Internship 2017
I had the pleasure of interning at the Living Coast Discovery Center during a part of my junior year. The LCDC is a facility that cares for wild animals that are mainly native to our San Diego region. In this internship I was able to perform hands on animal care work, and learned just what it takes to keep an amazing educational establishment up and running.
Photo essay
I had the amazing opportunity to intern at the Living Coast Discovery Center for 4 weeks during the entire month of May.
This was a picture I took on my first day. I was very nervous because they had so many animals that I had never worked with before. I was assigned to the aquarium department so I knew I would be working with fish, which I thought I was comfortable with, until I saw just how many they actually had.
When I got there, one of my very first tasks was preparing food for all of the marine specimen on exhibit. We chopped capelin, shrimp, squid, and Mackerel for about an hour every morning. Then we spent a major part of the rest of the day feeding all the food out to the animals.
Along with the responsibility of all of the aquarium animals, we were also responsible for the tortoises. One of my favorite tasks was making their food and giving no them their daily bath.
Some of our animals required extra special attention, so we would pole feed some of our larger animals and track everything they ate that day to make sure that they were getting the correct nutrients they needed to stay healthy.
Stingrays
Another fun job was getting to feed the baby stingrays. Some of them were very shy but many of them would come and greet you at the surface for food.
Giant Pacific Octopus
One of the most memorable encounters I had was with Penelope the Giant Pacifc Octopus. I was allowed to interact with her tentacles as one of my mentors explained a little more about these kinds of octopus.
When we were overstaffed, sometimes our mentor would take us crabbing (to collect crabs.) She taught us how to identify their genders and only allowed us to bring back males.
One of the greatest opportunities I had was to feed Sapphire, the Loggerhead sea turtle. Sapphire was target trained so feeding her was a little more challenging, but with practice I got the hang of it pretty quickly.
Internship Project
During internship I worked on a project, which was giving a speech to the public to inform them about some of the sharks and rays we had in the exhibit. This required me to prepare days in advance, reviewing all the information I had and compiling it into one big speech. I practiced the speech several times before doing it in public and I'm happy to say it was a big success.
Mentor interview
This interview took place in the compost garden located at the Living Coast Discovery Center on May 23rd in the afternoon. The Living Coast is an environmental education center, with marine animals, reptiles and birds. I interviewed my mentor, Lexi R. who is involved as a volunteer in the animal care department. We went outside, the sun was bright, and the air was cold and breezy. As we sat down on a green bench, a class of first graders passed by screaming while pointing at a small hairy caterpillar that was crawling through the middle of the garden. In this interview I conducted with my mentor, she describes what her journey has been like in the animal care field and key moments in her life.
Allie Flores (AF): The first question is, what was your favorite childhood memory?
Lexi (LR): Oh my! Well we kind of talked about this yesterday. One of my favorite things was just hanging out with my neighbors and just riding bikes and like I talked about yesterday, building forts and things like that. I always played a lot of sports. I had a lot of fun with soccer and basketball and things like that. Just doing active things I would say.
(AF): What did you want to be when you grew up?
(LR): First thing I wanted to be was a paleontologist (laugh) and then I wanted to be a veterinarian. Then I started to study psychology, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to study people or animals and I figured, well psychology would kind of give me the ability to work with both. So it was always something to do with animals. Now i’m here. (laugh)
(AF): What college did you go to?
(LR): I’m still studying, I used to go to Cal State Fullerton and then I moved South, down here to San Diego, because I married my high school sweetheart. I started going conjunctively to Mesa college and Fullerton online, so I have about 15 more units to go.
(AF): What did you major in or what will you major in?
(LR): Psychology
(AF): Do you see yourself working here permanently here [The Living Coast Discovery Center?] Why, explain?
(LR): I do actually. I have worked at the Safari Park [San Diego Zoo Safari Park.] I have interned at the California Wolf Center. My very first job in high school was at Petsmart, and I did a couple of different jobs there, and I’ve learned through all of that, that I really like small facilities, like this place here [LCDC] because there is a lot of flexibility. [There is a lot of flexibility] when it comes to doing what I want to do, like being very hands on and getting to work with interns, getting to work with a bunch of different species as opposed to being limited to one or two species, or terrestrial versus aquatic. I really do enjoy this place [LCDC,] so I could really see myself staying here and possibly promoting, working my way up a little higher.
(AF): What would be your dream job?
(LR:) I think that I’m doing my dream job. I always wanted to be an animal keeper and sometimes people will hear that and think ‘oh so are you trying to be a vet?’ they automatically think you want to be a vet and I’m like, no I have no desire to be a vet, to do medical, or veterinary stuff. As a kid maybe, but as an adult, no. So to me this is my dream job, working with animals, but maybe as I get older, doing maybe a more administrative version of this, like what Beth does (handles more business interactions.)
(AF): What was the hardest part, leading up to your career? Or a struggle that you had to overcome?
(LR): Let’s see, probably making the transfer down to San Diego from Orange County, which is just an hour and a half North. Everybody thinks, in San Diego you are going to be set up with an animal job, if you wanna be working with animals that there is a place for you. But they also don’t realize that it’s super competitive, you have Seaworld, San Diego Zoo, Safari Park, Birch Aquarium all these really professional places here, but it’s very competitive, very difficult to get your foot in the door. So that is why I learned, like when I first worked at the Safari Park, I just got into education, and that helped me to get my foot into the door, to get their name on my resume, so I looked serious about what I wanted to do. So I think that is a struggle, to just get your foot in the door in this field. It is very very competitive. You’ve got people from all over the world that come to this area to try to find jobs. I know it’s very hard at Seaworld as well, I never worked there, but I think by volunteering your time, is really how you get your experience and how you get your foot in the door. You need to be a well rounded not just only scholastic, not just only experience, you’ve got to be well rounded.
(AF): What have been some of your favorite experiences in this career?
(LR): My favorite experiences are probably, the rewards of seeing your work pay off in some of the things you’ve gotten to do here like making popsicles and things like that for the animals. It’s really wonderful when you do something and you see an immediate response like last week I added that lamp to the iguana and he all of a sudden perked up and started basking. It’s those immediate things because in this field, even children grow up and are able to one day feed themselves and tell you their illness and animals can’t, so we really have to use our best judgment skills, observations and figure out what these issues are with animals or what they need.
(AF): What are your long term goals?
(LR): Would likely just be to move up in the animal care field. I really do like the hands on husbandry aspect where I am literally doing physical things and if I see an animal needs this done I change it and I am able to do that right away, but overtime, like I said, I want to progress up that ladder. So eventually a manager position or a lead position, or a curator position, weather that requires me to outgrow this place, then maybe it does. But I would just say move up that animal care ladder.
(AF): OK last question, is there any advice you would give me as someone who is also pursuing a career in animal care?
(LR): I would say to continue to volunteer or look for volunteer opportunities. Get yourself well rounded in different things, which is what we are really able to do here at a small center like this. It’s hard to get into the zoo for internships, but I can always recommend to you places like the California Wolf Center, there’s tons of places even out of state that would give you great experience. Where you can work and you don’t have to pay rent you just live at the center and you’re gaining experience. A lot of animal internships are unpaid, which is just the way the field goes but, just studying up and getting your feet into where ever you can, getting as much knowledge and experience as possible. Some fields are more geared toward scholastics. [In] this field you can study an animal forever but at some point you’ve got to work to physically work to understand. You’ve got to do the hands on part as well. You’ve got to be well rounded.
Allie Flores (AF): The first question is, what was your favorite childhood memory?
Lexi (LR): Oh my! Well we kind of talked about this yesterday. One of my favorite things was just hanging out with my neighbors and just riding bikes and like I talked about yesterday, building forts and things like that. I always played a lot of sports. I had a lot of fun with soccer and basketball and things like that. Just doing active things I would say.
(AF): What did you want to be when you grew up?
(LR): First thing I wanted to be was a paleontologist (laugh) and then I wanted to be a veterinarian. Then I started to study psychology, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to study people or animals and I figured, well psychology would kind of give me the ability to work with both. So it was always something to do with animals. Now i’m here. (laugh)
(AF): What college did you go to?
(LR): I’m still studying, I used to go to Cal State Fullerton and then I moved South, down here to San Diego, because I married my high school sweetheart. I started going conjunctively to Mesa college and Fullerton online, so I have about 15 more units to go.
(AF): What did you major in or what will you major in?
(LR): Psychology
(AF): Do you see yourself working here permanently here [The Living Coast Discovery Center?] Why, explain?
(LR): I do actually. I have worked at the Safari Park [San Diego Zoo Safari Park.] I have interned at the California Wolf Center. My very first job in high school was at Petsmart, and I did a couple of different jobs there, and I’ve learned through all of that, that I really like small facilities, like this place here [LCDC] because there is a lot of flexibility. [There is a lot of flexibility] when it comes to doing what I want to do, like being very hands on and getting to work with interns, getting to work with a bunch of different species as opposed to being limited to one or two species, or terrestrial versus aquatic. I really do enjoy this place [LCDC,] so I could really see myself staying here and possibly promoting, working my way up a little higher.
(AF): What would be your dream job?
(LR:) I think that I’m doing my dream job. I always wanted to be an animal keeper and sometimes people will hear that and think ‘oh so are you trying to be a vet?’ they automatically think you want to be a vet and I’m like, no I have no desire to be a vet, to do medical, or veterinary stuff. As a kid maybe, but as an adult, no. So to me this is my dream job, working with animals, but maybe as I get older, doing maybe a more administrative version of this, like what Beth does (handles more business interactions.)
(AF): What was the hardest part, leading up to your career? Or a struggle that you had to overcome?
(LR): Let’s see, probably making the transfer down to San Diego from Orange County, which is just an hour and a half North. Everybody thinks, in San Diego you are going to be set up with an animal job, if you wanna be working with animals that there is a place for you. But they also don’t realize that it’s super competitive, you have Seaworld, San Diego Zoo, Safari Park, Birch Aquarium all these really professional places here, but it’s very competitive, very difficult to get your foot in the door. So that is why I learned, like when I first worked at the Safari Park, I just got into education, and that helped me to get my foot into the door, to get their name on my resume, so I looked serious about what I wanted to do. So I think that is a struggle, to just get your foot in the door in this field. It is very very competitive. You’ve got people from all over the world that come to this area to try to find jobs. I know it’s very hard at Seaworld as well, I never worked there, but I think by volunteering your time, is really how you get your experience and how you get your foot in the door. You need to be a well rounded not just only scholastic, not just only experience, you’ve got to be well rounded.
(AF): What have been some of your favorite experiences in this career?
(LR): My favorite experiences are probably, the rewards of seeing your work pay off in some of the things you’ve gotten to do here like making popsicles and things like that for the animals. It’s really wonderful when you do something and you see an immediate response like last week I added that lamp to the iguana and he all of a sudden perked up and started basking. It’s those immediate things because in this field, even children grow up and are able to one day feed themselves and tell you their illness and animals can’t, so we really have to use our best judgment skills, observations and figure out what these issues are with animals or what they need.
(AF): What are your long term goals?
(LR): Would likely just be to move up in the animal care field. I really do like the hands on husbandry aspect where I am literally doing physical things and if I see an animal needs this done I change it and I am able to do that right away, but overtime, like I said, I want to progress up that ladder. So eventually a manager position or a lead position, or a curator position, weather that requires me to outgrow this place, then maybe it does. But I would just say move up that animal care ladder.
(AF): OK last question, is there any advice you would give me as someone who is also pursuing a career in animal care?
(LR): I would say to continue to volunteer or look for volunteer opportunities. Get yourself well rounded in different things, which is what we are really able to do here at a small center like this. It’s hard to get into the zoo for internships, but I can always recommend to you places like the California Wolf Center, there’s tons of places even out of state that would give you great experience. Where you can work and you don’t have to pay rent you just live at the center and you’re gaining experience. A lot of animal internships are unpaid, which is just the way the field goes but, just studying up and getting your feet into where ever you can, getting as much knowledge and experience as possible. Some fields are more geared toward scholastics. [In] this field you can study an animal forever but at some point you’ve got to work to physically work to understand. You’ve got to do the hands on part as well. You’ve got to be well rounded.