By Ryan Chan
It may be a weekday but the Singapore Zoo gates are seeing throngs of visitors. I arrive, excited to begin my assignment.
Being a zookeeper is not all fun and games. The first lesson that Rubiah Ismail, my mentor for the day, taught me was to always respect the animal.
“Raise out your hand,” she explained as I approached a horse’s stable to enter. “Let it sniff you and become familiar with you.”
I was nervous at first and she basically told me to man up.
“Be confident,” she said. “Animals can always sense your nervousness.”
With her guidance, I proceeded to clean out the stable, sweeping up the droppings and clearing out the soiled hay. Having to clean the horses’ hooves was a further example of respecting the animal. Tapping the forearm or gaskin lets the horse know you are going to lift its hoof, after which it gracefully allows you to clean out any hay stuck in its sole.
Evolving Over Time
Rubiah, 49, who joined in 1988, was the first female zookeeper in the Singapore Zoo. Back then, it was a male-dominated environment.
“With the zoo being relatively young at that point of time, hiring a female was quite a gamble for them. I had to prove that I could excel in my role as a zookeeper,” she shared.
The Zoo was unionised by The Singapore Manual and Mercantile Workers’ Union (SMMWU) in 1972. In recent years, SMMWU worked with NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) to introduce the Inclusive Growth Programme (IGP) that enhanced workers’ productivity levels.
The initiative has also benefitted visitors, allowing them to download an app on their smartphones to learn more about the different animals and to drive home the message of conservation.
Burning Passion
Rubiah’s expertise and passion shone through as she took me through the different tasks of the daily husbandry routine.
That moment came when we were sifting through eucalyptus leaves to calculate the percentage of each variety the koalas, who are on loan from Australia for six months, eat each day.. This information, Rubiah explained, is sent back each day to Down Under for monitoring purposes.
There I sat without the faintest idea of how to tell the leaves apart, while she took mere seconds to identify each.
Feeding Time
We headed next to the kitchens for a behind-the-scenes look at how food is prepared for the different animals.
I was tasked with placing the food out for the animals in the Fragile Forest, one of the few areas of the park where visitors can come up close to the animals.
Like myself, the animals got excited when the food came out. Unfortunately the output for this excitement was not very pleasant. Parrots and bats fluttered around, leaving droppings on unsuspecting visitors (and myself). There is also no better time to see a sloth moving quickly. I may have left with a slightly soiled shirt, but it was definitely no rain on my parade.
Parting Advice
With the day coming to an end, Rubiah left me with a piece of advice.
“Animals may know you well, and may have been working with you for the longest time, but you should never ever take them for granted – always give them the respect they deserve,” she said.
The experience has left me inspired enough to seriously consider a volunteer position there. After all, I do believe I now have the necessary koala-fications.
Source: NTUC This Week
