Real-Life Communication
As an animal keeper, you're working with tigers, lions, hyenas,
great apes -- all potentially dangerous animals.
"Communication
between keepers is of incredible importance," says Jason Green. He is the
assistant curator of rhinos and hoof stock at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida.
He says when animal keepers go in and out of animal habitats, there should
be constant verbal communication to let the other person know where they are
and when doors are open.
You're an animal keeper working at a zoo.
Your day started early with some repairs to the fence near the zoo's entrance.
You didn't have the exact supplies that you needed in order to fix it properly,
so you ordered the supplies and fixed the fence as best you could.
In
the afternoon you hosed down an adult elephant and noticed that she was shaking
her head to the left quite often. Later you saw her rubbing her left ear on
a tree. It might be a coincidence, but you kept an eye on her. You were concerned
she might have an infection or other problem with her ear.
Keepers
sometimes hide food or change animals' habitats to keep them engaged and searching
for food as they would in the wild. Chimps and apes like the challenge of
finding their food.
You had a new idea for a challenge for the apes.
You rearranged some of the things in their habitat and made a new hiding place
for their food. They seemed to really enjoy the changes that you made to their
habitat and responded well to the challenge. They were successful at finding
the food.
Now, you're about to finish your shift, and it's time to
make an entry in the log book. Zoos keep records and log books for daily communication
and record keeping. They're important communication tools between keepers.
When you come back from your days off you need to get up to date with what's
going on at the zoo.
Prepare an entry for the log book about what
happened at the zoo today.