Greg Hunt, Waterkeepers Australia
I used to be a zookeeper. Now I’m a Waterkeeper and I’m not sure if the jobs are all that different. The zoo industry talks of the four pillars of the modern zoo: conservation, education, research, and recreation. How else can you justify locking up the innocent if not to help conserve their still free brethren? Many zoos are active in far-flung corners of the globe working with communities to protect habitat for animals, or perhaps conduct research on and breed rare and threatened species. They also have many outstanding education programs.
At Melbourne Zoo in Australia’s south, we have a zoo school based around encounters with live animals. This is no farmyard animal petting zoo. We were keepers for a wide range of animals - reptiles, frogs, birds and marsupials. We had a three-metre carpet python, as thick as your forearm. When I wanted to explain the prey-catching behaviour of a constrictor, I didn’t have to do any talking – the animal wrapped around a student’s arm to demonstrate. Students would simultaneously show every emotion from sheer horror to wild elation. If I wanted to talk about the insulating properties of a possum’s fur coat, or the moist skin of a tree frog that helps it take in oxygen, again, the animals taught the lesson far better than my words.
Sometimes however, I wish I had confined myself to words. A tree frog can exhibit stress by ejecting urine, and… you guessed it. I was bringing a fat green tree frog close to students so that they could touch its skin with their moistened fingers to feel how delicate it is, when a talking student was abruptly silenced with a well-aimed squirt to the face. My description of the sterility of urine fell on most unappreciative ears, and I suspect that student will never look at a frog the same way again.
I also recall the time a red-eared turtle sank its stubby but powerful jaws into my palm, and I withdrew from the aquarium with the cantankerous beast hanging from my hand. This is not recommended if one wishes to foster a positive attitude to biodiversity. Fortunately, there were many more moments of great joy, as thousands of students had intensely personal experiences with animals that led them to understand and care for living things. Watching the expressions of wonderment and reverence on a daily basis was indeed a privilege.
Members of the public had opportunities for direct animal contact also. Never get too close to an exhaling seal or you’ll sniff something to make dog breath smell sweet! But some of the best education occurs when the public gets to know the animals through the zookeeper’s eyes. Talking with a keeper is a window into a deeper understanding of the animal that you can’t get looking through the bars of a cage. You might be introduced by one keeper to Mzuri the gorilla, or by another to Wattle the wombat. Zookeepers can tell you about their animals’ personalities and foibles. Having captivated you, they then move seamlessly to the plight of gorillas in the wild or the high wombat mortality rate of wombats from careless drivers. The bond between the keeper and their charge can be spectacular.
The love of the animal, and the absolute hunger to ensure that its kind remains on this earth is extremely similar to that connection between a Waterkeeper and their waterway. The river or creek flows through the veins of each Waterkeeper, and it would be difficult to measure the breadth and depth of their drive to look after it. Their programs bring people to natural experiences, whether fishing, a walk and gawk with a river expert, canoe trips, river trips, bird watching, or perhaps just visiting a waterfall. The bond between the Waterkeeper and their river, lake, or stream drives them and is the doorway for others to understand and appreciate the waterway.
And a good thing indeed that there are Waterkeepers. If there were not those with the commitment to work for our waterways, we would all be the poorer. So next time you see a Waterkeeper activity advertised, go and sign on. Get out there with someone who can introduce you directly to the personality and idiosyncrasies of your waterway, and join the fight for clean water.
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