I was wondering to what extent most zoos in the UK use volunteers in their day-to-day running and which programmes seem to be the best in terms of volunteer experience? I'm not looking for myself, I'm just genuinely curious - I volunteer as a ranger at Bristol Zoo, talking to guests some days and as a keeper some weekends. Personally I was surprised by how much I get involved with the animals during a keeper shift and I haven't heard this about many other collections. So I was just wondering what the experiences on offer are at other zoos. What are other volunteer experiences like - in learning ranger roles and keeper roles - at other zoos? Where in other zoos do learning ranger volunteers hang around, where are they used?
I've seen Dudley mention volunteers in some of their news articles but there doesn't appear to be anything on their website about what roles you can volunteer in or how to apply.
