Internship Opportunities

Some of the skills you will learn as an intern here are:

• Husbandry.
  Learn how to care for a third (or all!) of our over 350+ animals. This includes feeding, watering, and cleaning up after them.
• Behavioral Observation.
  Practice using a keen eye by understanding and monitoring our animals’ behaviors and gain an understanding of what an animal looks like when it is excited, scared, or not feeling well.
• Basic Veterinary Skills.
  Despite our best efforts, accidents happen and an animal may become injured or sick at times. With the guidance of nearby vets, we can teach you how to clean wounds and maintain bandages or give medication as needed.
• Cleanliness.
  Over 350 animals do not go easy on us! They make messes every day and it is our job to clean up after them. Your cleanliness skills will be put to the test as this takes up a majority of the job to keep our enclosures and facility clean.
• Time Management.
  With so much to do, it is important to be efficient with your tasks and know how to manage your time as best you can.
• Animal Handling and Training.
  Since a majority of our animals are contact, you will get to learn how to physically handle many species, as well as be able to understand their behaviors. You will also participate in training many of our animals, ranging from being handleable to taking animals on walks to doing voluntary weights.
• Eduction and Public Speaking.
  Local schools come out to our facility for field trips where the animal team takes them on a tour of our animal area. The general audience is lower elementary school children, as well as their teachers and some parents.
• Teamwork.
  As you can imagine, this many animals occasionally needs a whole team to come together and take care of them. You will work with (AND live with) your fellow interns. You will need to be able to work with others or communicate when/before things go bad. While it may not always seem like a big deal, inevitably it is the animals that suffer most from this team not being able to work together.
• Independent Working.
  On the flip side, many of your days will be doing your own projects (based on a given list) alone. You will learn how to become self-motivated and how to keep yourself engaged in repetitive tasks.
• Enrichment Making and Monitoring.
  Master the art of providing enrichment that hits as many senses as possible and encourages natural behaviors in a captive setting. Then, after enrichment is given, assess its effectiveness and safety as animals interact with your creations.
• Diet Preparation.
  Learn all about how to prepare foods, knife skills, fan-favorite foods (and the least favorite ones), and specialty supplements for certain species.
• Recordkeeping.
  The only way to keep our heads on straight after doing all of the above is to write it down. You will become well-versed in tracking food intake, medication distribution, enrichment responses, and cleaning project records.

Some of the most unique parts of our internship program here is the huge variety of animals that you are able to care for, learn about, and teach to others. We have over 100 species across 4 different classes including Mammals, Reptiles, Birds, and Amphibians. Many of these species are in mixed-species housing, giving them the advantage of social enrichment, and giving YOU the advantage of gaining a variety of experience in a short time that you will not get anywhere else. Not only that, but our entire program is focused on getting people hands-on animal experience, meaning most of our animals are full contact and absolutely love human interaction! Similar to ambassador animals at zoos, our collection represents animals in captive settings and can teach people how to care for their own pet (such as with hedgehogs, chinchillas, cats, etc.) or they can teach people why certain animals should not be pets (foxes are very, very stinky).

Minimum Requirements for Animal Interns

While we do not require previous animal experience, there are some things that everyone that works here must adhere to. All applicants should be able to meet the following criteria:

• Be 18 years of age or older. Preference is given to college students and recent graduates, but a highschool diploma or equivalent is required.
• Be able to work in the United States. We hire 20+ international employees every summer to come join as and be a part of our summer camp, but unfortunately cannot offer positions in the off-season. We require paperwork and proof that you are able to work in the United States.
• Be physically able to work with animals. Animal care work requires repetitive bending and lifting and being on your feet for nearly 8 hours a day. Our interns should be able to lift and carry bags of feed up to 50 lbs. Interns also should not have allergies to animals that would prevent them from working with a large number of camp's animals.
• Be Independent. All interns are expected to be self-motivated and goal-oriented. As mentioned before, interns take care of a large number of camp's animals. Each intern should be able to handle their assigned animals and notice when enclosures need cleaning or maintenance, not just when assigned.
• Be able and willing to relocate. This job (obviously) cannot be done remotely, but we also can only hire interns willing to live on-site. We cannot allow most pets as well. Ask for more details if this does not include you but you are still interested.
• Be able to commit. Each internship semester is 4.5 months in length (with some give and take on exact start and end dates) and interns are expected to be there for the entire time. This may include holidays; unfortunately, the animals like to be fed every day.

It is our goal for all interns to leave our facility with skills and experience that help them towards their goals and all future endeavors. In order for this to happen, interns must be able to work well with their intern team and supervisors; be willing to listen and learn from those who have constructive feedback and tips for them; and be able to develop a skill set that allows them to work quickly while being extremely efficient and pay close attention to detail.