A Wild & Dirty Job
By Benjamin Wright
Photos by Richard Brodzeller
 Neil Dretzka shows Molly Higgins, 12, and Emily Higgins, 16, meat he has prepared for the big cats. |
Ever watch Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe”? Traveling through America, Rowe follows workers for a day to show viewers how hard and dirty some jobs are. In spring 2010, I had a chance to follow the Milwaukee County Zoo’s feline area supervisor, Neil Dretzka, and zookeeper Chris John to learn about the dirty and potentially dangerous job of zookeeping. You can find another version of this story, discussing the dangers of working with big cats, in the Zoological Society of Milwaukee’s July 1, 2010, Wild Things newsletter.
Our day starts out with a ROAR as we enter the back of the feline building, officially called the Florence Mila Borchert Big Cat Country. Lions Themba (the male) and Sanura (the female) are having a “cat fight,” growling back and forth from their separate dens because Sanura is in heat.
In the feline staff office, Dretzka explains that much of their work is routine – if you can call being around big, potentially dangerous, meat-eating cats all day “routine.” Keepers have to open and close the exhibit halls, check the exhibits, feed the animals, put the animals on exhibit and take them off, and clean the exhibits. “Although there is a normal routine, no two days are ever alike,” Dretzka says.
For example, today, according to the desk calender, Damara the cheetah needs to get a vitamin shot around 10 a.m. The vitamin B injections are meant to help Damara’s large intestine re-learn to absorb that vitamin. He recently had surgery to remove a section of bowel responsible for absorption of this vitamin. The bowel had gotten impacted from bone meal in his food (the type of food he is eating has since been switched).
 Zookeeper Chris John holds a lion’s paw as veterinarian Vickie Clyde trims the cat’s nails and checks its health. |
Right now, though, there is work to be done. First thing on the agenda is a check of the outdoor exhibits for intruding animals (such as raccoons) or holes in exhibit fences or broken windows that may allow the animals to run away. “You never know what could happen,” Dretzka says. “A truck driver could have backed into the display window and driven off.”
As usual, nothing is out of place. The next task is to put some of the cats into their outdoor yards. I follow Dretzka and John into the back shift areas, where John gives Kajmak, the older male Amur tiger, a large metallic wakeup call by clanking the yard door against the ground. To open the door, John unlocks a handle, called a “safety,” and pulls it until it disengages, allowing the door to slide up, allowing the cat to leave. Next, the snow leopard goes outdoors. To open a door to the outdoor exhibit from the snow leopards’ holding area, Dretzka slides a gate open that allows the cat to enter. The Zoo has two snow leopards, but “they’re never together,” says Dretzka. “So only one goes outside at a time.” They rotate so that one is outdoors one week and the other, the next week.
While Kajmak is outdoors and Amba (the female tiger) and her youngsters (born July 8, 2009) are in the den, the zookeepers’ work becomes more like “Dirty Jobs.” Dretzka starts cleaning the Amur tigers’ indoor exhibit. Chris John goes to inspect bloody bags of meat. I choose to get down and dirty with Dretzka first. He picks up pieces of animal hair, food, and poop. He also looks for leftover meat, clumps of fur or blood spots. These are clues to both keepers and veterinarians that a cat may be ill or injured. Then Dretzka sprays down the indoor exhibit with a hose, moving any dirt to the drains. He picks up a large, dirty hairball. You can say it, “EWW!”
Because the cleaning takes time, and visitors are already arriving at the Zoo, the feline staff stagger their cleaning jobs. “We do try to get some of the cats outdoors by 9 a.m. so people will have something to look at. We had already cleaned the outdoor yards of the tigers, the cheetahs and the snow leopards the night before. So some of those cats can go right outside.” That leaves the keepers time to clean the indoor exhibits.
On a brighter note, when the cleaning is done, keepers add “enrichment” items to the exhibits. These items vary from “toys” to food to unusual scents, all of which help keep the cats mentally and physically healthy. For example, in the Amur tiger exhibit there are logs for the cats to scratch and sharpen their nails on, and bones are fed to them once a week to scrape plaque off teeth. This day, Dretzka sprinkles ginger around the exhibit for the tigers to smell and search for, making their space new and exciting.
 Back in 2001, Chris John could go into an exhibit with the three cheetah brothers the feline zookeepers had raised for 10 years. In 2010, for safety reasons, feline keepers no longer go into big-cat enclosures with the animals. |
“Once the exhibits or yards are cleaned in the morning, the cats are let out for the day,” says Dretzka. “They usually go willingly because they have spent the night indoors and want to explore a different area. It seems to me that they think every day is a new day and a new space – sniff/spray, sniff/spray, even when they’ve seen this area for a long time.” The cats spray their own scent everywhere, marking territory.
To get the full zookeeper experience, I meet up with Chris John, who is preparing food for the cats and the two hyenas in the building. John searches through 60 pounds of bloody meat thawing in pans. He’s looking for anything that may harm the cats. “During the processing of the food, stuff can get in the meat,” he says. “It’s rare, but once I found a piece of jagged plastic in the meat.” John also helps the veterinarians care for the animals. He keeps the cats on certain meat diets of AFS (Animal Food Services) meat or Nebraska brand, depending on the dietary needs of the animal. AFS is a moister meat that has more blood, which the cats like. The Nebraska brand is a more dense meat that looks like a huge meatloaf-shaped hunk of ground meat. John also places any vet-prescribed medications in the meat. The food is chilled till 3 or 3:30 p.m., when most of the cats start eating.
“Most of the animals eat once a day, in the afternoon,” notes Dretzka. “The food draws them off exhibit at the end of the day. The tiger family is an exception. The youngsters need to be fed twice a day because they are growing and can’t eat all their food in one sitting. Mom Amba originally was fed twice a day because of the lactational demand, and she couldn’t eat enough at one sitting, either. At this point, however, the youngsters are no longer nursing. So Amba’s split feeding is more a matter of routine – and jealousy. She would know if the cubs were eating and she couldn’t! Yes, they get jealous!”
Back in the tiger dens, Chris John carefully slides a pan of meat through the feed door, dumps the meat and pulls the pan back out of the empty den. A door is slid open and one of the hungry tiger youngsters enters to eat her meal. Then John goes to a different den to feed the other one. Once these carnivorous creatures devour their meals, then the keepers can put the cats into their indoor exhibit.
 Amba the Amur tiger plays with her cubs, Tula and Nuri, in fall 2009. |
In early summer 2010, keepers were having some difficulty encouraging Amba and the twins to go into the indoor exhibit after being fed in their dens. So keepers started putting the food in the exhibit and letting Amba eat on public view, usually between 9:30 and 10 a.m. When she’s done, they let the youngsters in with her. When you visit the Zoo this summer, stop by the feline building during that half-hour to see if Amba’s eating. [Some longtime zoogoers will remember that in the old feline building, most of the cats were fed in view of the public. That would draw crowds. The old building didn’t have any other place to feed the cats. The new building has behind-the scenes dens, which is where all the cats generally are fed. That makes it easier and quicker for keepers to clean the exhibits and yards.]
At 10 a.m., members of the veterinary staff meet us at the back area of the cheetah exhibit, where Damara is waiting in what is called a “squeeze cage.” This is actually a space that can be made smaller gently, so that the walls hold an animal in place for shots. One movable wall can slide closer to a stationary wall. This temporary space keeps the cheetah from biting or scratching and allows vets to give him shots safely. This is much better than giving the cat anesthesia, which always carries risks. The procedure goes quickly, and the cheetah is soon back in its normal space.
By 12 p.m. the keepers have cleaned, fed and put the animals on exhibit. Now it is time for the keepers to rustle up some grub. After their own lunch, keepers switch gears and begin the afternoon’s work, ending with closing up for the night. This involves:
- Cleaning the behind-the-scenes shift and holding areas
- Feeding animals – Early in the afternoon, keepers finish making meals for the animals. Between 3:30 and 5 p.m., the keepers put the food inside the off-exhibit areas (dens), where the cats go for the night.
- Coaxing animals back into off-exhibit areas – Some animals must come into the back holding areas from their indoor exhibits. Other animals have been on exhibit in outdoor yards and need to come inside. Keepers don’t want to leave the cats in the indoor exhibits or in outdoor yards overnight. This would make it difficult for keepers to get the animals to move so the exhibits could be cleaned by the time the Zoo opens in the morning. Also, keeping animals outdoors is not safe; raccoons, which come out at night, can carry diseases transmittable to big cats. Once the animals have returned inside, keepers lock the doors to the outside yards. The animals at this point eat their meals.
- Cleaning outdoor exhibits – Now that there are no animals in the outdoor exhibits, it is safe for keepers to go outside, pick up fecal matter, clean the windows and do any other cleaning needed.
- Locking up for the night – When all that is done, the keepers turn off all the lights and lock all the doors. The care of the animals doesn’t end there. At night there are keepers who travel from one building to another making sure that all the animals are safe and snug in their “beds.”
Benjamin Wright was a publications intern for the Zoological Society of Milwaukee in 2009-2010
Related Materials:
- A 2009 story on the tiger cubs by Benjamin Wright
- A video of the tigers as cubs
