When I started to kind of think about what I wanted to do, I thought I want to save mammals,
but like 300-pound mammals.
And I started networking after college.
I got in touch with a researcher here at the Smithsonian.
She said if you really want to be working hands on with endangered wildlife, you should
start volunteering at the zoo.
May, are you ready?
Hi!
You have to be dedicated, rain or shine.
The panda doesn't care about the weather.
Most animals are getting up when the sun rises.
Instead of putting them on an unnatural schedule, we just adapt and come to their schedule.
So sun's up, we're here.
Hi, mama!
What's happening?
Good morning!
Once you get here, what you do, just sort of run me through your typical schedule.
First thing, 7:00 a.m., we're weighing out all of the bamboo, setting it up in the yard,
prepping enrichment, doing our safety checks of the yard, making sure everything's in order.
Getting them out on exhibit.
Every day after weighing, we'll come out, spread it out throughout the yard.
Pandas are bamboo eaters.
They have to eat bamboo.
It's the biggest part of their diet.
Right now in the winter we're feeding probably close to a hundred pounds per bear per day.
It's a surreal job to me.
What's it actually like to do it?
It is a little surreal.
I have to sometimes pinch myself and remind myself that you are working in one of four
institutions that have giant pandas, and what we as a zoo are doing to conserve such a vulnerable
species and helping them flourish and educating the public on them.
Enrichment can be anything that stimulates an animal physically, mentally.
We want them to use their natural abilities like they would in the wild to find their
food.
The next portion of the day is the cleaning.
Not the most glamorous part of the day, but necessary.
And then throughout the day, it's more feedings, trainings, things like that.
Training?
We're using positive reinforcement, operant conditioning to give these dangerous animals
a way to participate with our management, because we don't go in with them.
For example with pandas, all the behaviors there trained for allow them to participate
in awake medical procedures.
If people are out there and watching this and thinking I want to do that, how do they
even go about it?
Essentially work for free until someone gives you a chance.
So most zoo keepers volunteered their way in.
I was a volunteer on Asia trail for about a year, then got hired as an unpaid full-time
intern for six months.
And then I got hired.
How did you make money?
Fortunately, while I was volunteering, I was waitressing on the side, built up a bit of
a savings, and I was fortunate enough to live at my parents' house just 20 minutes away.
I always say I'm not the norm.
Most keepers start at smaller zoos with temp or part-time jobs, so my first job, getting
hired at the national zoo is pretty rare.
What sort of responsibility do you feel?
I feel a pretty big responsibility.
One of my favorite parts of this job is that these animals are in zoos to give us the chance
to kind of educate people.
The majority of the animals we have here in the park are endangered or vulnerable or threatened
because of human action, so I feel a responsibility to educate people on how we can reverse our
own actions and spread the message of conservation and how important all of these animals are
to our planet.