Kaela Wierenga

Honors Portfolio

Development of Research

Major: Zoology

My Internship at The Great Plains Zoo

Four hundred hours in ten weeks may seem like a lot of time, but it really did not feel like

it. In my final days of the internship, I could not believe it was August, I could have sworn June

had just started and everyone was a few months off. After this internship, I can say this is

something I can truly see myself doing in the future. This internship solidified the idea that

animals are my future. My experiences not only made me confident in my career but helped me

learn about more animals and ways to work with them.

In the summers of 2019 and 2020, I volunteered at the Great Plains Zoo as a Junior

Zookeeper. In summer 2019, I worked to clean the farm area with the goats, sheep, pigs,

chickens, and alpacas. In summer 2020, I worked to clean the education animal areas. Before I

started volunteering at the zoo, I had only held cats, dogs, toads, and random bugs. Interacting

and holding new animals frightened me as I did not know how they were going to act once I put

my hand in there. I still act scared around new animals at first, but that is only because I do not

know their personalities. The main thing I continue to learn is how to build a relationship with

the animal and interpret their actions and associate emotions.

When I moved into the internship, I started to work with larger and less handled animals.

As an intern, I got to start working with animals that only keepers interact with closely. This
made building that relationship and earning trust harder. I had less time to work with them,

everyone interacted differently with each animal, and the animals gave different reactions in

return. I was essentially starting a relationship from scratch, interacting with the animals in my

own way. Even animals of the same species acted differently and had their own unique

personalities from others. This learning curve got easier as I went through the internship, but it is

something I will face as I work with new animals.

When I started in the Bird/Herp/Primate group, I learned there was not just one routine,

there were three. I started to figure out I was going to be doing a lot of new things I have never

done before, so I challenged myself to do something new every day. This aligns with one of my

leadership strengths of being an achiever. I wanted to accomplish my daily tasks, but to do

something new every day was a different achievement. I am proud to say I did something new

every day for the fifty days I was there. Some of the new things I did were maybe not glamorous

like viewing a prolapsed toad or cleaning up a kangaroo’s poop, but I did get to do once in a

lifetime thing such as feed a red panda or pet a penguin. A routine can get repetitive, so I enjoyed

my little daily challenge of something new.

An amazing thing about certain animals is their desire to learn. In the education area, we

had a Scarlet Macaw named Shooter. I had never worked with him but knew him from helping in

the education department. As I began to work with him more, we became more comfortable with

each other and started to develop our own personal interactions. Most of the other keepers had to

do the command to make him do peak-a-boo, but I could be the only one in the room and he

would do it by himself. I know going into animal care that I will do daily care needs, but new

interactions with the animal and learning with them is also a part of their daily care.
 In our tropical bird’s area, we had a Eclectus Parrot named Emerald. I’m going to be

honest; he is a difficult bird. He would snap at you when you walked by his enclosure and was

generally not trusting towards the keepers. Eventually I started to build a relationship with

another bird in the area, a Scarlet Macaw named Corky, and started to hand feed him. I

eventually began to hand feed another bird there, a Rainbow Lorikeet named Chester, and felt

bad I was not hand feeding Emerald. As I began to hand feed them, Emerald got curious and

eventually allowed me to hand feed him. I learned how to work with animals that do not like

humans instantly and take time to earn their trust.

Part of the herp routine contained our red pandas. Wicket, our oldest red panda, has trust

issues. At the start of the summer, he would not take any food from me; by the end, I could hand

feed him everything. When new interns went to feed him, he was slow at first, but eventually ate

everything from them too. I felt that my interactions with him made him more comfortable with

strangers and initial interactions. Patience and persistence are good virtues to have, and, in this

case, they paid off. This is something I must keep learning and working on as this will always be

a part of working with animals no matter the species or location.

This internship was so much fun. I loved the animals and people I worked with and

gained a lot of new experiences, but the best thing I gained was my mental solidification of my

career choice. I knew all the volunteering I have done in this field truly made me happy and will

better my future experiences with animals. Animals make me happy, and my career path will too.

As I continue into my future internships and eventually my career, I want to take what I have

learned from working with animals here and everywhere else to grow my knowledge on animals

and provide better care.

 References

Full (longer) Version of this Essay with Specific Animal Examples:

file:///C:/Users/aleak/OneDrive/Documents/College/Second%20Year%20(2021-

2022)/Spring%202022%20Semester/Honors%20375/Reflections/Research%20and%20Scholarly

%20Activity/Kaela%20Wierenga%20Internship%20Research%20Development%20Reflection%

20(Full%20Version).pdf

Here is a document of photos from my internship at the Great Plains Zoo:

file:///C:/Users/aleak/OneDrive/Documents/College/Second%20Year%20(2021-

2022)/Spring%202022%20Semester/Honors%20375/Reflections/Research%20and%20Scholarly

%20Activity/Great%20Plains%20Zoo%20Internship%20Photos.pdf