March 23, 2025 • 29 mins
What makes life in a zoo better for animals? Being able to make their own choices and bonding with individuals who care for them. In this episode we meet a warm and joyous zookeeper whose job it was among other things, to prepare crocodiles for their regular medical exams. Crocodiles, who can learn their own names, and will come when called are not only the first species you think of when you talk about “animal intuition” – but how do they know it is time for once every two-year medical exam? Learn how they knew from what shirt the zookeeper was wearing they could predict what was coming that day. What makes them suddenly disappear when it is time for a blood test? Learn all about Albert Ferraro’s experiences with these and other zoo animals, including exotic Tapers with personalities and affection, and Siamang monkeys who delighted with a handheld mirror and other joyful tales about how bonding with one special human can make
EPISODE NOTES: What a Zookeeper Learned from Animals
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EPISODE NOTES: What a Zookeeper Learned from Animals
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-human-animal-connection-pet-life-radio-original--6669311/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Pet Life Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Let's talk pets.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to the Human Animal Connection show, where we believe
we can communicate with all animals. Join us as we
explore the thirty three principles and healing methods of the
Human Animal Connection. As animal lovers, we know that you
share our commitment to making the world a kinder place
for all creatures. Together, let's embrace the transformative healing power
(00:29):
of the Human Animal Connection.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hello everyone, Welcome to the Human Animal Connection.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm really happy to have you here with me. I
have a really fun show for you today. I have
Albert Ferraro and he's this zookeeper in Florida, And if
you've ever wanted to talk to a zookeeper and find
out what really goes on in zoos, this is our chance.
So I'm just really happy because there's so many things
that the animals have taught him and we're going to
hear some of those fun stories.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So welcome Albert. Thank you, b Bete. So what's it
like to be a zookeeper. It's great, it's very it's
very interesting, it's very rewarding. It's a lot of long
days and physical work, but the bonds you make with
(01:15):
those animals are very very special. That's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I mean, I'm just hoping that all zookeepers have these
kinds of bonds and all the animals and zoos. So
tell us, you know, maybe a story about a bond
that you maybe didn't expect it really turned out to
touch your heart in some way.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh, a bond that I didn't expect, let's see, and
maybe you expected them all. I don't no times. So
when I first when I first got started, this was
ten plus years ago, I was living in Louisiana and
I started working for a small z there and I
(01:56):
was taking care of mostly When I first started, I
was taking care of large, large hostock. So I had
a small herd of giraffe, two rhinos, two pygmy hippos,
and a few a few tortoises in my two a
few few giant tortoises in my care that lived in
(02:18):
like a big off exhibit like kind of field. They
just hung out in. Yeah, I had, I had not.
I had never worked with large African hostock before. I
was even shocked that someone gave me a shot at
those animals. But that was probably one of the more
rewarding things is that I had never I mean the
(02:40):
zoo that I grew up at and interned and everything
when I was in college did not have The largest
hostock we had, I think was was American bison. So
when I when someone gave me the keys to the
castle of like four giraffe and these two rhinos, that
was just it blew my mind.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
So I really want to hear about the giraffes. What
was it like to get to know them? Was it
easy to get to know them? Did they trust you
right away?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
What was that like? So they they take a little
they take some warming up. They're really their relatively cautious animals,
and so you have to spend a lot of time
with them and get them to trust you, and then
once you do, they'll start to open up a little bit.
By the time towards the end of my time there,
(03:31):
I could kind of walk up to it was a big,
kind of moted set up, so I could like walk
right out to it and be like face to face
with them. The younger female we had would kind of
come up and let me give her a little kiss
on the nose. Yeah, that was that was pretty neat.
They were a lot of fun. I really grew grew
attached to the male rhino that that we had. I
(03:53):
did not expect to like form a form a bond
with him, but he was. He was a very very
smart personal animal. He loved people. He'd follow me around,
like if I was walking around the yard, like around
the outside of the yard, he'd perk up and hang out.
He would love when we had like like a big
(04:14):
setup in the holding where they could pull their heads
inside so that way you could like kind of do
some medical procedures on them and huh could kind of
stay still in place. And he would love it when
he put his head through that big gate and I
would like grab his horn and like play with him. Oh.
I was almost like give him a big hug. You'd
get real excited and throw his head up. You're like,
(04:36):
oh yeah, but that was not Yeah, that was really
that was really awesome. He was he was really fun.
I loved him, I really. I worked with the other
We had a young one horned rhino there too, and
she was really she was really cute. She was real
really stubborn. She just spent a lot. She she didn't
want to do anything. Oh I remember there was she
(04:59):
was relatively new to the zoo. So she she had
a really big barn and then a really big yard,
and she would a lot of times like to hang
out in that. You know, all the doors could be open,
but she'd just be sitting inside that barn and I
I have that yard set up with like food everywhere,
a big toy to throw around, like a giant mound
(05:20):
of hay, and like fresh branches to eat, and she'd
just be sitting on in there. She's like this is
where I feel like sitting today. And I'm like, oh please,
no one could see you. I remember it was. It
was the zoo was big, spring fast. Okay. They were
kind of like, hey, can you really try to make
sure that she's like out invisible, because you know, she's like,
you know, a new animal. We want to make sure,
you know, it's like four thousand people that I was like,
(05:42):
oh god, oh. I was like begging with this. I
was like, please go outside. I was like, come on,
let's run. Let's you know. I got her to come
up with some food. I was like playing with her
in the bar, running back for get her all excited,
and I would just came running out that like my
friend of mine saw me. She just saw me running
around the side of the bar in and out like
shout it all like playfully. She's like, what were you doing?
(06:02):
I was like, I was trying to get her to
go outside. Yeah. She was like, that was the weirdest
thing I've ever seen. I was like, I she was
up and running and rompeted play and I thought she
followed me and go out for the day. Yeah, And
she finally did. But I was, yeah, well then they
had their own They have their own opinions, right, they want, Yeah,
(06:23):
they're gonna do whatever they want. That's neat. So what
what animal really? Now? In my older age, I I
could care less if anybody goes outside. People called her
all of my worst is I don't know wherever she
wants to be, right? Good? That's good? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
And so what animals surprised you the most?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
What animals surprised me the moment? Oh boy, I what
I worked with with I've worked with with alligators quite
a bit. Those animals I think surprised me the most.
I at my previous job, I did a lot of programs,
(07:03):
So we did educational programs with the venomous reptiles and
non venomous reptiles. We had two big pythons, a reticulated
python and a Burmese python, and we had thirteen alligators
and they lived in a gigantic it's basically like a
(07:24):
big natural silver spraying exhibit. Mangrove growth everywhere was like
it was basically like a little section of Florida ecosystem
fenced in and they put a bunch of alligators in
there and they they lived really high. Now I've got
a cat, Okay, but you're a day so at home, right. Yeah.
(07:45):
City were amazing. We had a big beach in that
exhibit that we could go out either multiple times a
day or once a day and do a big training
demonstration with hybund with with all thirteen of those animals
all at once. And it was the most amazing thing
I have ever done in my career to this day. Wow.
(08:08):
I Yeah, obviously I knew a lot about like I
knew about alligators and things going into that, but I
had no idea how intelligent those animals were. I I
can learn their individual names, like, oh they did. Each
of them knew their names. Each of them knew their names.
They all had individual personnelity. They were their own person
each of them. They would they would all do certain
(08:31):
things and uh, anytime anyone was, you know, creeping up
or trying to do something, you would just call their
name to go, oh it's pretty Uh. It were brilliant
creatures we had. We had one that was the size
of a truck, and he was the gentlest towards people.
(08:53):
He was towards us. He was gentle and friendly. He
was in love with the reptile supervisor like that was
his mom. Like he followed her. He followed her around
the beach if she wasn't paying enough attention to him,
if she was training one of the if she was
training one of the other alligators, one of like his brother,
his big brothers, he'd start to get jealous and pushypping over,
(09:14):
pushed them out of the way and be like, that's
my mom, and that was the funniest thing in the world.
If I was on the beach, she was real scared
because I had a big, loud, booming voice and I
had a microphone. And so he'd get real quiet in
the water because he because the pick because the guy
who he didn't see every day was out there shouting.
Which we had one that was probably one of the
(09:34):
smartest animals I've ever seen in my entire life. In
what way, what what does she do? She picked up
on the slightest of patterns. So we had, just like
all the animal all the other animals at the zoo,
those gators got yearlygue exams, or we did like by yearly,
(09:54):
so every couple of years they got a full physical.
And you know, nobody particularly lights going to the dock,
you know, even you know, we used a lot of
training to make it as voluntary as possible, but of
course it's still did involve an amount of restraining of
them and things. So they would get a little grumpy
(10:14):
for a day or two, but then they'd show right
back up at the beach and the all's forgiven. But
this one alligator figured out that when one of the
reptile keepers wore a certain pair of shorts, that was
exam day. Wow. And I remember this was the funniest thing.
We spent weeks training them in the morning, because their
(10:37):
usual training time was in the afternoon for the program,
for for for the guests, But so we spent weeks
doing morning training sessions like we're gonna we're gonna make it,
We're gonna make sure it's not weird that when we
show up at the beach first thing in the morning,
because they're they're incredibly intuitive. If we showed up at
a weird time of day, hmm, it might come over,
but they'd be really weird about it if the wind
(10:58):
was blowing too much. Those alligators weren't a weird They're
very interesting. They're surprisingly sensitive. That's why I like them
so much, because they were very different than what people
here in Florida portray them as. They're wonderful creatures. But
the so we spent weeks and weeks doing this and
(11:18):
finally the day comes and he's gone on his usual
gator exam clothes, that the oldest, most beat up shirt
that he's got, these short, these big, huge rips, and
the You're like, oh, these are my gator. My gator
exam day closed, and we know, a ha, it's funny.
We got out there. She saw him in those clothes
(11:39):
and just floated way out in the water and just
watched as all the other gators came up. She just
said nope. And eventually some of the others came started
backing off because they figured it out. But we were
kind of beside ourselves were like, what in the world
what we did? Everything perfectly, everything's been the same for
the past three weeks. And then this guy he goes
(12:01):
the pants. Yeah, two weeks took two weeks again, and
he had to come out in his full attire as
if he was giving like a show trumed a pair
of nice pants, the nice polo shirt destroyed for this exam.
But that was what finally, and even then she was
(12:24):
still mildly suspicious. That was it was incredible. It was
still resting, not at all. Now she would have no pants.
She's that same fancy war last week when Scar had
his his exam, Uh is that wild? It was? Now,
how do you do an exam of an alligator? Oh,
it's pretty long. So ours were ours were all we're
(12:47):
all target trained, so they would we would walk them
up into walk them all the way of off the
beach and we would actually like, you've got to kind
of you know, have a rope on them. Uh, but
you can train them to walk into that rope, so
you could walk it and then sync it down and
then from there you do have to if you if
(13:09):
you if you've ever seen people at a place like
you do kind of have to jump onto them. So
it's a very extensive process. It takes a lot of planning.
It's takes multiple people holding ropes on one end or
on each end. Uh, And then you can sedate them,
do their exam, wake them back up, and let them
(13:30):
go back in the water.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Okay, so it's but when you jump on them, they're
not sedated though, Right now, how do you how.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Do you make sure that you're not lunch? So you
got your rope and then from there you can kind
of put a gentle little rope and a pole on
their jaw and that and that will hold their jaw
closed because they it's it's difficult, like you can hold
it like they could bite down hard, but they don't
open as strong. So you can use a rope to
(14:00):
hold down. And once they're that's in place, you're going
from the back and then on top. So that way
it's still obviously dangerous, but you're not coming from the
sides where you turn and get.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Now, is this a veterinarian that's doing the jumping on
the back or a zoo person. It's it's it's care staff.
So you will have gone through a great deal of
training to be able to do that, do it properly, efficiently,
safely right and ensure everyone from every person to the
alligator stay safe.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
It's a really cool process. It goes. It's once you've
got it, like when you've got people who are like
well trained to do it and working all in unison.
It's it's very quick efficient. We're we were able to
get get those procedures done very quickly with minimal stress
for the gators. We actually when I left there, we
(14:57):
were start We were doing a lot of work to
try and get more of those the exam behaviors to
be voluntary. So we had successfully drawn blood from an
alligator's tail while he was awake, just through training alone. Yes,
that was really neat. Uh. We were working on voluntary
(15:21):
radiographs for them. Several of those gators were already scale trained.
We could bring a scale board out onto the beach
and walk them onto it, so we didn't have to
do an exam to get their weight. We just didn't
do it super often because they didn't fluctuate weight very much.
You could look at them and see how big they were, like, oh, yeah,
they they're they're very healthy. Yeah. They were the kind
(15:43):
of things that you could teach them. They they were
If you want to talk about things that surprised you,
those animals were impressive. Wow from a from a cognitive standpoint,
I mean there's they were. They had, they had personalities,
they had. It was it was great. It was so
much fun. They were fun.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
So you could tell by looking at them who was
who and by their old yeah, by their yeah behavior
that great, that's great.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah. They all looked different enough. It took time to
figure it out, but they all looked different. We had
one that that was mischievous that liked to try and
steal the food bucket mm hmm, keep up to eat
no one was watching, uh huh and try to steal
the big training training food bucket. Yeah. And then one
time she grabbed it, uh huh and uh we whipped
(16:29):
around and then we were like ugly and then she
like shot threw it up in the air like in
her mouth. It ran it in the water like a dog.
That it was like a dog sneak it up doing
something they shouldn't and then SUSI sounded. She grabbed the
bucket and ran. It was funny and we like three
days to fish the bucket out of the bay because
it was so every's gone and at tire ten pounds
(16:50):
worth of fish chicken. Oh boy, oh boy, it was
the funniest thing in the world. Well, that's very funny.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I love that you were working towards giving them choice
so that they can choose to do things and reduce
the fear, reduce the stress, and increase the safety I
would imagine.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
So, oh definitely, that's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
When we come back, I want I love the story
about them having, you know, that sense that they have intuition,
the way that they know things that you could know
how they know.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
So we're going to take a short break.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
When we come back, we'll be right back with Albert Carraro,
zookeeper from Florida.
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Speaker 1 (18:01):
Hey friends, if you like what you're hearing and want
to learn more, check out doctor Joseph's book The Human
Animal Connection, Deepening Relationships with Animals and ourselves, or visit
the website The Humananimalconnection dot org to book an online consultation.
Thank you for loving animals. Now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
Let's talk pets on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Welcome back to The Human Animal Connection. And we were.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Just talking on the break about a wonderful story of
you working with a certain relative of the apes of
Si meng Is called and tell us about your experiments
when you brought them a little handheld mirror from the
Dollar store. So I wanted to broad in there, En Richmond,
So I went to the dollar store just bought a
(19:00):
bunch of random things, mostly something like perfumes and things
that I could use for all the animals.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
But I picked up a small handheld mirror. Mirrors are
great for a lot of animals, and uh, for certain
you know, for certain animals, they don't know it it's them,
it's someone else, so it can that's interesting for them.
I remember this is a tangent to that story. But uh,
we had a a ringtail lemur at one facility I
(19:27):
worked at. UH He lived in a small group of lemurs,
but whenever we put in put a mirror out for them,
he would do their full What's what's known to in
ringtail lemurs is stink fighting, where they use sent glands
on their wrists to scent their tail and then flick
it at their at the rival mail to try and
(19:47):
win the affection of the females. So every time we
brought a mirror out there, we would call him. We
would call it Nick's arch rival because he would go
into that full behavior of fighting the other male even
though the male was him, which is great for them
to go through that full courtship process of winning over
the female even though they already won over his girlfriend
(20:09):
who lived on the island with them. But it was
just it was hysterical to watch because we would joke like, oh,
this guy's got the same moves as I do. But
so back to the main story. I brought this little
handheld mirror up to I work with a family group
of signings. So it was mom, Dad, their older offspring
who was still living with them, usually in lesser apes
(20:34):
that they live with their parents until about six years
old before they go off on their own, and they
had another baby with them. So they so I hold
up this little mirror to them, and they're all kind
of staring at it and like kind of furrowing almost.
They're like, what is that? Like, is that you know
another family group or something. And then they reached out
touched it, and then they tried I remember watching them,
(20:55):
they tried to touch the sides of it, as if
they were trying to touch the other simon shoulders, like,
and then they realized there were no there was nothing there,
There was no other parts of them, and they were
kind of staring for a minute, and I remember them
very gently reaching out. Now they have very human like hands.
I mean their hands are almost about the same as ours,
(21:17):
their fingers are just a lot longer. They just reach
out with their hands. They grab the mirror just ever
so gently and turn it around to see that there's
nothing on the back. And I was one of the
most interesting things because they, you know, I watched them
in real time learn and understand what a mirror was
and understand what their own reflection was. It was one
(21:39):
of the cool things. It was like, oh yeah, because
it's it's a concept.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Well on that alone, I's not exactly exactly. Yeah, Like
we take it for granted that we can look at
a part of ourself in the mirror and know that
the rest of us is there, and just to watch
them kind of come to the whole conclusion of what
this little oh pieces, that's that's really fun to do.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah. Yeah, you see a lot of the higher primates.
You can really see that kind of self awareness in there.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I've I've seen spider monkeys who love mirrors just because
they love looking at themselves, or they're fascinated that they
can look at themselves, like I'll send there stay. They'll
just hang from somewhere and stare and like, oh that's great,
that's great. Hysterical. Yeah. So do you have a favorite
species in the zoo?
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I I fell in love with uh with taper Uh
taper are amazing. I've worked with four of them now, Actually, no,
it's what's a taper? Uh? Taper are a there a
large kind of the best way to describe them is
(22:49):
an archaic hoofed animal. So they're they're what hoofed animals
would have looked like millions of years ago. Uh. That
that may be a little yeah, probably. So they have
these big like fleshy feet with a big huge like
you know, fleshy pad, but each toe high bud, each
toe has a hoof on it. Mm hmm, so there,
(23:12):
so it's there kind of. They look a lot like
I tell people they look like the animals in in
ice age because they're they have that prehensile snout that
and they can use to reach out and grab things
or snorkel up for the water. They're really cool animals.
They're in that odd toad, odd toed ungulate family, so horses, donkeys, zebra, rhino,
(23:40):
animals like that. But they kind of are in their
own like little offshoot, like they're mostly related to themselves
because they're a very they're a very living, fossil type
type of species. Wow. So there's three in the New
World here. There's mountain tapers, lowland tapers, and bird's tapers
(24:01):
all in Central and South America. And then there's the
big like if you've ever seen the like half black,
half white, the Malayan tapers, those are the ones you
usually see when people talk about them. They're really big.
Those live in Southeast Asia. They are really cool animals.
I've worked with several of them now over the years.
(24:23):
I worked with them at my first zoo, a breeding
pair and one of their offspring, and then when I
came to where I work now, the female that we
have was the offspring from that first zoo. The next offspring,
like right after I left. I remember when I was
(24:43):
leaving and going to my next zoo, they said, oh,
we're about to put the tapers together again to breed.
Well I found out later I said, oh, that was you. Sorry.
I developed a very close relationship with her, and I've
come because I was like, I knew your parents and
your older sister, what are their personalities like kind of
like what you probably like what a wild horse would
(25:04):
be like. They can be a little on the flighty side,
but when they're younger, obviously, but you know, the ones
that I've worked with have spent their lives around people,
and so they're very personable. I knew an elderly taper
who was one of the oldest in North America. She
(25:25):
was had a very unique personality. She was she was
she was a kind of kind of like jokingly like
a grumpy old lady. MW. She likes she she liked people,
but she didn't like seek out affection from us. If
we came up, you know, wanted to love her because
we did love her. She would be like, okay, fine,
(25:47):
you know for me to eat, though you got any
jep like apple jeeps for me. But other than that,
she was like, all right, I leave me alone. I'm
gonna go I'm gonna go sleep in the in the
yard with the little cappy bears or so. But uh,
the I've worked with a female that was hand raised,
that loves people, that seeks out people, that thought that
she loves us. And I worked with a male who
(26:10):
was one of one of the best animals who I
ever worked with. He was he he was like normally
parent reared and everything, but he loved people like He
was one of the best animals to train that I
ever trained. I trained so many different behaviors with him.
He could by the time he went to his where
(26:30):
he lives now. He went to Zoom in Texas. I
trained him to be able to draw blood voluntarily. He
took all his vaccinations voluntarily. He would step up onto
a hoof block for us to either work on his
hooves or take X rays of his hooves. Even when
(26:51):
or we could just do it while he was laying down.
We could work on it was if they needed it.
He did that. He open his mouth on cues. We
could look at his teeth. He was great. He was
he was I loved him. It is right, he was fine.
We we could with those with those tapers do practically
a full exam without with them being awake.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
That's great, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. Well, when you go
in in the morning, who's the one you most want
to see?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Got taper? Tamper? Okay, morning, good morning?
Speaker 5 (27:25):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (27:26):
And do they They respond to your voice, your personality
or energy. They know they know you from the other
zoo keepers or whatever. They they definitely have a personal relationship. Well,
that's wait, everyone's having it having having trouble with with her.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
They call me, I need hell. She doesn't want to
do like I'll come, don't correlation. That's sweet, It's very sweet. Well,
I'm so glad that people like you who love animals
are are there with them at the zoo and working
to get them to be able to learn how to
do these procedures that they have to go through more voluntarily.
That's that's the right direction. Whenever animal can make their
(28:01):
own choices, we know that it's a better world for
them and for us. So thank you for all the
good work you're doing, and thank you for being a
guest on our show. That great.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, well we'll be talking
again soon.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Well, say goodbye everyone for now, and hope to see
you in the next episode very soon.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Thank you for tuning in to The Human Animal Connection Show.
Please visit our website, The Humananimalconnection dot org. There you
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(28:43):
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Speaker 5 (28:49):
Let's Talk Pats every week on demand only on Petlifradio
dot com.
This is Pet Life Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Let's talk pets.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to the Human Animal Connection show, where we believe
we can communicate with all animals. Join us as we
explore the thirty three principles and healing methods of the
Human Animal Connection. As animal lovers, we know that you
share our commitment to making the world a kinder place
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(00:29):
of the Human Animal Connection.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hello everyone, Welcome to the Human Animal Connection.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm really happy to have you here with me. I
have a really fun show for you today. I have
Albert Ferraro and he's this zookeeper in Florida, And if
you've ever wanted to talk to a zookeeper and find
out what really goes on in zoos, this is our chance.
So I'm just really happy because there's so many things
that the animals have taught him and we're going to
hear some of those fun stories.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So welcome Albert. Thank you, b Bete. So what's it
like to be a zookeeper. It's great, it's very it's
very interesting, it's very rewarding. It's a lot of long
days and physical work, but the bonds you make with
(01:15):
those animals are very very special. That's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I mean, I'm just hoping that all zookeepers have these
kinds of bonds and all the animals and zoos. So
tell us, you know, maybe a story about a bond
that you maybe didn't expect it really turned out to
touch your heart in some way.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh, a bond that I didn't expect, let's see, and
maybe you expected them all. I don't no times. So
when I first when I first got started, this was
ten plus years ago, I was living in Louisiana and
I started working for a small z there and I
(01:56):
was taking care of mostly When I first started, I
was taking care of large, large hostock. So I had
a small herd of giraffe, two rhinos, two pygmy hippos,
and a few a few tortoises in my two a
few few giant tortoises in my care that lived in
(02:18):
like a big off exhibit like kind of field. They
just hung out in. Yeah, I had, I had not.
I had never worked with large African hostock before. I
was even shocked that someone gave me a shot at
those animals. But that was probably one of the more
rewarding things is that I had never I mean the
(02:40):
zoo that I grew up at and interned and everything
when I was in college did not have The largest
hostock we had, I think was was American bison. So
when I when someone gave me the keys to the
castle of like four giraffe and these two rhinos, that
was just it blew my mind.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
So I really want to hear about the giraffes. What
was it like to get to know them? Was it
easy to get to know them? Did they trust you
right away?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
What was that like? So they they take a little
they take some warming up. They're really their relatively cautious animals,
and so you have to spend a lot of time
with them and get them to trust you, and then
once you do, they'll start to open up a little bit.
By the time towards the end of my time there,
(03:31):
I could kind of walk up to it was a big,
kind of moted set up, so I could like walk
right out to it and be like face to face
with them. The younger female we had would kind of
come up and let me give her a little kiss
on the nose. Yeah, that was that was pretty neat.
They were a lot of fun. I really grew grew
attached to the male rhino that that we had. I
(03:53):
did not expect to like form a form a bond
with him, but he was. He was a very very
smart personal animal. He loved people. He'd follow me around,
like if I was walking around the yard, like around
the outside of the yard, he'd perk up and hang out.
He would love when we had like like a big
(04:14):
setup in the holding where they could pull their heads
inside so that way you could like kind of do
some medical procedures on them and huh could kind of
stay still in place. And he would love it when
he put his head through that big gate and I
would like grab his horn and like play with him. Oh.
I was almost like give him a big hug. You'd
get real excited and throw his head up. You're like,
(04:36):
oh yeah, but that was not Yeah, that was really
that was really awesome. He was he was really fun.
I loved him, I really. I worked with the other
We had a young one horned rhino there too, and
she was really she was really cute. She was real
really stubborn. She just spent a lot. She she didn't
want to do anything. Oh I remember there was she
(04:59):
was relatively new to the zoo. So she she had
a really big barn and then a really big yard,
and she would a lot of times like to hang
out in that. You know, all the doors could be open,
but she'd just be sitting inside that barn and I
I have that yard set up with like food everywhere,
a big toy to throw around, like a giant mound
(05:20):
of hay, and like fresh branches to eat, and she'd
just be sitting on in there. She's like this is
where I feel like sitting today. And I'm like, oh please,
no one could see you. I remember it was. It
was the zoo was big, spring fast. Okay. They were
kind of like, hey, can you really try to make
sure that she's like out invisible, because you know, she's like,
you know, a new animal. We want to make sure,
you know, it's like four thousand people that I was like,
(05:42):
oh god, oh. I was like begging with this. I
was like, please go outside. I was like, come on,
let's run. Let's you know. I got her to come
up with some food. I was like playing with her
in the bar, running back for get her all excited,
and I would just came running out that like my
friend of mine saw me. She just saw me running
around the side of the bar in and out like
shout it all like playfully. She's like, what were you doing?
(06:02):
I was like, I was trying to get her to
go outside. Yeah. She was like, that was the weirdest
thing I've ever seen. I was like, I she was
up and running and rompeted play and I thought she
followed me and go out for the day. Yeah, And
she finally did. But I was, yeah, well then they
had their own They have their own opinions, right, they want, Yeah,
(06:23):
they're gonna do whatever they want. That's neat. So what
what animal really? Now? In my older age, I I
could care less if anybody goes outside. People called her
all of my worst is I don't know wherever she
wants to be, right? Good? That's good? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
And so what animals surprised you the most?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
What animals surprised me the moment? Oh boy, I what
I worked with with I've worked with with alligators quite
a bit. Those animals I think surprised me the most.
I at my previous job, I did a lot of programs,
(07:03):
So we did educational programs with the venomous reptiles and
non venomous reptiles. We had two big pythons, a reticulated
python and a Burmese python, and we had thirteen alligators
and they lived in a gigantic it's basically like a
(07:24):
big natural silver spraying exhibit. Mangrove growth everywhere was like
it was basically like a little section of Florida ecosystem
fenced in and they put a bunch of alligators in
there and they they lived really high. Now I've got
a cat, Okay, but you're a day so at home, right. Yeah.
(07:45):
City were amazing. We had a big beach in that
exhibit that we could go out either multiple times a
day or once a day and do a big training
demonstration with hybund with with all thirteen of those animals
all at once. And it was the most amazing thing
I have ever done in my career to this day. Wow.
(08:08):
I Yeah, obviously I knew a lot about like I
knew about alligators and things going into that, but I
had no idea how intelligent those animals were. I I
can learn their individual names, like, oh they did. Each
of them knew their names. Each of them knew their names.
They all had individual personnelity. They were their own person
each of them. They would they would all do certain
(08:31):
things and uh, anytime anyone was, you know, creeping up
or trying to do something, you would just call their
name to go, oh it's pretty Uh. It were brilliant
creatures we had. We had one that was the size
of a truck, and he was the gentlest towards people.
(08:53):
He was towards us. He was gentle and friendly. He
was in love with the reptile supervisor like that was
his mom. Like he followed her. He followed her around
the beach if she wasn't paying enough attention to him,
if she was training one of the if she was
training one of the other alligators, one of like his brother,
his big brothers, he'd start to get jealous and pushypping over,
(09:14):
pushed them out of the way and be like, that's
my mom, and that was the funniest thing in the world.
If I was on the beach, she was real scared
because I had a big, loud, booming voice and I
had a microphone. And so he'd get real quiet in
the water because he because the pick because the guy
who he didn't see every day was out there shouting.
Which we had one that was probably one of the
(09:34):
smartest animals I've ever seen in my entire life. In
what way, what what does she do? She picked up
on the slightest of patterns. So we had, just like
all the animal all the other animals at the zoo,
those gators got yearlygue exams, or we did like by yearly,
(09:54):
so every couple of years they got a full physical.
And you know, nobody particularly lights going to the dock,
you know, even you know, we used a lot of
training to make it as voluntary as possible, but of
course it's still did involve an amount of restraining of
them and things. So they would get a little grumpy
(10:14):
for a day or two, but then they'd show right
back up at the beach and the all's forgiven. But
this one alligator figured out that when one of the
reptile keepers wore a certain pair of shorts, that was
exam day. Wow. And I remember this was the funniest thing.
We spent weeks training them in the morning, because their
(10:37):
usual training time was in the afternoon for the program,
for for for the guests, But so we spent weeks
doing morning training sessions like we're gonna we're gonna make it,
We're gonna make sure it's not weird that when we
show up at the beach first thing in the morning,
because they're they're incredibly intuitive. If we showed up at
a weird time of day, hmm, it might come over,
but they'd be really weird about it if the wind
(10:58):
was blowing too much. Those alligators weren't a weird They're
very interesting. They're surprisingly sensitive. That's why I like them
so much, because they were very different than what people
here in Florida portray them as. They're wonderful creatures. But
the so we spent weeks and weeks doing this and
(11:18):
finally the day comes and he's gone on his usual
gator exam clothes, that the oldest, most beat up shirt
that he's got, these short, these big, huge rips, and
the You're like, oh, these are my gator. My gator
exam day closed, and we know, a ha, it's funny.
We got out there. She saw him in those clothes
(11:39):
and just floated way out in the water and just
watched as all the other gators came up. She just
said nope. And eventually some of the others came started
backing off because they figured it out. But we were
kind of beside ourselves were like, what in the world
what we did? Everything perfectly, everything's been the same for
the past three weeks. And then this guy he goes
(12:01):
the pants. Yeah, two weeks took two weeks again, and
he had to come out in his full attire as
if he was giving like a show trumed a pair
of nice pants, the nice polo shirt destroyed for this exam.
But that was what finally, and even then she was
(12:24):
still mildly suspicious. That was it was incredible. It was
still resting, not at all. Now she would have no pants.
She's that same fancy war last week when Scar had
his his exam, Uh is that wild? It was? Now,
how do you do an exam of an alligator? Oh,
it's pretty long. So ours were ours were all we're
(12:47):
all target trained, so they would we would walk them
up into walk them all the way of off the
beach and we would actually like, you've got to kind
of you know, have a rope on them. Uh, but
you can train them to walk into that rope, so
you could walk it and then sync it down and
then from there you do have to if you if
(13:09):
you if you've ever seen people at a place like
you do kind of have to jump onto them. So
it's a very extensive process. It takes a lot of planning.
It's takes multiple people holding ropes on one end or
on each end. Uh, And then you can sedate them,
do their exam, wake them back up, and let them
(13:30):
go back in the water.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Okay, so it's but when you jump on them, they're
not sedated though, Right now, how do you how.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Do you make sure that you're not lunch? So you
got your rope and then from there you can kind
of put a gentle little rope and a pole on
their jaw and that and that will hold their jaw
closed because they it's it's difficult, like you can hold
it like they could bite down hard, but they don't
open as strong. So you can use a rope to
(14:00):
hold down. And once they're that's in place, you're going
from the back and then on top. So that way
it's still obviously dangerous, but you're not coming from the
sides where you turn and get.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Now, is this a veterinarian that's doing the jumping on
the back or a zoo person. It's it's it's care staff.
So you will have gone through a great deal of
training to be able to do that, do it properly, efficiently,
safely right and ensure everyone from every person to the
alligator stay safe.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
It's a really cool process. It goes. It's once you've
got it, like when you've got people who are like
well trained to do it and working all in unison.
It's it's very quick efficient. We're we were able to
get get those procedures done very quickly with minimal stress
for the gators. We actually when I left there, we
(14:57):
were start We were doing a lot of work to
try and get more of those the exam behaviors to
be voluntary. So we had successfully drawn blood from an
alligator's tail while he was awake, just through training alone. Yes,
that was really neat. Uh. We were working on voluntary
(15:21):
radiographs for them. Several of those gators were already scale trained.
We could bring a scale board out onto the beach
and walk them onto it, so we didn't have to
do an exam to get their weight. We just didn't
do it super often because they didn't fluctuate weight very much.
You could look at them and see how big they were, like, oh, yeah,
they they're they're very healthy. Yeah. They were the kind
(15:43):
of things that you could teach them. They they were
If you want to talk about things that surprised you,
those animals were impressive. Wow from a from a cognitive standpoint,
I mean there's they were. They had, they had personalities,
they had. It was it was great. It was so
much fun. They were fun.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
So you could tell by looking at them who was
who and by their old yeah, by their yeah behavior
that great, that's great.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah. They all looked different enough. It took time to
figure it out, but they all looked different. We had
one that that was mischievous that liked to try and
steal the food bucket mm hmm, keep up to eat
no one was watching, uh huh and try to steal
the big training training food bucket. Yeah. And then one
time she grabbed it, uh huh and uh we whipped
(16:29):
around and then we were like ugly and then she
like shot threw it up in the air like in
her mouth. It ran it in the water like a dog.
That it was like a dog sneak it up doing
something they shouldn't and then SUSI sounded. She grabbed the
bucket and ran. It was funny and we like three
days to fish the bucket out of the bay because
it was so every's gone and at tire ten pounds
(16:50):
worth of fish chicken. Oh boy, oh boy, it was
the funniest thing in the world. Well, that's very funny.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I love that you were working towards giving them choice
so that they can choose to do things and reduce
the fear, reduce the stress, and increase the safety I
would imagine.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
So, oh definitely, that's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
When we come back, I want I love the story
about them having, you know, that sense that they have intuition,
the way that they know things that you could know
how they know.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
So we're going to take a short break.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
When we come back, we'll be right back with Albert Carraro,
zookeeper from Florida.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
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(17:50):
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Speaker 1 (18:01):
Hey friends, if you like what you're hearing and want
to learn more, check out doctor Joseph's book The Human
Animal Connection, Deepening Relationships with Animals and ourselves, or visit
the website The Humananimalconnection dot org to book an online consultation.
Thank you for loving animals. Now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
Let's talk pets on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Welcome back to The Human Animal Connection. And we were.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Just talking on the break about a wonderful story of
you working with a certain relative of the apes of
Si meng Is called and tell us about your experiments
when you brought them a little handheld mirror from the
Dollar store. So I wanted to broad in there, En Richmond,
So I went to the dollar store just bought a
(19:00):
bunch of random things, mostly something like perfumes and things
that I could use for all the animals.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
But I picked up a small handheld mirror. Mirrors are
great for a lot of animals, and uh, for certain
you know, for certain animals, they don't know it it's them,
it's someone else, so it can that's interesting for them.
I remember this is a tangent to that story. But uh,
we had a a ringtail lemur at one facility I
(19:27):
worked at. UH He lived in a small group of lemurs,
but whenever we put in put a mirror out for them,
he would do their full What's what's known to in
ringtail lemurs is stink fighting, where they use sent glands
on their wrists to scent their tail and then flick
it at their at the rival mail to try and
(19:47):
win the affection of the females. So every time we
brought a mirror out there, we would call him. We
would call it Nick's arch rival because he would go
into that full behavior of fighting the other male even
though the male was him, which is great for them
to go through that full courtship process of winning over
the female even though they already won over his girlfriend
(20:09):
who lived on the island with them. But it was
just it was hysterical to watch because we would joke like, oh,
this guy's got the same moves as I do. But
so back to the main story. I brought this little
handheld mirror up to I work with a family group
of signings. So it was mom, Dad, their older offspring
who was still living with them, usually in lesser apes
(20:34):
that they live with their parents until about six years
old before they go off on their own, and they
had another baby with them. So they so I hold
up this little mirror to them, and they're all kind
of staring at it and like kind of furrowing almost.
They're like, what is that? Like, is that you know
another family group or something. And then they reached out
touched it, and then they tried I remember watching them,
(20:55):
they tried to touch the sides of it, as if
they were trying to touch the other simon shoulders, like,
and then they realized there were no there was nothing there,
There was no other parts of them, and they were
kind of staring for a minute, and I remember them
very gently reaching out. Now they have very human like hands.
I mean their hands are almost about the same as ours,
(21:17):
their fingers are just a lot longer. They just reach
out with their hands. They grab the mirror just ever
so gently and turn it around to see that there's
nothing on the back. And I was one of the
most interesting things because they, you know, I watched them
in real time learn and understand what a mirror was
and understand what their own reflection was. It was one
(21:39):
of the cool things. It was like, oh yeah, because
it's it's a concept.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Well on that alone, I's not exactly exactly. Yeah, Like
we take it for granted that we can look at
a part of ourself in the mirror and know that
the rest of us is there, and just to watch
them kind of come to the whole conclusion of what
this little oh pieces, that's that's really fun to do.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah. Yeah, you see a lot of the higher primates.
You can really see that kind of self awareness in there.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I've I've seen spider monkeys who love mirrors just because
they love looking at themselves, or they're fascinated that they
can look at themselves, like I'll send there stay. They'll
just hang from somewhere and stare and like, oh that's great,
that's great. Hysterical. Yeah. So do you have a favorite
species in the zoo?
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I I fell in love with uh with taper Uh
taper are amazing. I've worked with four of them now, Actually, no,
it's what's a taper? Uh? Taper are a there a
large kind of the best way to describe them is
(22:49):
an archaic hoofed animal. So they're they're what hoofed animals
would have looked like millions of years ago. Uh. That
that may be a little yeah, probably. So they have
these big like fleshy feet with a big huge like
you know, fleshy pad, but each toe high bud, each
toe has a hoof on it. Mm hmm, so there,
(23:12):
so it's there kind of. They look a lot like
I tell people they look like the animals in in
ice age because they're they have that prehensile snout that
and they can use to reach out and grab things
or snorkel up for the water. They're really cool animals.
They're in that odd toad, odd toed ungulate family, so horses, donkeys, zebra, rhino,
(23:40):
animals like that. But they kind of are in their
own like little offshoot, like they're mostly related to themselves
because they're a very they're a very living, fossil type
type of species. Wow. So there's three in the New
World here. There's mountain tapers, lowland tapers, and bird's tapers
(24:01):
all in Central and South America. And then there's the
big like if you've ever seen the like half black,
half white, the Malayan tapers, those are the ones you
usually see when people talk about them. They're really big.
Those live in Southeast Asia. They are really cool animals.
I've worked with several of them now over the years.
(24:23):
I worked with them at my first zoo, a breeding
pair and one of their offspring, and then when I
came to where I work now, the female that we
have was the offspring from that first zoo. The next offspring,
like right after I left. I remember when I was
(24:43):
leaving and going to my next zoo, they said, oh,
we're about to put the tapers together again to breed.
Well I found out later I said, oh, that was you. Sorry.
I developed a very close relationship with her, and I've
come because I was like, I knew your parents and
your older sister, what are their personalities like kind of
like what you probably like what a wild horse would
(25:04):
be like. They can be a little on the flighty side,
but when they're younger, obviously, but you know, the ones
that I've worked with have spent their lives around people,
and so they're very personable. I knew an elderly taper
who was one of the oldest in North America. She
(25:25):
was had a very unique personality. She was she was
she was a kind of kind of like jokingly like
a grumpy old lady. MW. She likes she she liked people,
but she didn't like seek out affection from us. If
we came up, you know, wanted to love her because
we did love her. She would be like, okay, fine,
(25:47):
you know for me to eat, though you got any
jep like apple jeeps for me. But other than that,
she was like, all right, I leave me alone. I'm
gonna go I'm gonna go sleep in the in the
yard with the little cappy bears or so. But uh,
the I've worked with a female that was hand raised,
that loves people, that seeks out people, that thought that
she loves us. And I worked with a male who
(26:10):
was one of one of the best animals who I
ever worked with. He was he he was like normally
parent reared and everything, but he loved people like He
was one of the best animals to train that I
ever trained. I trained so many different behaviors with him.
He could by the time he went to his where
(26:30):
he lives now. He went to Zoom in Texas. I
trained him to be able to draw blood voluntarily. He
took all his vaccinations voluntarily. He would step up onto
a hoof block for us to either work on his
hooves or take X rays of his hooves. Even when
(26:51):
or we could just do it while he was laying down.
We could work on it was if they needed it.
He did that. He open his mouth on cues. We
could look at his teeth. He was great. He was
he was I loved him. It is right, he was fine.
We we could with those with those tapers do practically
a full exam without with them being awake.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
That's great, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. Well, when you go
in in the morning, who's the one you most want
to see?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Got taper? Tamper? Okay, morning, good morning?
Speaker 5 (27:25):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (27:26):
And do they They respond to your voice, your personality
or energy. They know they know you from the other
zoo keepers or whatever. They they definitely have a personal relationship. Well,
that's wait, everyone's having it having having trouble with with her.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
They call me, I need hell. She doesn't want to
do like I'll come, don't correlation. That's sweet, It's very sweet. Well,
I'm so glad that people like you who love animals
are are there with them at the zoo and working
to get them to be able to learn how to
do these procedures that they have to go through more voluntarily.
That's that's the right direction. Whenever animal can make their
(28:01):
own choices, we know that it's a better world for
them and for us. So thank you for all the
good work you're doing, and thank you for being a
guest on our show. That great.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, well we'll be talking
again soon.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Well, say goodbye everyone for now, and hope to see
you in the next episode very soon.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Thank you for tuning in to The Human Animal Connection Show.
Please visit our website, The Humananimalconnection dot org. There you
can sign up for our free email newsletter, book a consultation,
or check out our blogs and resources. Our best selling book,
The Human Animal Connection is available on Amazon, and your
(28:43):
donation of any amount keeps our nonprofit organization providing life
changing services.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Let's Talk Pats every week on demand only on Petlifradio
dot com.
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