REEL SOUTH

Hey, I'm Darius Rucker, coming up on Reel South. I had always thought, oh wouldn't it be great to have a pet cougar? And then as you get older you're like, yeah, that's really not such a good idea. But I can take care of them. -

Darius

Behind the glass at the Memphis Zoo. Nobody really understands the kind of bond you form to the animals. I can't imagine getting up in the morning and not having this to come to. You can see that 18-inch long tongue, get it out there girl. -

Darius

From dragons to lions, witness a zookeepers life of unconditional love. Yes, I do clean up poo for a living. But then I get to do this, you know, I get to have baby penguins that think I'm mom. -

Darius

Come, "See the Keepers," on Reel South. -

Female Narrator

Support for this program is provided by South Arts, sponsors of the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

bluesy guitar rock

-

Sarah

It's amazing how often you put your hand in a display, and you hear little kids go, "It's a hand, it's a hand!" -

Woman

What is she doing? Whoa! - Hold on! -

Child

Daddy, I don't, -

Sarah

But if we are in an empty display cleaning glass or hosing, we are the most amazing thing in this building. Go look at the animals, go read about the animals. My butt pressed up against the glass, is not the most important thing in this building. I don't like the - Mommy?

upbeat music

-

Lauren

You're there for the animals, and that's the part you like. Most of us get into the field because, Well, you know, I don't like people. I'll be a zookeeper. I don't have to work with people! Which is really not true.

upbeat music

Y'all having fun?

upbeat music

The public has mixed feelings about what we do. It's either we're animal-hugger, bunny-huggers, or we're manure shovelers. Take your pick. -

Child

They wrap it up in a pear? -

Woman

She had two mommies, see, 'cause

drowned out by music

Over here. What are you doing?

tiger growling

Okay.

tiger growling

I will see you tiger, I've got to go.

tiger growling

I do! I usually just make a circuit. Then that way I can say I was out here. What do you see? Maya's inside all ready. Are you going to come in good tonight? Little pandas, what are you doing? Aren't you cute? Little pandas! -

Radio

10-4. Depends on their mood. Some of them that didn't come over when we walked through will come over and be sweet, and others that came over sometimes won't. It depends on their mood. But they all know where I'm at.

upbeat music

Cheetahs don't like me, though.

upbeat music

Now, the easiest way to tell that this guy is not a venomous snake is to look at the body shape. If you notice, it's gonna be kind of a bread loaf shape to the body. That tells you that this guy's arboreal. You see a snake in a tree, it's not gonna dive out of that tree and try to bite you. It's going to stay where it is and try to stay away from you. I'm getting out the speckled king snake, who's a little opaque right now. He's managed to pop his lid off before and started walking out while we were waiting to start the show. Snakes are fun escape artists. So at this point, you guys are probably wondering, where are the venomous snakes? After all, this is the venomous snake show, right? So we're getting to that now. Well their venom is not actually used to defend themselves, primarily. The main reason they have it is to catch their food. You are gonna to step back just a little. Thank you. So they all get put into buckets, which makes for easy transport.

gentle music

This is the copperhead, here. None of our venomous animals, except for one of the lizards, has common names. Everything's species names. -

Lauren

If you're walking in the woods and you hear that sound, what I want you to do is I want you to stomp, figure out where the snake is, and then walk in the opposite direction. If you guys have any questions at all, Sarah and I will be up here, we'll be happy to answer them. Otherwise you guys have a great rest of your visit at the zoo.

audience clapping

I see You in the morning When the sun comes up I see You in the heavens And in the stars above Let Your love pour down Like a summer rain Let Your joy surround like an ocean wave All the earth abounds in Your glory, Lord Let Your purity shine like the silver moon Let your mercy arrive the flowers bloom All the earth abounds in Your glory, Lord. The baby penguins, for some reason, only seem to have gotten used to me, and so everybody else is an outsider and they might snap at you, just letting you know. I've been bit by pretty much every penguin we have. If you'll just close these doors behind you, 'cause we're trying to keep it dark in here for the kiwi that's nocturnal. Hi, chicky chicks! What's up, kiddos? Oh, are you hot and sleepy? Hello, Chunky Monkey! Hello, Chunky Monkey! What are you doing, huh? I take care of these guys every day, just like I do the adults. I come in first thing in the morning and feed them, clean out their brooder, is what we call this box that they live in, and then feed them around noonish, and also at closing time, they get fed. Hi Squishy! Hello! The most pitiful noise in the world.

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These guys get a little warm at this stage 'cause he's starting to lose the down, and he's got the waterproof feathers underneath. I tell everybody it's like having a down jacket on over top of a sweater. We give them temporary names until we find out whether they're boys or girls, so this is Chunky Monkey, and this is Squishy.

upbeat music

Morning, guys. Everybody nice and warm? Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Morning, Angela Kate. All right, we have everybody in. It's cold enough outside that they'd rather be in here. Have to go up and check on everybody, get ready to feed, and we'll check on Kofi. Tends to be a little bit nervous and high strung, but this is pretty good for him. I'll just see him get started on his grain, then we'll grain everybody else down here. I can't imagine getting up in the morning and not having this to come to. This is the fifth time I keep gravitating back to giraffes. They're the ones that I love the most. Here you go. Don't stick your nose in it. You make a mess when you do that, girl.

upbeat music

-

Jason

Really? There's nothin' in there, dude. There's nothin' in there.

gentle music

-

Carolyn

Richard has been here, he retired after 25 years. His last stint, he had been here before as an educator. He is just so knowledgeable for anything animal wise. Just an expert on giraffes. I learned a lot from him. I do miss him. I still miss him, but he's happy in his retirement. How's it goin'? You have to love animals, and it helps to be willing to work by yourself, to love to work by yourself. I think we all do. We're all kind of hermits. It's nice to- I used to tell people that almost every zookeeper I knew, as a child, had great two loves in life. Books and animals. We were reclusive. I never left my room! There are a lot of locks. All right. I am just picking up crap and checking for down, you know, there wasn't anything last night, but if there had been a storm, you know, are there any downed trees? Is the hot wire all standing? Are there branches hanging on it? I'm just checking the lot in the morning. Morning! Good morning, lions. Tabos, what are you doing? What are you doing? Look what I brought! Are you a sweetheart? My little girl. I've been working with her since she was, like, this big, as soon as she was weaned from the hospital, and they sent her down here.

cat squeaks

Is that right? Well, tell me about it. She's, like, eight now. Is that right? Wow. You know, I know Seattle, I've worked with her for years. You know, I'd always thought, wouldn't it be great to have a pet cougar? Then as you get older, you're like, yeah, that's really not such a good idea, but I can take care of them. Up north, I worked in a factory, and I made pretty good money. I still don't make what I made, after ten years at this zoo and two years at another zoo, I still don't make what I made in that factory but at least I don't hate coming to work. I mean, I really was unhappy. Jackpot! It's like an Easter egg hunt every morning. I lived for my paychecks. You know, I would go to work for what I'm gonna do with my money when I get it on Friday. Obviously I can't do that now, but it's okay, 'cause I don't need motivation to go to work. You know, you've got to spend eight hours a day, every day during your healthy years of life. You know what do you want to do?

gentle music

Kofi was born here and he stayed here. Once they get the age where they start showing sexual interests, Daddy says, You're out of here, boy. Well, he had no place to go.

upbeat music

-

Richard

No situation in a zoo is ideal. We're walking a tightrope between necessity and perfection, and Kofi's a classic example who kind of fell on the wrong side. We are trying to ship him out. He has not exactly been cooperative. We've been working on him for two years. You show him an open door in a trailer, and it's like, as far as he's concerned, it's the pit of hell. He is not going out that door. He is not getting in that trailer. That's been our problem. He needs to get out of here. This is not good for him being in. We want him out where he can move around. How she deals with it on a daily basis is still beyond me. It got to the point where it was breaking my heart to see him locked away that much. He shouldn't be. Kofi's a crazy giraffe. I've never met a giraffe like him in my life. He's afraid of everything. -

Jason

All right, Kofi. Move over, bud. I know, there's scary people up there. Move over, Kofi. It's all right, bud. I know, scary people. -

Carolyn

Come on, Kofi, get over. You know how this works. -

Jason

Move over, bud. C'mon. - That's a boy. -

Carolyn

There we go. -

Jason

All right, that's a boy.

gentle music

Watch yourself. Whoa, that was fast, Fred! What happened? I slid. You grabbed it and you spun away! I about fell over. -

Sara

Like a spider. I'm different than the other keepers, in that, as a coworker pointed out to me some days ago, and she's kind of right, I mean, I did say this in the past. For her, it's a career. For me, it's a job. Because I'm married and I don't have to survive on this pay, which would be really hard. If you're married and your spouse has a good income, you can afford to take any job you want. I think that's kind of why there's a lot more women doing it now than there were in the old days. It was mostly men. The competition has gotten so fierce, it's really hard to get a job as a zookeeper. You wouldn't think, looking at some of us. It was like we just stumbled in off the street. It really is kind of difficult, and there's so much competition, they don't have to pay a lot, because they can get somebody. She's feeding the hippos' watermelons. This is a lot of

speaking faintly

-

Fred

But how much hippo, Dena's eating the hippos' watermelons. -

Sarah

Dena's eatin' watermelon. Dena's eating the hippos' watermelon. Get she's eatin' watermelon.

laughing

-

Fred

She hid behind Brenda. -

Sara

She is stealing from the hippos. -

Fred

Oh my God. -

Sara

Those poor, starving creatures. It's a taste test! Don't film this. I've been here 29 years. I've only been with the Society for a year, so I just swapped over from City to Society. I've been a year. In February, it was a year. We just retire from the city, and start getting your pension and, you know, all that benefits that you get, and then you just start working for the Society within a few days. I was making almost $17 an hour. Can I say this? You can just blur this out later, okay? Now I make, like, $11.33, yeah, doing the same flipping job. Do we need one more? I have no idea. -

Dena

Here, pull it. It's whatever you said. You said you were all done. She's the brains behind the outfit. Not true!

gentle music

All right, well, it's probably a good time to go turn on our music, little kids. What do you think? They're just all kinds of confused. Hi, chicks! You guys telling me it's food time? The ones that we raised, they're not quite sure whether they're people or we're penguins. They kind of get the mentality of they almost think that they're the same as me. They act towards me as if I were their mom penguin. You gonna come to the feeding, Rossy? Well, good afternoon, folks. Welcome to Penguin Rock. I hope you're all enjoying your afternoon today. You're in for a special treat, as this is feeding time for our African penguins. These guys are also known as black-footed penguins or even jackass penguins because of their donkey-like braying sound. How 'bout-- Zoo keeping has kind of changed. It used to be just making sure the animals are safe, pushing some food at them, cleaning up after them, and that was fine for then, but now we're realizing that so many of these animals are disappearing and we need to try and preserve them. So a lot of zookeepers are more highly trained than you think. I had one mom tell her kids, "Now look at her, kids, because this is what you end up doing if you don't finish school. You end up cleaning up poo." I actually said to her, "Well, actually I have six years of college education, and I had to have that in order to get this job." Now, if you happen to notice a bird or two out here who looks a little scruffy, it isn't because they're an older penguin. It's actually because they're going to begin or finish their molting period. This is our breeding pair of komodos. We've got Jeff, Hollywood Jeff is the big male on the right, Norberta is our little female on the left. She's pretty plump right now. She is completely full of eggs, and one night, it's always overnight, she will dig down as far as she can, which is about six feet down in that nest pit, until she hits concrete. She'll lay her eggs, she'll cover them up, we don't know exactly where they are, and then she'll be extremely skinny the next morning. When a komodo lays her eggs, she digs this big six-foot pit. You have to go and climb in, and Sarah had the pleasure of- I love it. Spending the morning doing that. It's fun when you find the eggs. You feel very sympathetic for the female. I personally wouldn't want to have to move that much dirt, give birth, and then pile it all back on. So they're right here. Can you see that?

gentle music

Okay, so, we just brought the eggs back in the dirt that they were laid in, just to make things simple, and now Lauren's setting up the vermiculite, which is what we're going to actually incubate them in. Once we get all the eggs set up, we'll take them over to our fancy incubator. That way we know they're safe, we don't knock them off a shelf somewhere. Even if it was a common box turtle or something, still, you want to be very careful because they're eggs and they're cool, but it's very nervewracking holding a komodo dragon egg. We'll recount, but I'm pretty sure I pulled out 21, which is more than she's ever laid before. The most she's ever laid was 19. Last time it was 17. So this will be her biggest collection.

gentle music

I saw her and she was looking down. I walked over here, and she was laying kind of over in that corner, and I was like, Yes, finally! The first thing I did was call Jason, and he was funny. It was his day off. This is his first baby, so I knew he wanted to be here. It hadn't stood up yet, still real wobbly and fighting to get up, and Marilyn hasn't passed the placenta, so get on in here. Wake up and get in here. He said, okay, I'm on my way. Jason loaned me a book that I'm surprised I missed, called Zoo Story. It's about Lowry Park. I was reading it and just came across, I think it was a cheetah they had named Maliki, and explained it was Swahili, and it means, angel. I brought that up to Jason the next time I saw him, What do you think about that name if we have a girl? Sounds cute. Okay, good! -

Vet

Anything else? Yeah. - All right kiddo. -

Carolyn

And it is confirmed a girl, right? It is confirmed a girl. - You all right? -

Vet

We've got weight, we've got blood, we're putting in a transponder, Mabel is chipped. Everything's happy. - She's cute. -

Man

I don't think it's slim. -

Carolyn

She's like, my goodness, there's a lot of people on top of me. -

Jason

Okay, Marilyn, what do you think? She's like, I'm ready to see my baby! -

Carolyn

I think she's decided, we're not so nice after all. She may not kiss us anymore like she did earlier.

people chattering

upbeat music

I've done a lot of short stories, and I've actually been working on a novel since high school. It started out as a short story, and then I just never stopped. I'm kind of going back and revamping it and rewriting it. I've got, like, 50,000 words or something insane like that. I went to a Christian school, a college, that was way stricter than anything I believe. We are taught evolution, but I personally believe in creation. They taught both. I actually had, in high school, we did a mock debate between evolution and creation, and I was put on the evolution team. The evolution side won the debate because we did research. And so when we came back with, Well, what about this genetics project what does creation say about that? They went, well, the Bible says it is. That's not how you win a debate, so we ended up winning the debate just 'cause we studied. Even though I didn't believe it! Gonna get it Radar? Atta boy. In this game, I'm the photojournalist. See, I'm the one with the camera following them around. When I was a kid, when I didn't have any money, before I got out in the real world. Video games were new then, and there was Dungeons and Dragons and all those. After I got this job, I don't have any money, so now what? I started, well, what did I used to do that was fun? I started going back into gaming. He occasionally suckers his co-workers into playing this game, and it is the most boring game ever. She has no imagination. -

Dena

That's because you have to have good imagination, Sara Taylor, and you have no good imagination. I cannot believe in the 1980s that this game caused so much controversy. -

Dena

Well, it is kind of crap. It is! They think it's all about witchcraft, and I'm like, Oh, I wish it was. My grandmother still thinks it's about that. -

Dena

I wish you could wiggle your nose to make it happen. Fred is probably one of the greatest fantasy people, I've ever met in my life. I don't know what it is. Escapism? I want to live in other worlds and other times, and I want ents and orcs and so forth. Zookeepers, we talk about, they're much more comfortable with animals than with people. I think they're much more comfortable in alternate worlds where they don't really deal with the reality of life today, and so science fiction is it. That's where they go. Well actually I didn't know there were werewolves, and I don't have any money, and so none of this is really good for much. -

Richard

Did you become a werewolf? I wanted to volunteer with some sort of animal shelter since I moved here, but I was kind of nervous to do so, especially at a kill shelter, 'cause I didn't want to bring everything home, and I didn't want to feel guilty every time I went. Hi! Most of my jobs have been either pet sitting, babysitting, or field work in college, so I haven't had much people interaction, on purpose. Brand new. How old are they now? They're probably, when's their birthday? They were born on September 20th. Yep, so they're about a month. Four weeks. Yep, little angels. -

Woman

So cute! -

Sara

All right, let's do this one. -

Woman

Let's put 'em back. Come on, ladies. You see that 18 inch long tongue? Get it out there, girl. Come on! Come on. You can do better than that! Well anyway. Kenya's the best. He's the best tongue man we've got. -

Woman

Yeah, I see 'em. -

Carolyn

I can't see, who else is up there, Jason? I can't see the other one. -

Jason

Wendy, on that side. -

Carolyn

Okay, Wendy. Wendy's on the left. Wendy is a year and a half old. That's Marilyn. -

Woman

That's Marilyn? -

Carolyn

That's Marilyn. Hey girl! Then, the baby against the left side wall is Maliki. She is just over two months old. They give birth standing up, drop the kid on their head, which is a pretty good drop. I guess that's similar to slapping our babies on the butt. It wakes them up pretty good. We say 25 is pretty old. We had one that lived to 32.

upbeat music

-

Sarah

So far, the babies we've had have all been parthenogenic, which means the female cloned herself. We got the DNA results back, and they're all parthenogenic. -

Sarah

The last babies, not these. Not these current ones. Jury's out on these, but I think they probably all are too. I don't know that but, - No, no. Sarah disagrees. And I'm always right when it comes to komodos. I'm going to break my, I'm gonna bet you, I'm gonna break my, Okay, you always lose your bets, but. I'll bet you $20. Okay, you're on. All right, you ready? Jeff's the daddy. All right! Steve's bet is that this clutch will also be parthenogenic. Even though we've had the male and female together, he thinks that she's just gonna keep cloning herself. But since all of these eggs are fertile, and, based on the behaviors that we've witnessed, the rest of us are pretty sure that they've been fertilized. Yeah. They're Jeff's babies. Before he bred, he was the most genetically valuable male in the country, 'cause he's never been reproduced before, and he's a wild-caught animal, so he's not related to anybody else in the country.

gentle music

This is Sarah. He's displaying. He's showing off for you guys in here. We'll wait til he calms down just a little bit.

gorilla grunting

Can't talk over him. We just have to be extra paranoid, especially if you're working with these dangerous animals, 'cause you build that relationship with them, but they would still hurt you if they feel scared. I can't remember if I told you or not, but the main reason why I'm no longer in Cat Country is I left a third level lock off. It wasn't like I left the cat's cage undone. It wasn't even the secondary door I left. It was a third door that was not protecting anything. That was the third level of containment, but it was a lock left undone. You know, it was a momentary slip of the mind, and part of me wants to be like, come on. It was a third level door! I've never left a cat cage unlocked. I've never even left the secondary containment unlocked. It was a people door. Sometimes you're just stretched beyond your capabilities, you know, and sometimes they don't want to hear that. You're multi-tasking, you're being asked to do a hundred things within a given time period. You've got a lot of other things that you're supposed to be running off and doing, and chats. You have time limits of when that's got to be done and this and that. Sometimes, there's just every day little things that happen that set you behind on your time schedule. Now all of a sudden you're rushing. They don't want to hear that, because you're supposed to be 100% all the time, and sometimes it's just not possible. It's like, 50 pounds of meat. That's why I'm dragging it in a wagon. You can come in.

upbeat music

The Bengals go out on certain days of the week, and the Sumatrans go out on certain days, and there's no way to get them path without running them down, right past each other in the cages. There's five tigers, and there's five cages. You have the back hall to work with and the outside holding pens. Ratu gets seven and a half pounds of meat, This building was built for two to possibly three tigers. So this is not how you would ideally house tigers or move them. We are making do. What's the matter? Aren't you hungry? You need to go that way. Oh, sorry! Conked her in the head. There you go! Kumari is in here.

tiger roaring

upbeat music

Mohan's trying to be friendly with Narian, and Narian's like, I am going to kick your #*#*#*. It's okay. Calm down! You're all right. My first couple of years at my other zoo, I didn't do anything. Then I came down here for several years, and it was all about work. Work just took up all my time, because I had so much to learn. He has a crush on Kumari, so I can use him as bait to get Kumari down there. She'll want to stop and fight with her, because she hates Ratu. See, she's stalking her. I would come home, my head swimming with all the stuff that happened and all of the things that I picked up and was trying to adjust my perspectives of how things were. But, if I can get her to pounce into this cage, He's calling her. He's making love calls to Kumari. Kumari's like, I would rather kill Ratu than come down and visit you right now, but I'll be down in a few. Now, Mohan gets his heartworm medicine today. Are you a good boy! Are you a good boy! The stuff we used to do, that was just routine. You know, we would go, the bear moats have been torn down, but a lot of people probably remember them. They were just these open bear exhibits with a big wall in the back, and we would climb up on the wall with a hose, and we would just stand there and wash all the stuff down to the front and into the moat. We were up there with no railing, no safety, no nothing. It was just us and a hose and a bear right down there. And if the hose drooped down, the bear would grab it and pull it down. It's just totally insane, the stuff that was absolutely routine. I remember that huge Siberian tiger. He would lay up against the bars, and you'd reach through and scratch his ears and pet him, and he'd turn around. One day I was petting him and scratching him, and he just went like this, and thought, kind of like an old joke, ha ha, you missed! Then I realized there was blood running down the side of my face where he had almost taken my, you know, he'd just literally moved my ear away from the side of my head. It was so much fun!

both laughing

It really was!

gentle music

Yeah, no, these guys are amazing and awesome. -

Steve

That's really weird. -

Woman

Look he's so tiny. -

Erin

It makes putting them back a little fun because it saves you from doin' when they all rush out to try that. -

Lauren

Look, all the other ones want to rush out. -

Woman

Yeah, they're like I want some too, I want to go too! -

Steve

They'd all crawl on top of you and sit on top of your head if you just stood there long enough. Most dangerous about 'em is the males. But, yeah, I swear these guys are all gonna be, No, Oh! - Here he comes. Oh, ah, ah, ah, - Whoa! Because, okay, they've never done that before. Okay. - They're still bein' like. -

Sarah

They're not biting me, though. -

Steve

Uh oh, what about the one in trouble? -

Woman

Okay, we've got two. -

Lauren

Here, Steve. Oh my gosh! Okay, this has never happened before. -

Woman

This is where I back away. -

Lauren

This is where you get the camera away. Yeah. - Okay. -

Sarah

I'm going to close the door. -

Steve

here you go, stay over there for a few seconds. -

Sarah

All righty! Yeah, maybe all the others would have bit me, right there when I was pushing on them. Okay then! -

Lauren

Yeah, that was great, Sarah, thanks!

dramatic music

-

Carolyn

We've alternated betwixt Robbie and him being locked in here, separated. -

Man

That's the only way that I can see that it's gonna work. -

Carolyn

Yeah. So has he been in here with it like this? Not with this, no, he hadn't been over here at all. Yeah we retired April of last year, April of 2012. So about 18 months, now. Yeah, it hasn't been two years yet, yeah. He was just majorly stressed about this whole Kofi thing, and I think that's one of the things that kind of helped him just, besides his wife telling him, You are retiring, period. He was willing to go because he was just stressed out about Kofi, and he says he doesn't even want to see him. As much as he loves the giraffes, he doesn't even want to see 'em until Kofi's gone, 'cause he doesn't want to see him in here anymore. I don't want to either, but I've got to be here. I've got to get him out. Generally speaking, you can actually spook a giraffe into going through a door and into a trailer. You can't spook Kofi. You just simply can't. They have tried twice to do that, to scare him into a trailer, and all that's done is to make him even more fearful and make the situation even more difficult than it has been. Anytime you move an animal, any animal, any time, there's always the chance that something's gonna go wrong, and you're going to lose your animal. This whole episode with Kofi, it's just, it's like an ongoing nightmare. It's been drug out. He's over four years old now. I'm gonna be so happy when he's gone. Atta boy! Even though I'm going to miss him, I've already warned Jason I'm gonna cry, just to give you fair warning, but tears of joy and also I'm gonna miss him terribly 'cause he's such a sweet little boy.

upbeat music

These are our tiger dice. They're orange and white striped in black, and they've got a tiger on them. When we're in here playing dice, it's almost like we're working. At lunch time! Because it's, yeah, lunch time. Because they have tigers on them, so it's like work, see? Roll the dice and we'll see what you get. Okay. Ones and fives are 100, and fives are 50. This is how we determine how much food the cats get, yeah.

all laughing

I don't know how to explain that. You say you're-- -

Woman

So it's nine pounds, -

Fred

There's nine pounds for the Bengals, see? -

Woman

That's so wrong. -

Fred

We roll again for the Sumatrans. Right. - It's very scientific. Sometimes we don't feed those tigers for days. -

Woman

So that's something though, right? -

Woman

This is Dante. Hey, buddy! Isn't it kind of hysterical? How are you real? Who does that? I tell everybody, when they think about cleaning up after penguins, you know, if you get all annoyed about parking your car under a tree at night, and you come out and it's got five or six bird poo spots on it, well, think about a bird this big sitting in one spot all night and then, you know, now make it 22 of them, and that's what I clean up every day. I mean this was cleaned yesterday. This is all mess from last night and through the day yesterday. It'll get cleaned again today. -

Carolyn

Caitlin called this morning. She loaded, Caitlin hauled, she loaded everything herself. We helped her unload, but I'm impressed. She's-- She's gonna be all right. Let's go inside. Hey, sweet boy. -

Carolyn

Hey Mr. Fella. Things have changed! -

Carolyn

Hey man, you know Richard! I know you remember Richard! What you doing, big boy? Come here. What you been doing? I hope you like him. Hey, sweet boy. Whatcha doing? How have you been? -

Carolyn

Come on, Kofi. Come on! You remember Richard. Let me get back. Richard, was it rough for you to see Kofi? Yeah. It's the reason I didn't come out here for a long time. It's really hard. He's been locked in for three years.

dramatic music

All right! Now let's go talk to kids. If education isn't the number one priority, you shouldn't have a zoo. That's what this is. This is our form of education. This is what we do to help educate.

gentle music

Stacy, Marilyn, Angela Kate! Come to me! Come on! Real quickly, let me tell you, if you think they're coming running up because I called them, not a chance. I got bananas. That's why they're running up. My name is Richard. I'm not even a keeper here anymore. I used to be a keeper. I retired. Hi, sweeties. Every once in a while I come back out, and my ex-partner is happy to let me give a talk, and so I do it, just for old times' sake and the fun of it. Hi, darling. I love these guys, but if I'm completely honest, I've got to admit, they ain't bright. Actually, they're as dumb as a sack of hammers. There's nobody home. If you don't have much of a brain to begin with, put some extra bone over it. This is Angela Kate. This is my baby. Hi, darling. Carolyn and I bottle-raised her, and so she pretty much thinks we're Mom and Dad, and will hang around and follow us whenever we go. If you have any questions, I'll come down and answer 'em. If you don't, you paid to see 3,500 animals. That's going to take you a while. So go have a good time. Enjoy yourselves. Thank you for coming to the zoo. We appreciate you here. Yay!

crowd clapping

gentle music

She had, even when you were here, she was under medical treatment. You do! Could she borrow that camera, just for a few minutes? She would love to see it. She'd been having seizures for probably two years. They did an MRI and they did all kinds of stuff, and they could never really pinpoint what was wrong. It didn't sound good, and then one day she had a seizure and she just never came out of it.

gentle music

For the meeting, and I said, well, there's only one thing I want. I said, I want one of her tusks. And everybody was like, and I was like, Oh, don't look at me like that! I thought it looked a whole lot bigger in her mouth. I don't know how they took it off, but regardless, I'm happy to have it. In on the refrigerator in there, there's one of the data sheets from a lion that's been gone for years. It's like, I'm not attached to the sheets. I'm like, Just erase it and use it again. Photographs are really where, I mean, you keep memories. That's the only drawback to being a zookeeper, is that you bond form such strong bonds. Serabi gave birth. It was a stillborn. -

Carolyn

It was premature. It was very small. When it hit the floor, she just kind of walked away from it, and we had to shift her over and get in there to it, and try to see if we could revive it. It never started breathing. -

Carolyn

It's just, you keep going and you focus on what you have. What's here, they need your concentration now. It doesn't accomplish anything, thinking about what you've lost. You've just got to focus on who's here. They need your attention. You lose an animal, you come home and cry. And it takes, I can almost tear up just sitting and thinking about losing my animals! You're there with them eight hours a day, and you wouldn't be there being paid what you're paid for unless this was beyond explanation to the general public. Nobody really understands, the kind of bond you form to the animals. All of us have lost tons of animals. Oh, yeah, really important animals. Well the baby, when he died, we just loaded him up in the cart, and they basically take him to the hospital, the necropsy. We have a incinerator down by the giraffe run. You probably walked by and didn't know what you were looking at. That's where all good animals go in the end.

gentle music

I always wanted to be a reptile keeper, so I'm happy where I am. I'd like to work up the ranks of the assistant curator and curator. This guy is the same species -

Man

Girls. as the big animal we have over in that pool. You're kind of the head honcho as far as any sort of research projects and what your collection plan's gonna be, and kind of shaping that aspect of it. Is this your favorite building? Who loves this building? You know, I was a cat keeper, and everybody loves cats, which is really cool, but you don't get to interact with the public as much. I mean, I've had so many people come into the herpetarium, terrified of snakes and all you have to do is get them to touch one once and they completely turn around. They'll say, oh my gosh that's so cool, I thought they were slimy. Or, you know, oh, I need to touch it again. I mean it's just a complete transformation. These are spider tortoises. -

Child

Yay! It's one of the smallest tortoise species in the world. These are fully grown. This is the female, this is the male. He's a little bit smaller. They're from Madagascar. They're critically endangered.

gasps

Oh my! -

Lauren

And then, this is Bob. Cool. - Cute. It's just one of those, we have one of the best jobs in the world, and you come in all excited, knowing you have the best job in the world, and then once you're dealing with certain things for a few years, sometimes you lose sight of how lucky you are to have this job. You know, you deal with frustrations. Or you just get in a rut doing the same thing every day, which happens to everybody. But showing people around behind the scenes in our areas and seeing their excited expressions, and, oh my gosh, you have the coolest job ever, helps, because then that kind of reminds us, yes, we do. We have the coolest job ever. -

Jason

You know spring was coming to an end, and we were trying to, kind of pushing our bosses, you know, going, hey, what's going on? You know, we're supposed to get rid of Kofi this month. And they finally came back to us and said that there's a ban on shipping adult giraffes, so he's not going anywhere. Then we started discussing options for keeping him, and that's when we decided we needed to put him back out 'cause he hadn't been out in a couple years. The first day he went out, I think Jason made a video of it on his phone. He was kickin' and runnin'. He was just like a kid been turned loose in the play yard, 'cause he wore himself out. It was good to see him. He didn't get to run very far. You could tell he was out of shape. He was

heavy breathing

panting pretty good after a few minutes. It was so good to see him out running. It's been a long time, and he needed it.

gentle music

-

Woman

Yeah,

drowned out by music

-

Carolyn

C'mon sweetheart, wrestle it.

upbeat music

people chattering

-

Jason

It was almost like watching a baby when it first gets let out into the yard. -

Carolyn

Oh, that's cute. -

Woman

All right, will do, thank you so much. -

Carolyn

I can start, I can stop, I can rear up. -

Jason

It was beautiful.

tinkly music

You know, I'm always looking for opportunities to learn more. I just recently went to the International Penguin Conference, you know, a couple months ago, so I learned a lot there. I mean, I like the bird stuff. It just caught me when I was at zoo school, so many zoos are going to these zoogeographic things, where it's, you know, animals from the region, it's every type of animal. I really do think that there's a need for specialists still. Be nice. That's not nice. You come down here. And it's still a rewarding job, even though, yes, I do clean up poo for a living. But then I get to do this. I get to have baby penguins that think I'm Mom, and they just want to sit here with me because I'm Mom. -

Jason

Yesterday was Kofi's fifth birthday. He's five years old. Probably for the long term, he's gonna be here. Once we found out that they're not gonna ship him, it was like a relief, because now we can actually do stuff with him and move him around. He doesn't have to live his whole life in the barn. Let me guess. -

Woman

Hi you can come in. -

Caitlin

Who's the biggest giraffe we have now? That's right. He's the one with his nose up there behind right now over there. -

Caitlin

He's just like, hey. -

Carolyn

He's just trying to get her attention. He's being a romantic. -

Caitlin

Angela Kate, how much older is she than Kofi? Two and a half, three years? -

Carolyn

She's seven and a half now and he's five. Wow his ears are long! - Hi baby. -

Caitlin

Hey, you! Kofi! Hey! Come here! -

Woman

Put him back in his room. -

Caitlin

Good boy! See, he's the best-looking giraffe out there. You can't argue that.

gentle music

Are you my girl? What! Are you hungry? Yeah? All right. We'll see what we can do. -

Richard

Once you're a zookeeper, you're always a zookeeper. You never get it out of your system. I spent 25, well, a total of 31 years, here, and no, you don't get it out of your system. It's always fun to come and talk to the people about animals. We'll see what we can do! Is that right? That's my tiger! You too? You guys are starvin'? Poor tigers. Is that right?

gentle music

These guys only do this 'cause they know me. Is this the first time you're visiting? All right!

gentle music

-

Sara

See ya!

gentle music

bluesy guitar rock

-

Female Narrator

Support for this program is provided by South Arts, sponsors of the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.