CLEVELAND — At one point in our lives, we dreamed of becoming a zookeeper. Hanging out with rare and beautiful animals all day does sound like a dream right?
Well, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo made that dream a reality for me and allowed me to train as a zookeeper for a day.
One thing that was all too much of a reality, was the amount of turds that needed to be picked up. I'll get back to that.
The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is really a gem of our community. Each year, over 1,275,000 people visit the park, making it one of the most popular attractions in Northeast Ohio and for good reason!
For decades, they have worked to create a top-of-the-line park to enrich the lives of thousands of animals and also educate the public.
Their impact reaches far beyond Northeast Ohio though. Over the past five years, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has contributed nearly $3.5 million to wildlife conservation efforts around the world.
While the animals are the star of the show, the unsung heroes are the animal keepers that feed, bathe and keep them healthy. With 57 animal keepers on staff, they have a lot to do.
"There's a whole scientific side to the job behind the scenes that our guests regularly don't see," said Andi Kornak, Deputy Executive Director of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. "And there's some manual labor involved."
I found that to be true in my first task at the contact barn, where I fed goats, horses, sheep and alpacas. Following that, we worked to get the outdoor area animal ready, which means we raked hay and poop. A lot of poop.
My next assignment was my biggest, taking care of the African Elephants in the African Elephant Crossing exhibit.
The Cleveland Metroparks currently has five elephants, four females and one male named Willy. He is currently the largest animal at the zoo standing over 11 feet tall and weighing in at more than 13,000 lbs!
With animals this big, they require a lot of food. The entire herd collectively eats more than 700 lbs of food a day.
One of the main goals of the elephant keepers is to set up the exhibit with food in new ways. This keeps the elephants guessing and promotes natural behaviors from them.
"Foraging, investigating, we want them to reach. Those are all natural behaviors," said elephant keeper Megan Kaydale. "Give them everything they possibly need to be elephants."
One thing that all elephants need, is a bath which they get regularly at the zoo. I was able to help give a bath to Moshi a 7,200lb female. With simple cues from the handler, she put her leg up to be washed, she would move left and right and even put her tusks through the cage to be washed.
Baths also double as a check-up too. Keepers take a look at her feet, nails, behind her ears along with her tail, eyes and inside her mouth to make sure everything is healthy and looking in good shape.