I’ve worked as an animal caretaker at a renowned, AZA-accredited organization for over a decade now. It’s a unique job, and every day is different, but even in my world, it’s a weird time to be a tiger keeper.
I guess you might say that it’s never not a weird time to be a tiger keeper, but here in the age of COVID-19 and “Tiger King,” I find it especially odd.
The pandemic started to spread before I saw the Netflix documentary. When the mayor of our city issued a “shelter in place” order, the zoo that I work at closed to the public. For years, I’ve explained that I work in a 365-day a year occupation to kids by saying, “You don’t skip feeding your dog on Christmas, right?” Meaning just because the zoo is closed, keepers still need to come in.
The first morning of working in the closed zoo felt peaceful. I’m used to quieter days in the winter, but even then, the zoo functions like a small city, with various employees cleaning grounds, fixing infrastructure, hustling this way and that. The lockdown feels different.
Only “essential” staff are present, and carnivore keepers like myself typically work solo as a safety precaution. Sometimes I spend my entire shift without seeing another person. There’s a calmness in the solitude. It’s just me and the cats.
Outside, the world brimmed with a sense of impending doom, with rising coronavirus case counts and what seemed negative news 24 hours a day. Within the zoo’s walls, I pushed the anxiety out and focused on the gentle chuffs of our tigers.
The zoo is not immune to the workings of the outside world, and as COVID-19 escalated, things changed within it. Our department split into two teams, and our weekends rotated, with each team now working half of the week.
In theory, if one team becomes exposed to the virus, the other team could still function and step in. After all, you don’t skip feeding your tiger just because there’s a terrifying global pandemic, right?
It was painful to watch Joe’s rowdy staff call themselves ‘keepers,’ diminishing the occupation at a time when caretakers of all kinds are called upon to demonstrate extreme dedication to their particular cause.
Shortly after we split our routine, the texts started.
“Have you seen ‘Tiger King’?” friends asked as seemingly all of America binged the new docuseries.
The show tells the story of Joe Exotic and his uncouth roadside attraction contemporaries who own large exotic animals, like tigers.
I hadn’t seen it.
As many of my friends joked about working from home in their sweatpants and as comedians hosted late-night shows from their bathtubs, my job seemed to become even more intense. Despite what Joe preaches, wild animals are not pets, so I can’t exactly take my work home with me.
While on the job, I’ve been busy, to say the least, averaging 15,000 to 20,000 s