For the past couple of months we have been trying to make our Facebook and Twitter accounts more personal, in an effort to allow you, our readers, fans, visitors and friends to get to know our staff. When you come in the Reptile Village Zoo door with your excited faces we want you to feel like you know the person greeting you at the entrance (or at least feel like they are a familiar face). So over the next couple of weeks we will be trying to give you a mini bio on each member of staff to help you out with that!

As for today….the blog has been taken over by the birthday girl..allow me to introduce you to Megan..shes such a hard worker, hardly ever takes breaks and…..

 

……oh wait a minute!

 

Hi guys!

As you already know my name is Megan, and I am the current manager/publicist here in Reptile Village Zoo! Firstly, that picture was taken at the 2012 Pet Expo in Punchestown, and was taken by James (our boss) as he was eating his tayto too…we were on our break!

I guess I’ll start at the beginning of my time here in Reptile Village, which was waaaaaaaay back in 2008! I was in 5th year in school and as part of our LCVP programme I carried out work experience here for a week. Pretty soon after this week I quit my supermarket job and applied for weekend and Summer work here and I haven’t looked back!

In the beginning I was the only girl working here and I was also the youngest and I wouldn’t have had it any other way, being ‘one of the boys’ was something I was used to and not being afraid to get my hands dirty helped a lot when working with animals!

I dived right in and began learning as much as I could about all aspects of the business, school tours, bookings, dealing with families, animal care and maintenance and it was (and still is) a work environment that is ever-changing, ever- expanding and always teaching me something! There is literally never a dull moment in here, one day you’re cleaning animal mess and the next you’re swimming with Alligators or assisting with TV interviews.. but we’ll get to that soon!

I have worked here for a little over four and a half years now and being honest, I’ve grown up here. When I started out I was a sixteen year old girl who’s career options were becoming a pathologist or a mechanic, but Reptile Village changed all of that. My love of organizing things especially events began to show and I found myself more and more fascinated by the marketing, public relations and business side of things, so I have since completed a BA (Hons) in Public Relations and Media Studies in I.T Carlow.

People are often surprised when they ask where I work because I am quite a girly girl, loving shoes, shopping, reality TV, make up and fashion and those interests don’t quite match up to being a Zoo Keeper. But that’s me! I get asked a lot about why I chose to work here and am I not afraid of the animals. The reality is that I already had an interest in reptiles since I was a kid, always wanting a pet snake and couldn’t walk past a pet shop without going in, and the main reason why I chose to work here is because I am always learning in here. I learn about new animals all the time, I get to experience new things like marketing meetings, business ventures, event management, I have traveled to schools and colleges all over the country with our ‘Zoo to You’ team, I’ve been on TV with this job, I’ve worked with so many amazing animals and amazing people here, and so many more life experiences that not many other 20 year olds have, it never ceases to keep my interest!

Reptile Village became such a big part of my life that when I spent Summer 2012 in California guess where I ended up working….yep a Reptile Zoo! I loved every minute over there, learned a lot and met some great people but I’m not gonna lie, it was difficult to get used to being in a similar work place without the people I was so used to working with! But as you can see in the picture of all the Reptile Zoo staff a the OC Fair, I managed to fit in eventually!

The reason I was allowed (they didn’t have a choice really) to take over this blog this week is that tomorrow (Friday) is my 21st birthday, I was hoping to have some pictures of my latest adventure before today but they aren’t back yet. Last week I got to swim with our American Alligators!! I was so excited as they have lived here for 3 years now and I never quite found the time! It really was an amazing experience and I will definitely do it again!

Anyway I hope I haven’t bored you too much, and if anyone is interested in a career in Reptile Village or is just generally interested in reptile village, or needs help for a school project or anything you think I may be able to help with, just email [email protected] and I’ll be happy to help!

There are many ways to get started on your career as a zoo keeper and you’ll start to realize that as each employees story is told through this blog over the next few weeks..trust me they’re worth the read..everyone got here so differently which just goes to show you that just because one way doesn’t work out for you, there are always other options!

Thank you for reading my ‘ how to become a zookeeper ‘

x

 

 

 

HI! I’m a French student doing a 4 week work placement at the Reptile Village Zoo of Gowran, here is my diary!

Female alligators normally initiate mating. The slight rise in temperature and increase in water level usually sets off our gators bellowing. The female normally starts first and the male responds. The bellowing can be “felt” more than heard and is similar to the way thunder vibrates. The subsonic sound can make the water jump on their backs.