Michaela Jacob
Biological Sciences, Junior
Since I was a child, my dream was to one day work at Brookfield Zoo. I mostly wanted to swim around with the dolphins, and I knew this was the location for me. As I have grown, my career expectations have become a little more realistic. I know that I cannot get paid to swim around with dolphins all day, so I decided on a pre-veterinary track instead. Even with this matured decision, I still saw myself working at Brookfield Zoo. During my freshman year, I learned of the Dean’s Undergraduate Fellowship opportunity through the College of Science and Health. This opportunity allows students at DePaul University to intern at a location in the Chicago land area while gaining valuable research and professional skills. One of these sites happened to be Brookfield Zoo, and I immediately applied. Although I was a new freshman with no animal experience, I still had to apply. I knew I did not have adequate experience to intern at such a well-known and nationally accredited facility, and in turn, I did not get the job. This rejection made me realize how much I needed experience. I spent the rest of my freshman year and the entirety of my sophomore year working with animals. I knew I needed animal experience to get into veterinary school, but I also pushed myself to get these jobs because I wanted to reapply for the Dean’s Undergraduate Fellowship at Brookfield Zoo. I hoped that gaining some experience and knowledge with animals would award me this position, which it did or I would not be writing a reflection on the most amazing summer I could have asked for.
The research aspect to this internship was of great interest to me. I had never heard of nutrition based research before, but I felt that it would be something I would enjoy. Dr. Watts, the nutritionist at Brookfield Zoo, and I decided that my summer project was going to involve the giant anteaters. There were three total, but the focus was on the mother and her baby. Since zoo nutrition is such a new and still growing field, many of the animals in captivity are on diets that could use some improvement. The giant anteaters are insectivores, which means their diet should consist mainly of insects; however, it is extremely expensive to buy insects at the rate the anteaters consume them. This results in the anteaters eating a diet created for carnivorous animals. While this diet is sufficient in keeping them alive and healthy, it is not the most optimal. I spent the first six weeks of my internship researching the giant anteater, creating excel spreadsheets to calculate exactly what they need in their diet, and finally creating a consumption trial that would slowly wean them off of their old diet while presenting them with the new insectivore diet. When it came time to present the animals with their new meals, they rejected their new diet; therefore, the zoo keepers decided to revert to the old diet and discontinue my project, which meant that my project resulted in no conclusions. Nonetheless, I learned a great deal about the giant anteater as well as how to create a consumption trial.
In addition to the research project, I worked on many miscellaneous projects throughout the summer. I categorized journal articles, created a new diet for a diabetic monkey, and conducted various research. My favorite part of the job was giving body condition scores to animals throughout the zoo. This consisted of both physical and visual examinations of an animal and then scoring it based on his/her basic fitness. This aspect was very fun for me because I was able to learn about many different animals in the zoo as well as see how the zoo was ran behind the scenes. For obvious reasons, physical examinations could only be given to animals while they were anesthetized in the animal hospital. This was especially great for me because I was able to observe the veterinarians while interacting with these incredible animals. The first animal that I was able to examine was a tiger, and if that does not represent how amazing my summer was then I don’t know what will.
I hope this experience will help in leading me to a job as a zoological veterinarian. This internship definitely solidified my interest in working at a zoo. Though the cancellation of my project was a challenge, I continued to research and eventually created a smaller scale consumption trial for the Angolan colobus monkeys. This internship provided me with the ability to create nutrient rich diets for various species, which will definitely help me in veterinary school. I learned about so many species this summer that I feel I almost have a head start on my career path. This knowledge will prove beneficial to me in the future, and for that I am very thankful. However, I also learned I am not very interested in a research based career. I love learning, but I would much rather be working with animals and medicine than conducting research of my own. I hope to have another internship this summer to continue growing in this field. I know my experience at Brookfield Zoo will open doors for me that would not have been options otherwise. I am much closer to getting accepted into veterinary school. I will be forever grateful for the time I was able to spend this past summer in my dream work location.
