A Day In The Life of a Zoo Keeper

three keyhole wildlife garden first opened to the public in June 1979 the collection of mammals birds and reptiles from Asia are all based around the 1736 Grand Hall belonging to the zoo owner Ken Sims after returning for Malaya where Ken had been a rubber planter poisonous snake farmer and a crocodile keeper Ken Sims open thrigby hall wildlife gardens in 1979 inspired by the first David Attenborough TV program and the early writings of general Darryl ken had chosen to work in Asia as a way of learning more about the wonderful wildlife of that region supplying zoos in Europe in America with rare species and helping with the national zoo of malaysia he gained valuable experience which he put to good use in a design of the gardens plantation work and the travels in Southeast Asia gave a first-hand insight into the dramatic loss of habitats particularly of the rainforests that lost highlighted to the realization that progressive zoos had a positive role to play helping save at least some species from extinction by the hand of man Peter Scott showed the way by starting the captive breeding work at Slimbridge as well as founding the worldwide load fund the need for help from zoos and their visitors is now greater than ever before and help given by three CLE Hall Wildlife Gardens two conservation work around the world has been a source of great satisfaction to Ken and his strong team Ken's ambition was to create a small collection of animals that the public could get up close to and personal with this image shows the footprint of three P Hall wildlife gardens this aspect is unlike any other zoo today visitors can receive a truly unique look at the animals from above thanks to the overhead walkways today the zoo remains the same as Ken's vision from the 70s today it's business as usual it's 8:00 a.m. and keeper Karen's beginning her morning routine by preparing the food for the animals located in what's Rigby called the Poole gardens in the kitchen Heron begins preparing the morning feed for the cockatoos located in the pool garden so I've got cotton to food here and just fruit on there I like bananas and through greens carrots lot of blueberries even have quite a good range of food those are right every today I like the monkeys to say twice a day cats of their daily but the birds we tend to keep this in our morning routine and just paper okay okay so now to do the bull garden yeah we've got em we have to crocodile and March crocodiles in this corner just here then we've got to walk quite a long range never got one american alligators just in the middle just go through there and within gun i've got two american alligators in there so this is mango here he's after trickle always come over to say hello mango is actually rescued we believe he's from that I think he's rescued from an adult we think he was an expert procedures very tame and he does like having a turtle and he'll come on your arm when he goes in a maintenance man Matt he go in there we absolutely loved him I think he's a man bird you don't leave them alone if you have to go in from they'll maintain the cage anything Luther all right so I'll just go and clean these all through up your left today let me give you a tickle no I don't want you to bite me I definitely think he's advanced bird with mango the cockatoo fed and his enclosure clean Karen returned to the kitchen to begin the food preparation for the stalks the meerkats and the red pandas so it's now time to prep some more food stay holed chicken fish and the fish are mainly for all the stalks and we've got white salt I've got painted stalks and it's also for the Ibis the White Sox have the bales whole and and they also have the fish as well they also have fish in their diet so I'll put the food in the bucket fair so the stalks are fake I have this in the morning the rivers any other more gales I have a top-up at night and we still have the fish now we've got fatal stores and I just in one a we messed I walk through angry so they'll have a bowl of fish with chopped up tails these guys are faced when today so they'll share that the others will come to us there is Facebook we are at a member of the Federation so short they're told or so available you can read what we can't breathe so when they could come to my service comment diet sheets and so we do have to be quite strict I'm not there ok and when they're fed it and which one keeps up that I used to take we've got five year cat so what I usually do is give them sort of good handful each in there if the meal ones we do actually scatter the real ones around their cages as well we have plastic balls by mental Richmond you put the real ones in there and from--and in their cage and then they keep in a little while to find their food reproach right so that's the mirror that's ten things I've also got chicks each as well one two three four five we also have a good hangar over either we're all been able to go into the night Silas footballer and then they enjoy is the bamboo which they have every afternoon bit them all as they have mixed fruit and impaired in their favorite bananas or just chopped up just try and keep the food quite chunky because I like there I've got quite a and hand back claw and they've got quite a wide front and they can hold s in for anywhere okay hot just half a pound of there he makes his they also put two on the sales and they're important what we have cool panda cake it's a supplement and a bitumen supplement their food daily so we just put a little bit higher on that one and also they also have what we call e oil which is for their coat so we just spread it on down we get up so there's no right here lakeside now and feed all the ducks and the stalks repeat the meerkat and go check on the time make sure they will clean on it I'll just Chuck their girls in the FIR okay so now I'm just going to go in and put their bowler threw in the mealworms and then I'll just clean their water and just clean up their mess which oh you should do the pool of the enclosure okay so I'll just put their photo in here thrigby hall has a collection of five meerkats originating from South Africa with a lifespan of around ten years in the wild however in captivity they can live to be 15 years of age so they're fed again at lunch time in the world meerkats tend to live in family groups of 20 to 50 meerkats in large underground tunnels in order to survive the desert heat although at 3b hall they have an enclosure to keep them cool with the meerkats taken care of it's now time to take care of a bigger kind of cat Tigers basically and make sure although what was okay check the electric fences working which I'm now going to do and makes all their beds are nice and clean and regarding this skit let me actually skip the Tigers two or three times a week that they have to be shutting overnight to see then at the moment they're shut out well they're not shut out but the right at the moment so they'll either be skipped tomorrow or the next day and so I'll just go do that now just go check the electric fences work and which is just over there and then I'll just go in and do their water 3kp Hall Wildlife Gardens features two Asian Tigers one male called kubu and one female called Dewar when we got to do our mail we won't show how he's going to react in their enclosure so we actually put an electric fence all the way up here this the case he did climb but he's never made any attempt so we just purely keep that going it's a safety procedure another safety procedure before entering the tiger enclosure is to radio other keepers alerting them to your location and your actions once they reply Karen has the you're clear to enter okay I'm gonna have to go into sir one of my head of pitching just make the show you Rachel I have got a box to each all the slides are up so they've got the option of speaking together or separate toilet for them Lily time is ten actually shut the Tigers in if we get like high winds which we have been recently having here and so they will actually get separated they'll get separate them because we always tend to separate to feed them and because we don't just ends if you feed them together and do it a bit more of a slow feeder so quba will take our food some time to separate the feeds and so they are short over separated as well so this is a daily thing or music for Tigers and when we make a bit of a mess especially if they just have a clean bed and this time of year and we tend to leave their slides up so they can come in and out when they want clothes in the summertime we leave your out all day the Asian Tigers are a very popular tourist attraction at 3b hall the use of the tiger tunnel and the overhead walkways provide the public with unique up-close-and-personal look at the big cats I just got a check and kuboos water bottle now which is what water bowl is found there so I just go and do that and then fill my water canner no normally when we get really deep props but em all the hoses freeze up I finish it the Tigers all the slides are up and the doors are locked okay I'm very much a cat person and so over the years I've worked with many different cats at 3b and we've had tiger cubs here and Noble so leopard cubs there was an opportunity when I worked with a clouded leopard they are my favorite cat I was quite fortunate she was hand red so I managed to work many years of her having a cuddle and so I'd say that they're clouded and the largest sort cats are my favorite so these we put the food up pie and also keeps any nice things away off the floor for hey there's one game and that minute you've got two of them no Jenna just I hope to read these guys around on the lake soon and we feel they really need a bit more water so when the Krays are hoping to remove around the lake pretty soon hopefully and then we're gonna bring you down as elves from here that's all the phrase fated here and the peacocks leaving the stalks in the Avery it's now time for Karen to feed the hornbills located in the pool garden a bo-breeze your favorite aren't they she had eggs for watching the running a young and and you'll notice in a minute he'll actually start feeding her which she's now doing now he actually likes to defeat her they are he's offering with a big be noisy I am okay oh you don't chuck him at me I think that the bad experience is probably the owl when that flew on to me and our owls get very unpredictable this time of year so we should you have to have both of two people to go in and skip them and he had she landed on my back couple ways and all my head open and they're bad happens so I think that's probably the worst thing we've never actually touched without anything major and I think beware there were very sought safety minded us ladies was good it's midday and Karen's heading over to one of the red panda enclosures red pandas are a smaller relative to the better known giant panda and typically grow to the size of a house cat although they're big bushy tail adds an additional 18 inches to their size so he's fed about nine o'clock he's a 38 all this red pandas in the wild live in the cooler moister more temperate forests of the Himalayan foothills in India Nepal and China the pandas here climbed the trees and slumber amongst the foliage especially on hot summer days to keep cool added to their diet of bamboo are more nutritional items such as eggs dead poultry chicks and they occasionally catch for themselves an unaware mouse or bird they are shy and solitary animals except when mating females give birth in the spring and summer typically to one to four young boo in the afternoon they have that every day this is what they'll get your morning's okay so got them do that now young red pandas remain in their nests for about ninety days during which time their mother cares for them the male pandas take little or no interest in their offspring these babies is day-old chicks that's what everybody go for first red pandas are endangered victims of deforestation their natural space is shrinking as more and more forests are destroyed by logging and the spread of Agriculture that she got three pandas all together got one here he's always been on his own and then we've got a pair and we've got one at the top at the moment we'll have had to take the female out which is round the back garden at the moment she's caged there there's so many being bred out of the zoos at the moment and because we are part of a breeding program we're told what we can breed and what not we can't breathe so at the moment they're just having a break on red panda breeding so we've took her out just until March because their breeding time season is between January and March so we took the female out of the use of a contraceptive really and just too much and then once March come what Easter come she'll then be put back as a male at the top so that's the reason this Bluff at the moment so but this one is if we don't need to put another on him at the moment so just leave him on his own the monkeys are fed twice a day whereas monkeys in the wild probably foraging most of the day I should imagine and so the quality they would have here would they would like in a matter of two small times they would probably take all day to forage for so and also they would probably get more live food as well rather they get the live food here but they would probably a lot more and regarding the cat side the cats are actually fed and five dates at five days at seven so we starve and cats twice a week so we actually feed them small amounts and five days whereas in the wild they probably have one kill and that probably lasts and maybe a month or even two months or depends how frequent the food is so although they're getting the equivalent they're probably getting at smaller amounts at more frequent times and they would in the wild it's 1:00 p.m. and the otters are eagerly awaiting for their afternoon feed of baby chicks eggs and even a chicken each the Asian small-clawed otters is unique in that it is the only species to live in extended family groups although they do eat fish it is more typical to observe them working a riverbank or mangrove swamp as a team as large as 30 Potter's use therefore feet we produced sighs claws to fill in the mud for mollusks and crustaceans such as shellfish crayfish and crabs here they feed on chicken as much as they do fish this species has been a regular breeding family at the Rigby it's close to the end of the day and time for the last feed the Tigers afternoon feed consists of deer meat and whole chickens this feast usually attracts a large group of visitors who want to witness such an event Oh Cubs and Cooper here he's put it through three for now just about two years and he's no four years old and we introduce him to hopefully fingers crossed to have young with duaa and although jewelry's in their double figures she still at that age where she can breathe cats tend to breed right through until they're into old age so we are praying that we have some young here and actually separate to feed the cats because o cooping is there and more hungry tiger all the time so he tends to take her food and it just saves all the fighting and the aggro between them so we just separate to feed them and then once they've been fed then I'll put the Tigers back together okay and unlike the lepers we don't starve the Tigers they get afraid every night and and they are on small amounts of food every night kubu is quite last year wait at the moment and do is okay but he's a lot more lazy and laid-back cat so he tends not to move around so much so they're on the same diet as the leprous they get mainly chicken here they have deer they have rubber and and also when evade what available there are and has another sort of road locale prohibiting all the farmer said to bring off the fields so that's their thing and so I'll just feed do a first because she's a more noisy one see might hear a bit more growl a little bit more darlin you guys keep friendly as MPV I'm actually gonna try and hand feed her some deer first okay this is just a little mouthful for them so I'll just do do it first and then I'll put her chickens in and then I'll do the same with Kubu kubu actually come from a cat sanctuary just outside Kent and he was hand fed right from birth and through the wire that is not actually in with him so he's always been used to being hand fed so I'll do him now come on candy I know you're someone over there that you don't really like you don't like that take your food away say nothing much of you a big cat like you is scared come on okay I'll just put these chickens in now you probably take them off somewhere to be so so once they fade now their scythes will be lifted and then they'll be together for the Britannian all their busy slides are up saying I my name's Scott bird I'm the zoological director here at through Google Wallet Gardens it's very enjoyable I've now been here 17 years I started and an opportunity came up I should have only been here for the summer holidays just to help them out and they ended up staying here for 17 years my background was actually in equine science so it is a degree in equal and science ended up coming home from that to look for work and they ended up here helping on a construction site just for the summer on some animal enclosures and then got offered a full-time position and asked if I'd like to transfer my knowledge of horses across onto more exotic species i3p hosts of wide variety of engaging animals from the Sumatran tire use the snow leopards the bulk of the collection many of the birds are very rare so yeah it's quite a quite a substantial portion of the collection is endangered in to some degree breed management is organized by the stud book keeper and they look at the different the genetics of the animals within the population and to keep the wider genetic pool as possible and so that we can keep animals alive and keep species Gary and so that eventually for some species there is a reintroduction program starting out we're hoping in the next two to three years to start reintroducing snow leopards into parts of China and Russia and so will but it takes a lot of monitoring of work beforehand to ensure the reasons that the populations decreased that they've been counteracted from one way or another part of the ethos from the original owner and the original founder Ken Sims was that he worked in layer in rubber plantation his lump large last plantation there was around 5,000 employees people lived on that plantation and he says that it was very often it was hard to see the wildlife of people and he vowed if he ever opened up a small zoological collection that he'd be able to keep it small compact where people can get close to the animals but as well as trying to keep as natural environment for the animals as possible strongly hope the future of Rigney Hall is to carry on as it does now to a small compact collection where people can get close to the animals providing unique experiences and also in the daya a fun-filled family day out which enhances and supports our conservation efforts this short insight into behind-the-scenes daily routine of the staff at 3p hall and determination that they have to ensure the positive health of the animals and the success of a unique and historical attraction you

Channel: Ben Rayne

Views: 59,840

Rating: 4.9411764 out of 5

Keywords: thrigby hall, thrigby hall wildlife gardens, zoo, tiger, meerkat, birds, zoo keeper, media, documentary, wildlife, leopards, monkeys

Id: zrEyx7UadN4

Length: 30min 23sec (1823 seconds)

Published: Fri May 06 2016