Becoming a zoo vet - how?

[Cornish]

I am in my first year of vet school so I have some time to plan this out, but I would like to explore the possibility of being a zoo vet. I have no experience working with wild animals however...I spent all my time before vet school working with companion animals.

How would you guys recommend I go about exploring this? Summer jobs at zoos are few and far between and are so difficult to get! Its like you need experience to get a job, but no one will give you that experience in the first place.

Also, is getting hired at a zoo after graduation something that happens when someone dies - that kind of thing?

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[zygote]

Unfortunately zoo medicine is a very competitive feild. From the things I have heard it is not just about how good of a vet you are, but who you know since the zoo vet world is small. Right now it looks like in the future zoos will be preferentially hiring boarded zoo medicine specialists so that should be a goal if you want the best chance of getting a job. This means doing an internship and residency or getting 6 years of zoo experience to be eligible to sit for the boards. You should know that most programs prefer students to do a small animal general internship before doing an exotics internship because it strengthens clinical experience so there is the possibility of 5 years of post-graduate education.

While it might be difficult to get experience at a zoo have you looked at working in a clinic that sees exotic pets? This might be a good place to start. Another suggestion would be a summer program such as envirovet or aquavet. I would also check out www.aczm.org

Also, I would look into externship rotations that you could do senior year, especially if your school does not have an exotic program. The large zoo externships fill up very early, sometimes more than a year in advance, so be prepared and do as well as you possibly can in school to be competitive.

Also, I am sure you know this but zoo jobs involve lots of work with little pay so be prepared for that. I know this post is on the pessimistic side but most of this info I have heard directly from vets in the zoo/exotics world, but they all say it is worth it in the end so if you are still interested I say go for it.

 

[sumstorm]

I worked in the zoo world for 4+ years and got out due to limited upper level positions (ie beyond keeper/cashier/etc.) I was a curator, and the only direction 'up' was director, or I could go 'sideways' to other curator positions, but unfortunatly, that generally required cross country moves, which gets old after awhile. I watched a fellow curator move his family 7 times as he moved up the chain from head keeper to curator to director.

Also, zoos are very suseptible to the economy. Very few zoos are independently supported (meaning they rely on funds from government entities.) That means that vet care can and does get shortchanged during tight times, they are suseptible to being removed (charlotte doesn't have a zoo), and they can constantly be a bone of contention in a community. I only worked at small zoos, and none of our vets were employed solely at the zoo. All of them also ran private clinics. Every vet I worked with had to admit that thier private clinic (which brought in more money than their zoo work) suffered greatly due to the zoo work. And zoo vets are vulnerable to blame when prized and beloved animals die for any reason.

Having said all that, I am very drawn to zoo medicine, and it is a very hard thing for me to consider.

 

[IvyLynx]

Also, zoos are very suseptible to the economy. Very few zoos are independently supported (meaning they rely on funds from government entities.) That means that vet care can and does get shortchanged during tight times, they are suseptible to being removed (charlotte doesn't have a zoo), and they can constantly be a bone of contention in a community. I only worked at small zoos, and none of our vets were employed solely at the zoo. All of them also ran private clinics. Every vet I worked with had to admit that thier private clinic (which brought in more money than their zoo work) suffered greatly due to the zoo work. And zoo vets are vulnerable to blame when prized and beloved animals die for any reason.

Having said all that, I am very drawn to zoo medicine, and it is a very hard thing for me to consider.

I'm also insanely drawn to zoo med, but almost everything I hear about life as a zoo vet is negative and now I'm having second thoughts.

How do you run a private clinic AND work as a zoo vet?

 

[sumstorm]

I'm also insanely drawn to zoo med, but almost everything I hear about life as a zoo vet is negative and now I'm having second thoughts.

How do you run a private clinic AND work as a zoo vet?

In my observations? You short change the clients in your clinic (which may or may not be ok, depending on who your clients are, who your competition is, how charasmatic you are, etc.) Eventually most vets end up hiring another vet to cover for them...but it is still a income lowering proposition. Or you have a really great office manager, are very strict on your schedule, don't handle any sort of emergency at your clinic, force the zoo to bring smaller (under 100lb) emergency cases to the private clinic, and host your clinic close to the zoo. Those are the strategies that have worked for some of the vets I have served with.

Some things in vet med are easy to schedule and some things are easy to put off (very rarely do necropsies need to be performed immediatly.) The biggest issues are when emergencies happen. An animal that shattered it's leg in a freak accident (like a fishing cat that jumped from a limb at hte same moment another cat jumped from another limb and landed on its leg) requires an immediate vet response. Another thing that drove a lot of zoo vets nuts is the human factor. For a lot of people, zoo animals are just entertainment. Have a hippo that opens her mouth wide to people? They will throw everything imaginable in....and she will eat it. Have a cat that is only 5% overweight? You will receive all kinds of nasty letters and the paper will have editorials about the zoo starving the cats. Yes, I said overweight (the average zoo animal is 10% overweight, primarily due to public perceptions.) Have a new PETA or other animal rights group start up in your area? Rat poison may show up in primate cages (better dead than imprisoned may also be painted on the front gate.)

Having said all that, it is still an area I think about....silly me!

 

[ratbandit]

So far it doesn't seem so difficult to get exotic externships - with some persistance you can pull it off but most of the people I know who are doing them have zoo experience already before vet school. You could try starting at an exotics only private practice and then move on to actual zoos. I really like zoo and conservation medicine and have an undergrad degree in this field but honestly the lifestyle of a zoo vet is not for me! I just know that I don't have the dedication to my career that it would require - I'm striking a compromise by focusing more on household exotics (pocket pets, common herps, birds) and doing externships in exotics only private practices.