc course and they said that because we were doing MSc that it would be natural for us to do an education and research placement rather than in the animal department. I did ask about doing keeping but it was a no go sadly, but still good experience for me. I've never been shouted at as much as when I had to attend the sea lion arena and ask people to kindly leave their prams outside! I love Lakeland too! The team are great and you're right, my love of snow leopard does stem from Tara and Pavan. I volunteered there and did my socaility research on them as a family so they will always be special to me. I would love to go and visit Chris at his new zoo!
Welcome good thing you specified Lancaster UK, or else I’d have thought you where talking about the one in Pennsylvania.
