Meet Diane Ledder:
Curator and Zoologist for the
San Diego Wild Animal Park
My Job

Diane: That means I do a little bit of everything around here. I work with the Curator of Birds and the Curator of Mammals. We also have an invertebrate collection: those are butterflies and bugs. We all work together to manage the collections of animals here at the Wild Animal Park.

Sara: What does "managing a collection" mean?

Diane: That means planning what animals we'll acquire and which animals we'll ship out to other zoos and facilities. I make arrangements for some of those animal shipments. Here's a lion cub in our animal care center. If an animal is going to be shipped to another zoo, it helps to acclimate them to smaller spaces and new people.

This lion cub is going out to a zoo in Jacksonville in two weeks to join his brothers. A month ago we could have taken you in for a close encounter, but he's grown so much. Now he's feisty, he wants to play, he's very enthusiastic and he'll jump all over you. He's got a big old cow bone to chew on, so he's a happy camper. He gets a lot of attention in there...but his teeth are getting pretty big. He's like a puppy -- he gnaws and chews and scratches.

I also do a lot of record keeping for the birds and mammal collection because we have to identify each and every animal here, track them and know where they are on a daily basis. We also keep track of when our animals go to other zoos.

Sara: What kind of responsibilities do you have?

Diane: Really, my job has a little bit of everything. I do some public speaking. I teach, I write reports, I do some training of our zoo keepers -- a lot of different things. I also work with the education director. I write a lot of the graphics that you see on the zoo grounds, and I coordinate conservation projects.

When the Curators of Birds or Mammals go away, they often leave me in charge of the [animal] collections and the staff that works with them. I'm also part of design teams and all kinds of other projects. When you're part of other teams, you have regular assignments that you have to follow up on. You have to write reports, just like in school. But it's fun. It really is.

Sara: Do you think zoos are changing how they take care of the animals?

Diane: Very much so. I think part of [this change] is the fact that women are more involved in zoos these days. Women are working as educators, researchers, curators, keepers. Women are taking a much more active role.

Zoos are also becoming much more scientifically oriented. Twenty years ago it was more of a cowboy institution. There was a lot of science and theory implied, but now we're using our heads when it comes to managing animals. We're doing it smarter, and I think women have something to do with that.

Sara: Do you think women have something special to bring to this kind of work?

Diane: Absolutely. Everyone's different, whether you're male or female, man or woman, boy or girl. But I think women have understanding, compassion, and maybe some skills that I don't want to say men don't have, because that's a gross generality, but I think women have a lot to offer this field.

Sara: What's the scariest thing that's happened on your job?

Diane: One evening while I was the only curator here, the large bull elephant tore down a tarp above his enclosure. As you may know, you cannot go [into an enclosure] with a bull elephant. They are very unpredictable. They're very strong, and they can be very aggressive. So, the keeper and I were able to work out how someone could go in and bring the tarp up. Fortunately this animal had had some training, and we were able to call him into a separate area of the exhibit. Because the animal was so powerful, and I was concerned that he might get tangled in the tarp or the line, that was kind of a scary thing.

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