Connors Bizarre Zoological Adventure

2019 was many things for me...

I was still in year 9, I was rocking some awful long emo hair and I participated in World Challenge. Other than those good and bad decisions, I and everyone else in year 9 had to make the decision of deciding what position we should apply for in terms of work experience. As I just wanted to apply for a position and get the process over with, I chose the first thing that I saw on my compass newsfeed, little did I know, that I would get chosen not by the school, but also by Zoos Victoria to participate in their work experience program. I still remember receiving the email of acceptance in class, and honestly, I felt quite indifferent to it, I was just glad that I had something to do for 2020, but I think we’re all aware of what would happen the year after. 

Fast forwarding to 2020, I was sitting around my room, totally listening to the teacher in the google meet, when I received an email. At this time, I didn’t check my emails too often, but being stuck in class, I decided to read it since I was bored, boy, was I glad I did. Shaan Noble, the work experience coordinator over at Werribee Zoo had reached out to ask whether I wanted to transfer my placement date over to 2021, of course, as a kid who was desperate to get out of the house and escape the monotony of online school, I agreed. This would probably be one of the greatest choices of my school career. 

Now, the reason as to why I’m giving so much background into getting the placement, is because it was a struggle to get in the first place, the position was highly sought after, 2020 existed and lockdown had postponed it twice, the build-up was as important as the actual adventure itself. 

Climbing out of my uncle’s car, I knew three things, I had arrived extremely early, it was very cold, and I was here for five days. At this time, I was quite stressed and tense, there were more lockdowns, a greater workload now that I was in year 11 and I was missing a whole week of school. I even recalled one of my friends saying that she would never do anything like this as she would be too worried to miss anything at school. However, as I was welcomed into the zoo, brought into the offices, and continued roaming the grounds, any worry or problem I had about missing school had slowly disappeared.T

The first day was mainly just an introduction to everything, I showed up at the entrance, I received my badge and key to enter through the staff entrances and was introduced to the staff. Shaan, who oversaw me, had me placed within the education department on the first day, after placing my items down next to a vacant desk, I was tasked with shadowing Shaan and the others in the department in touring with a visiting primary school. After drowning in the sheer amount of primary school children who had swarmed me, I was tasked with shadowing a few shows about fossils, and adaptations. Lunch that day was also interesting, I mainly just ate my wrap quietly and showed some photos of my dog, Bubbles, to the education department. 

Day two was probably the most interesting day, this day, I was with the safari department, the department in charge of bus tours. Jason, the safari leader that day, was very welcoming, as he showed me all the toys, he had collected that were found in the savannah and various fossils stuffed beneath the drawers of the office. After getting a walkie talkie and me feeling special, my first task was to ride a safari bus tour aimed towards young children, so as toddlers were singing a song about zebra stripes, I sat awkwardly at the front trying to take photos of animals. Unfortunately, due to COVID, many things I was supposed to do had been cancelled as some events couldn’t go ahead, (I really wanted to feed a giraffe). There was one safari driver who had taken pity on me however, he took me out on one of the Utes for a private tour of the savannah, we did some off roading and I was able to take even better photos of the animals as I could get a lot closer and use less of my camera zoom. After this I rode another safari tour and that was that for the day. 

Wednesday was probably my favourite day as I was working with horticulture. Now you may think that working with plants was rather boring, but I thought differently, this day involved me working with a variety of different people that I probably connected with the most, as the day just involved doing work and socialising. I was even able to go inside the cheetah enclosure to inspect trees. Yes, it was cool. I can’t really say much as I just helped the horticulture team with some mulching, weeding and met some great people. On this day I also took the opportunity to buy some plushies for my friends, which ate up my entire weeks allowance. It made me and my wallet sad but at least my friends liked them and appreciated the thought. 

Thursday was pretty much my four-year-old self’s dream, I was finally working with the zoo keepers. The first task of the day was just running around the hippo enclosure. I really just helped with throwing around some hay bales for the hippos and swept up the aftermath once they were done. Luckily, I wasn’t the one who had to clean the enclosures. Overall, on this day I just helped around with some of the animal enclosures like cleaning animal habitats like cheetahs and servals, stepped in tortoise poop and watched as the keepers did some check-ups on some of the kangaroos on the Australian Trail. It was a moderately intensive day combining the animal interaction of the safari day and the workload of the horticulture day. The final day was visitor engagement. A relaxing day to end the week. I shadowed Gordon, a good and honest bloke that led me around for my last day observing some animal shows and looking over some wallabies. As it was a school day, with covid lingering and the day being rainy, there weren’t many visitors around, so when Gordon took me to watch a koala talk, he was going to conduct, there was no one there, so since no one was around he surprised me by saying that I was going to be the one conducting the koala talk. I stood up to my crowd of three zoo staff and started talking complete nonsense, as of course, I don’t know anything about koalas (at least they seemed convinced about what I was talking about before, correcting everything I said incorrectly after my improvised presentation.) The day was finally capped off, looking at a pride of lions beneath the setting sun.

After handing back my badge and key, and filling out a feedback survey, I received the feedback report that other keepers had to give on me (which I had completely forgot about causing a streak of anxiety to run down my spine as it was mentioned,) and I was glad to see that I had a feedback score of 100%, with all of the staff strongly agreeing that I was extremely well mannered and prepared in my approach to the program. After looking back at the office one more time, and hearing the sound of the cockatoos, hidden away in the trees, I walked through the staff exit one last time and began the long journey home. Since Werribee Zoo happens to be very far away from Cheltenham, I had been living with my aunt and uncle during the time of my placement, that last night I was there, we all went out for dinner. As I sat in the dimly lit Italian restaurant, I swiped through the photos on my phone, already reminiscing about the passionate people I had met, the inside jokes and lets all face it, the animals. Would I do this all over again, despite missing out on a weeks’ worth of work? Absolutely. As a closing note, I want to thank Werribee Zoo and all of the people there who had made me feel welcome. Even if I had decided by then that I didn’t want to work at a zoo, whether you played pool with me, talked with me during lunch breaks or even held a door open for me, you all made me feel welcome and a part of the team and that is something that I had valued most of the experience. If you wish to know more about Zoos Victoria and the campaigns they fight for our world and wildlife,

please look into their websites and consider donating to their causes as it is all for a great cause and fights for a better future.

-Connor