There are a number of jobs going at Orana park including four keeper positions. Good to see that they put practical experience on the same level as academic qualifications. Animal Keepers (Native, Farmyard & 2 Exotic) - Trade Me Jobs - New Zealand
At 99% of AZA-accredited American zoos an individual would not even be considered without a 4 year university degree. Experience with exotic animals would also be a major asset, but all keepers are academically qualified these days. Of course in New Zealand there is not the vast population to pick and choose from, and a small wildlife park with low attendance numbers cannot afford to be picky with whom it hires. I personally think that volunteer experience with exotics should carry a lot of weight in terms of job opportunities.
That doesn't surprise me about the US, as every body there puts a huge emphasis on college education and higher. However I wouldn't describe Orana as a small wildlife park with low attendence numbers, or think they would be unable to be picky. Their present staff includes ( or at least it did some years ago) staff from all over the world, many of whom were vastly experienced and very qualified. There are quite a number of zoology and similar graduates in NZ who would jump at the chance to apply for a zoo keeper job. They are few and far between in NZ and its rare for four position to come up at once, in this case I would guess its only because of post earthquake recovery has enabled them to replace some of the staff they laid off after the quake. It's also a point that non academic qualified staff are often better manual workers than their university educated colleagues, and certainly would have more incentive to stay in the position since without the uni degrees required by most zoos they wouldn't be able to move on. Im not sure about volunteer experience though, as far as I know no zoo in NZ or Australia allow volunteers to have anything to do with animal care. Childonais has former hands on experience at Orana so he would be better qualified to comment on how popular jobs at Orana are likely to be though, I'm only guessing that there would be a huge influx of replies.
without going into too much detail, advertised jobs at zoos are always well-received by job-seekers. In fact most zoos and aquariums receive unsolicited CVs regularly by hopeful people. Most of the applicants are not at all suitable (there are lots of "bunny-huggers" that think it would be delightful to work in a zoo and play with the animals all day!), but it has to be said that as in any job description the "skills/qualifications required" bit is more a list of what is ideal. It is still well worth applying if you lack one or two of the requirements. Having said that, Orana and all other zoos certainly can afford to be picky -- it's obviously rather a false economy to hire inexperienced staff! A balance between academic and practical is looked for (generally speaking). As kiwipo suggests, the new job advertisements are due to the park being able to hire more full-time staff again after the lean times post-earthquakes (although its not really accurate for me to say "post-earthquakes" because they're still on-going!). There are actually six vacancies but only four are for animal keepers. Auckland Zoo sometimes has three or more jobs advertised simultaneously, and there are usually at least a few zoo/aquarium vacancies somewhere in the country (one at Kelly Tarltons as we speak, for example) but in general zoo jobs come up singly (and are often advertised within zoo circles, not always on such places as Trademe!). Regarding volunteers, at Orana specifically the majority of them are retired folk. Generally speaking, as kiwipo also said, volunteers at most zoos in NZ/Australia usually are not involved in animal care except in a vague way. They certainly don't help clean or feed exotics as used to be common in the old days (although at smaller zoos that can still be the case). At most zoos volunteers are used for visitor interaction, gardening, things like that. They do play a valuable role in all zoos that have volunteer programmes. And of course some do eventually become paid staff (so it is a good way to start off in zoos, so long as one doesn't expect to be an animal keepers when a volunteer!).
This is fantastic news. I doubt Orana would be expanding their staff by what I suspect is more than 10% if they had not come through the worst of the downtown following the earthquake. Congratulations to them.
Taronga most certainly does. Pretty much every section has several who come in either once a week or once a fortnight. Last time I enquired about it there was a m ore than two year waiting list, and volunteers were given only 12 months. Many would then use this experience to get any jobs that became available. And part of the mandatory requirements for the Zoo-Keepers course was that you do volunteer work (assuming you weren't already employed in the industry). Hix
Thats nice to know about Taronga. NZ seems to have a blanket policy on volunteers that restricts their duties to visitor services or maybe animal behaviour monitoring only. From what I have seen of Orana the vollies there are quite welcomed and appreciated by the keepers. That isn't always the case in other zoos, Hamilton for example where keepers almost seem regard vollies as a threat to their job, and strongly oppose any encroachment into any facet of keeper duties. But Voluntary work in any field on the whole in NZ tends to be rather dull and boring, and unfortunately thus often failing to attract sufficient suitable people. We could probably learn a lot from places like Australia and the US, and even South Africa, on how to make voluntary position far more interesting and attract many more fantastic people.
with regards to your last sentence, it is worth noting (to be clear for others) that volunteer work with animals as part of the Animal Management Course is quite distinct from the activities of regular volunteers, and can be undertaken at zoos that otherwise don't let volunteers interact with the animals. However, that is interesting about Taronga. What sort of animals can the volunteers work/not work with? (If nothing else it will give nanoboy some hope! ). It did use to be the case that most zoos seemed to have many volunteers working with animals, and I assume the reason that that now isn't so common is to do with OSH type issues. But it is variable. To take the two Christchurch zoos as examples -- Orana's volunteers don't have any animal tasks except for safe things like the farmyard, whereas Willowbank has many volunteers working directly with animals (although it has to be said that the most dangerous animals at Willowbank are siamangs, capuchins and otters).
I should have also mentioned that there are a large number of volunteers at Taronga that don't have anything to do with animal care - mainly guides (and manning the information centre) and monitoring animal behaviour, as Chlidonias mentioned. Before I was employed by Taronga I volunteered in Birds, the Farmyard area and Reptiles (one year in each section). I haven't seen too many volly's lately, but I believe pretty much every section at Taronga still has them. Hix
The forum should be like Twitter where you can mention me like "@nanoboy", and I get notified via email or something. Hey mods, can we do that? Glad to see that I am in your thoughts and prayers! Haha.
