Day 1
Matt Day
English 2
S. Rider
The Animal Kingdom
Lions, tigers and leopards! Those are just a few of the exotic animals you can find out at
The Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation. For my subculture I chose The Barry R. Kirshner
Wildlife Foundation located in Durham, California. It is a wonderful place to visit, but an even
better place to volunteer. But the selection process for volunteers in a tricky one. There’s a
waiting list, an interview, and a trial period. Sounds easy you might say, but believe me, it’s a lot
harder than you think. After becoming a volunteer is when the real fun starts, kind of. Before you
get to work with any of the animals, you have to learn all about them. It takes a lot of volunteer
hours, hard work, and dedication to actually get to work with some of the animals. Also new
volunteers have to learn how and start giving tours as soon as possible. And if you’re a volunteer
long enough and show a lot of dedication you might be lucky enough to receive a project animal.
Becoming a Volunteer
Like I said the selection process for new volunteers is a long one. There is a current
waiting list of about one hundred and fifty to two hundred. Now that’s what the paper work says,
but a lot of the people on the waiting list have moved away, no longer have the time, or just don’t
want to anymore. When there is an opening for a new volunteer, a staff member will call one
ever is number one on the list and schedule an interview.
The interview is a little intimidating, even though the staff tries to make it as comfortable
as possible. The interview is usually outside; weather permitting, amongst all of the animals and
right in the middle of the fast paced volunteers. The interviewee sits down with the director of
the foundation, Roberta Kirshner, and usually one maybe even two senior volunteers. Interviews
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are scary enough one on one but a three on one just doesn’t seem fair. Not only is it three on one
but there’s about three to six more volunteers interrupting every couple of minutes to ask
Roberta a question and be introduced and of course Roberta is always pausing the interview to
see what everyone is up too. The interview itself is not that tough, the questions mostly consist
of; “Why do you want to volunteer?” and “What experience do you have?” and so on.
Once the interview is over you are free to walk about and are usually asked to take a
moment to observe the senior volunteers while they are working. After the potential volunteer
leaves, Roberta will ask all of the senior volunteers, one by one, what their first impressions were
of the potential volunteer, to compare and contrast everyone’s opinions, including hers. She does
this for good reason though. She wants to know everyone feelings and thoughts towards the
potential volunteer, because if the senior volunteers do not get along with the new volunteers
then there will be some problems. And problems between the volunteers are the last thing you
want while working around exotic animals, such as lions and tigers. When I asked Gary Day, a
senior volunteer, if any of the other volunteers get on his nerves he replied;
“Yes, absolutely. It’s not just one; it’s a few of them. But it is only because they don’t try
to communicate with the rest of us (volunteers). Another thing is that we are all adults and some
of them still have little kid arguments. They really need to stop their bickering and just talk to
each other like adults. And some of them need major attitude adjustments.”
After hearing all of the senior volunteers’ input on the potential volunteer, Roberta will
usually think it over for a couple of days. If the potential volunteer is lucky enough to receive a
volunteer spot, a senior volunteer will call and schedule them for their first day. (Even if the
potential volunteer does not get a spot, they still receive a phone call) On the first day of work,
newbies (new volunteers) can expect to do the grunt work. Washing dishes, raking leaves and
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nuts, and the cleaning of various objects are all considered grunt work. After a couple of days
newbies usually get moved up to the horses. A senior volunteer will accompany them and show
them what it means to “do the horses”. The senior volunteer doesn’t just stand there and tell them
what to do, but actually does it with them and explains why we do it. The horses are always the
first animal experience newbies get. They learn; the horses’ names, where to dump the waters,
importance of scrubbing the waters, what flakes are, how many flakes for certain horses, the
different types of hay, how to feed, and where to feed. Most newbies get stuck with horses until a
new newbie comes along or someone has already done the horses that day. The next step up
would be learning how to “do” (process of feeding, cleaning, and watering) the dogs. And after
that come the reptiles, and then possibly feeding the animals, then going in and “doing” the fawn
and wallaby and then the coatimundies. But the pace of all this really depends on the volunteer’s
work ethic, dedication and common sense.
Tours
Tours is something every volunteer has to learn as soon as possible. Tours take up a lot of
time and can be very exhausting. A tour is when a volunteer walks with a person or a group to
showcase every single animal the foundation has. The tour is a way the foundation can educate
the public about the animals. While on the tours, the visitors are encouraged to ask any
questions they may have about the animals, about the foundation, or about the research and the
volunteer will do their very best to answer the questions. Tours are very time consuming, the
average tour takes about one and a half hours to two hours. Many of the senior volunteers have
project animals they personally take care of, so new volunteers are rushed into tours so the senior
volunteers have time to take care of their “child” (project animal). Newbies usually follow senior
volunteers on their tours so they can learn about the animals and learn how to give a tour.
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Some of the volunteers give extremely well tours and others not so much. The volunteers
do not mind doing the tours, but the majority would rather not do them. Sometimes tours can last
five plus hours. What happens is; a tour is started and another group will join the tour half way
through and at the end of the tour, the tour guide has to take the new people back to what they
missed, and more people will join the tour and the tour guide has to continue and go back with
whatever the new people have not seen. It can be very frustrating and tiring, so usually another
volunteer will try and switch. They call this “Musical Volunteers” when volunteers just keep
switching on the tour, to give whoever is giving the tour a break.
During the tours is, obviously, the most time spent with the public. Dealing with the
public, on tours, is not always the easiest thing. Some visitors do not ask any questions at all, and
that makes for a very awkward and quite tour. Some visitors never stop asking questions, and all
of the volunteers agree that giving a tour with visitors who ask a lot of questions, seems to go a
lot faster and easier.
Work
The staff puts in a lot of work hours throughout the week. It is a twenty four hour care
facility, so the work never seems to stop. There are three shifts, the late night/ early morning
shift, the morning/ afternoon shift, and the evening shift. I studied the morning/ afternoon shift
for this paper. On a typical day the staff would begin with feeding at about nine o’clock in the
morning. At the same time a newbie, or the boy volunteers, would be taking care of the horses. If
there are visitors that have come for a tour, one of the girl volunteers will usually take care of the
tour. After all of the animals have been fed, watered and cleaned, the work is still not done. After
the animals are taken care of, volunteers pass the time by doing dishes, organizing, reorganizing,
and improving (improving cages, methods, and the foundation in general). On one of my days
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out there, my brother and I improved a horse corral. We spent an hour and a half digging a six
inch deep, thirty foot long trench in the mud, so the water would drain out of the horse corral and
into a field. I’ve also helped out with the tarping and retarping of cages. The cages get a new set
of tarps twice a year, once before the rainy season and once after the rainy season. The tarps help
protect the animals from the rain, wind, sleet, hail and sun. Tarping a cage is no walk in the park.
The process of tarping is a team effort. To tarp a cage, the staff members have to climb atop the
cage, and figure out the most efficient way to lay the tarps. Not all cages are the same size or
same structure. So some cages are different. The weather plays a part in tarping as well. The heat
can tire out volunteers faster, the wind blows the tarps away, and the rain makes it cold and
miserable for the volunteers.
The Public
Dealing with the public is no volunteers’ favorite thing to do. The public can be
exceptionally rude or tremendously nice. The rude ones are incredibly tough to deal with,
because the volunteers have to remain calm and respectful. The foundation allows visitors by
appointment only and some people just do not get that. They will show up and most of the time
there will be an opening and they can walk around, but sometimes the foundation has met the
limit for the day and has to turn people away. In this case, some people tend to become
extraordinarily infuriated and proceed with yelling, cussing, and arguing with the staff members.
Other times visitors become angry is at check in, when the staff member asks for the payment.
The foundation is run on donations, but they ask for a minimum donation per visitor. The staff
member will explain why they ask for a minimum donation (the donations pay for medicine,
food, shelter, equipment and whatever else the animals will need to keep the foundation up and
running. The foundation goes through about six hundred pounds of food a day and that bill can
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add up.). A few visitors do not understand that the foundation follows rules and regulations set
forth by the county and the state. And those few volunteers insist on going inside the perimeter
gate to a closer look at the animals.
“Well of course with visitors I go about them as polite and sophisticated as possible.”
Gary said when asked how he deals with visitors. The visitors who insist on going inside the
perimeter gate usually do not listen to the staff very well and will keep persisting in get on the
inside. Those visitors are always watched a little bit closer. Some visitors have actually tried just
walking through the gates to get closer, but a volunteer is always nearby to stop them and explain
why they cannot enter the first gate, reason being for their safety because they are not properly
trained to be around exotic animals. Some volunteers question why the foundation has these
animals. Eighty percent of the animals are special needs animals and are non releasable. The
healthy ones were born into captivity so they are non releasable as well. There are a few animals
that were brought in from the wild, for one thing or another. Some needed medical attention and
simply got to use to people and are no longer considered releasable. Others are non native
species to the surrounding areas and should not be in the wild. But people still question the
foundation’s moral integrity.
Of course the nice visitors are a lot easier to deal with. The nicer visitors will usually
donate a little extra then required of them, which helps out the foundation immensely. They
follow all of the rules and usually ask how they can help the foundation out. That’s one way the
foundation finds new volunteers, is from the visitors. People come out and visit and fall in love
with the place and hope to become a volunteer themselves.
There are a few strange people that come out. Story goes that once upon a time there was
an elder lady who loved domestic cats. She had quite a few cats and could no longer take care of
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them all. She heard about the foundation and how they have cats. She stopped by once and let
loose about fifteen cats or so, and now the foundation has countless feral cats running around.
Other strange people want to adopt the foundation’s animals. They want to take them home for a
few days and take care of them themselves. Some of them have asked to take one of the baby
animals or one of the smaller animals, like the Fennec Foxes (world’s smallest fox). But some
have asked to take home a lion or a tiger. Another one of the stranger visitors the foundation has
had would be a man, who is hell bent on donating to the foundation. But not just a normal
donation, he wants to donate his body to the animals when he passes… He feels he is extremely
healthy and that he would be an asset to the animals. Visitors like these are very awkward to deal
with. The volunteers will try and just laugh and play it off like these people are just joking. But
oddly enough, they’re not. These visitors make most of the volunteers feel uneasy, so they try to
change the subject but that doesn’t always work.
When the public, nice or rude, is around all of the staff members straighten up. Not that
the staff is messing around when the public is not there, but when they have visitors the staff
becomes more professional. They watch what they say and how the act in general. When the
public is around they become more “sophisticated” as Gary puts it. They stop using slang and
actually use proper English, something you don’t tend to hear anymore. Their attitudes change as
well. They go from being grumpy and impolite to nice and ever so sweet.
What I’ve Learned
I learned how people become volunteers. I’ve watched the selection process and the
interviews. I’ve seen the pure terror in the eyes of potential volunteers as they sit with three
people drilling them with questions. I’ve seen newbies uneasily attempt to learn the ways of the
foundation. I’ve witnessed senior volunteers lose their patience with newbies. I learned how to
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conduct a tour, and how agonizing tours can be. I learned the importance of “musical volunteers”
and why the volunteers play. I picked up on the “best” ways to deal with some visitors, and
unfortunately some not-so-kosher methods. I learned about all the hard work this group puts in,
in a single day; from cleaning, to feeding, to watering, to maintenance, to improvements and of
course dealing with the public. I honestly believe it takes a special kind of person to volunteer
and actually last out there.
I’ve learned a lot from this experience. But I think I about the staff more than anything
else. They all come from different walks of life. Most have totally different interest. Most would
probably have never befriended each other if it wasn’t for the foundation. Some volunteer to
help their careers while others are in it for nothing at all. Regardless of where ever they came
from, whatever they’re into, whatever they’re like, whatever their reasons for volunteering are,
they all have at least one thing in common; one thing that bonds them together (whether they like
it or not), one thing that holds the foundation together day in and day out, one thing that allows
this group of once total strangers to work together, and that one thing is simply love; love for the
animals.