Hi Guys, What are salaries like at zoos in Australia? How much would I be expected to pay a keeper, head keeper, finance manager etc if I opened a zoo? What sort of benefits would be offered? Or maybe I can twist the question to ask how much would I get paid if I were a keeper.... etc etc. Cheers.
Not very much. The animal industry is a very low paid industry, retail, cleaners, cafe staff etc generally get paid more than an entry level keeper
Jeeze. That's depressing. Hix, I hear you about not doing it for financial gain, but bills still need to be paid, so a decent salary shouldn't be too big an ask.
Honestly I'm looking more for the actual experiances, the animals and a more acceptable excuse to spend more time at the zoo But I also do worry about the salary at times, particularly seeing as I'd need to travel some way and have a car and paying for the insurance for myself at the moment would be 4,000 a year. Plus the likes of bills, tax etc etc - actually I have no idea where I'm going with this cause I haven't the faintest idea about those sorts of things but I do know that in the adult world, money is important so I defo know where the OP is coming from.
It's an acceptable salary, but as a keeper you're never gonna get rich on it. Especially if you keep spending your money on animal books, trips overseas to look at zoos, chase animals in the wild etc. Hix
Yeah I hear you, but I don't think many salaried people get 'rich' unless they invest or have a business. I think most salaried people try to get by, so a zookeeper is no different. What is surprising though, is that a cleaner or cafe staff would get paid more than someone who studied at university at the SAME organisation where the core business is NOT cleaning or selling refreshments.
For a start University is not really that important in getting a job as a keeper, the essential certificate is a TAFE course. I have worked in a variety of industries. I would not work in a cafe for less than $20 an hour but would happily sit on $16 as a keeper.
Sorry. I associate TAFE with universities, so what I really meant to say was 'certification'. Yeah $16 as a keeper vs $20 as a cashier, I'd take the zookeeper job. Are those valid rates you quoted, by the way? This brings me to another question: WHY?? Why are keepers paid such a low rate? Just because a person likes a job does not mean you have to take advantage.....
Supply and demand. For every keeper who leaves the industry looking to actually make some money, there will be dozens of people willing to take their place.
Perhaps predictably, as a zoo owner I take umbrage at the suggestion that zoo keepers are paid all that poorly. Perhaps the impression that the pay is poor is encouraged by recent trends to portray zoo keepers as something more than they are. They are, first and foremost, carers. Often that care is given with a shovel, hose and broom. In some other occupations they would be classified as labourers. Keepers who go on to become graduates are something more than keepers and should be classified as such. A graduate who chooses to remain as a keeper can not complain about receiving keeper's pay rates. In our zoo, most of our keepers drive better cars than we do. The pay can't be too bad!!!
Well..... a car is not really a good indicator of salary. The same way I go to Myer and see shoppers buying expensive brands that I feel that I cannot afford, yet I know for a fact that some of them are living off credit cards. As a layman (and from reading other threads and keeper profiles on zoo websites), I assumed that zookeepers in this day and age were all graduates. What is the difference between a graduate and a zookeeper?
Keepers are much, much more likely to have tertiary degrees at the big metropolitan zoos and their associated open range zoos. To an extent aquarium staff are also often tertiary educated. At small private zoos such as Steve's, you'll find that fewer keeping staff, if any, have a uni background.
Yeah that makes sense. I guess it boils down to what you said earlier: supply versus demand. I assume, therefore, that keepers in the larger zoos would be better paid than the private zoos. I think that when I win the lotto (I won another $30 on Saturday in the $30m draw) I will be poaching keepers by simply offering them a decent wage.
I know it was a hypothetical statement, but to get the good keepers you would need to offer them more than that. Hix
I've no wish to get into a debate on what is a suitable wage for a keeper or anybody else. However it is interesting to note that more and more keeping staff are tertiary qualified, even in small private zoos. I recommend further study whenever I get approached by a parent wanting to know the best route for their animal-mad child. (I also recommend practical experience, such as a range of aviaries in the back yard). I have a friend who is senior in an overseas zoo famous for it's conservation work. He told me that most of their new keeping staff come with PhD's. Why? It is the only way they can get to work with endangered species. The reality is that there is little oportunity for paid field work in the biological sciences these days. Zoos are the next best thing. After that it is likely to be a lab job, probably in microbiology, teaching, or off into another industry.
...or to sell your soul as a consultant doing fauna surveys and mitigation reports so that big developers/mining companies etc can look like they are minimising impacts on threatened species...
Very well said!! Which probably brings us full circle - keepers [graduates or not] are in the job for reasons not solely connected with money.
Money does help, I have found. Although keepers generally could be considered labourers, we have a range of hazards that go with the job, and are usually extremely short-staffed, which helps to lower the morale even further. If you are required to milk venomous snakes, scuba dive regularly and feed sharks, condition animals, give quality keeper talks, assess your charges behaviourally and physically, assist with collection management, keep up to date with the industry standards, etc etc, you are a little bit more than a labourer. When younger you are more willing to accept the low wages that many facilities offer. We all enter this trade because we love animals. It is one of the few industries where people eagerly volunteer their time and effort for nothing!! As life changes and keepers want to start a family, buy a home, etc, they sometimes need to seriously reconsider their occupation. That is at least what I am regularly seeing. There is also limited chance of growth through the ranks in many of the privately-run or smaller facilities, so you are basically stuck where you are until you maybe get a job somewhere else (which is likely to be interstate or overseas and means moving). Some places pay good wages, others don't. You don't really have the luxury to pick and choose (like with say the advertising or the banking industry) which one you will get due to the lack of jobs and competition. You take what you can if you are passionate enough, which most of us are at some time.
Hmmm.... a lot of different opinions, all of which I am sure are valid to some extent. My layman's perception was closer to that of Gryphon's, as I thought that the reason that so many keepers at zoos were so young, was because they did not have families yet. I'll start another thread on how someone who is a paper pusher (like me!) could get involved in zoos and wildlife parks.