At 9:00 am, most of us are still groggily adjusting to the start of a new work day.
But not Jim Knox.
When I met him at 9:00 am at the Beardsley Zoo on one of those Spring days where you feel like you are literally slow-cooking from the heat, Jim Knox was boisterous, smiling, and eager to tell me all about his job. We walked around the zoo and he showed me some of the animals, rattling off interesting facts.
For instance, I now know that there are only about forty amur leopards left in the world (some of which will be on exhibit at the zoo this summer!), or that the baby piglets I saw were born exactly sixteen days ago, or that tigers are as strong as (or stronger than) seventeen grown humans put together.
I observed as Jim taught a class of visiting first graders about rainforest creatures, answering their rapid-fire questions with the utmost patience.
As the Curator of Education, Jim Knox deals with the zoo's 150 different species (450 individual animals not counting the insects and smaller creatures), teaches the hundreds of students who could be seen walking around the zoo in packs of brightly colored matching t-shirts, and researches conservation. Through all the hustle and bustle that comes with working at a zoo, he was engaged at all times, and it was clear that he truly loves what he does.
Did you always know you wanted to work in this field?
Yes and no. In college I actually took an aptitude test when I was an economics major, and it said that I should be a curator. A zoo, museum, or an aquarium curator. I’m not kidding. And eventually, I gravitated toward that anyway. In college, I was an animal science major, you know, on that track.
So you found your calling at the zoo?
When I graduated I wanted to work with animals, but with animals and people. So I thought that a zoo is a good opportunity because you can teach, and you can conduct hands on conservation, and you can make an impact without going to the far corners of the globe. So that’s essentially why I’m doing what I’m doing today. Mostly I do it because I don’t mind getting dirty. Because it’s a physical job as well as it’s a desk job. But it’s also a roll up your sleeves type of job, so I like having an office like this, a fifty acre office essentially, but I also enjoy working with people every bit as much as I enjoy working with animals.
The Beardsley Zoo's peacock
Did you ever come to the Beardsley Zoo as a kid?
The zoo is ninety-one years old, and…I’m not quite ninety-one yet. I grew up in New York State in Westchester County, and I came here once as a kid. I can barely remember it, but two things I remember vaguely. I remember going on the Merritt Parkway and seeing a sign for the zoo and badgering my dad. ‘Dad! Dad! Dad! Can we go to the zoo?’ and I wore him out. The other thing I remember is I vaguely remember the elephants. But, it hooked me and I came back. One way or another, it hooked me and I came back.
Tell us about your role as the Curator of Education.
Our staff is small enough that you wear a lot of hats. So no two days are ever alike. Truly, I’ve worked here for sixteen years and no two days have ever been alike. You’re never bored. Sometimes you’re really tired, sometimes you’re beaten down. If we have a blizzard, we’re shoveling snow, we’re snow-blowing, doing walkways and all of that. Whatever it takes in terms of just mother nature, making sure everything is safe and beautiful, as well. […] All the people here work together, they really do pull together in a nice way. In terms of the actual workplace and the tasks, our mission is conservation, saving wild creatures and wild places, and education — teaching everybody all about that mission. And most of the people that come through our gates truly want to protect plants and animals and wild places, so it’s not a hard sell. Recreation [is also important]. People come here to have fun, and if they’re not having fun, then we’re not doing our job. You know it has to be a safe engaging place for families, couples, everybody. And research. We actually study animal behavior here, we study wild animals, we go out into the wild. Our staff, myself included, have been to Africa, Alaska, the Belizean rain forest to study animals from around the world so we can be better educators when we’re here.
Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches
How many endangered species call the Beardsley Zoo home?
We have many. We have numerous species that are what we call SSP animals — Species Survival Plan animals. These are programs designed to breed endangered species, often times reintroduce them into the wild, but first and foremost to bolster their numbers and their genetic integrity.
Tell us more about that program — how does it work?
We abide by the decisions of the SSP coordinators to breed these animals, like red wolves or tigers, or they could be looking to breed Brazilian ocelots, or maned wolves. So when they say ‘hey, we have a male in Omaha at the Henry Doorly Zoo and he’s a good match for your female, so we recommend that you send your female out to Omaha or this male be brought out cross country to your facility,’ what we do is facilitate those moves. We work very closely with the animal care staff as educators to teach about this role, where the animal care folks are bringing the animals in, introducing them, studying them minutely. We work with Fairfield University to help us with observations. We have trained undergraduate observers who work with us and have worked with us for a couple of years now. Everybody plays a role in this and they all work together to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to reduce stress on animals when they move them across country.
Jim Knox showing a Macaw Parrot to a class of visiting students
What other actions does the zoo take to conserve animals?
In the case of red wolves or some other animals locally here in Connecticut, for example, Atlantic salmon, we were involved in restoration projects to bring these animals back into the wild. Three days this spring we went out with the state of Connecticut and stocked endangered Atlantic salmon back in the Connecticut rivers where they had been exterminated. We might get a call, ‘hey there’s an osprey — or a raven — down in Beardsley park entangled in fishing line, can you come and rescue it?’ And we say, ‘Okay. Whatever it takes.’
What are some of the grimier tasks you have to do as part of your job?
We clean out duck ponds here at the zoo, and we’ll go in there and we will drop the pond levels [for filtration purposes]. If you fall into a duck pond — a muddy duck pond where ducks happen to poop — that can be a very messy situation, a very smelly situation and your wife is not too happy when you come home at the end of the day. […] Sometimes we have to move organic compost or wood chips or any number of things, and you can get really messy. Working around poop and animals we do our very best to remain clean. You can wear gloves, boot up depending on what type of animal you’re working with and so on, but you can get pretty dirty even if you’re careful. And among zookeepers and among animal care folks it’s almost a badge of courage to be a little bit dirty. You know, like the players on the sidelines that have the pristine jerseys, you say, ‘hey you weren’t even in the action, you didn’t do anything.’ You want to feel like you’re contributing, and if you have a little bit of smudge on you, hey, you’re getting your hands dirty.
Are any of the animals more problematic than others?
I wouldn't say problematic, but, for example, I was a predator keeper for years. I worked with tigers everyday. And tigers, for example, they’re beautiful. They’re majestic. Everybody loves them. You see them on Animal Planet and say, ‘Oh I want to hug a tiger!’ Guess what? Tigers are lethal predators. I love them, they scare me to death, and if anybody knows the first thing about tigers they should scare them to death, too. But I still love them and I love the fact that I can play a role, albeit a very small role, individually. Everybody who walks through our gates, believe it or not, can play a role in the conservation of tigers. Twenty-five cents from every admission of every person that comes through these gates goes toward conservation projects.
The tiger exhibit
What exhibits are going to be featured this summer?
Last night we got in three mexican wolves, three females and they’re sisters. They came in from California and […] they’ll be on exhibit very soon. The amur leopard exhibit is coming along really nicely and that should be open within the next two weeks, so we're really excited about that. Today marks the first day we're having camel rides at the zoo, and we're excited about that as well because that’s an exhibit as well as an interactive. We look forward to Zoo Patrol, our zoo summer camp for kids. It’s a half-day teaching program, but it is immensely popular with kids in the region and that’s always a lot of fun.
A Bearded Dragon
What is your favorite thing about your job?
You know, I really want to stress that I love my job. I love it. My brothers work on Wall Street, and they make a lot of money. But you really have to love what you do everyday, and care about it. And I do.
Beardsley Zoo
1875 Noble Ave Bridgeport, CT 06610