 MAY KEEPER OF THE MONTH Michelle Pywell has been working in zoos for 14 years and has been at the Welsh Mountain Zoo for 4 years. Michelle has worked with many animals over the years, including elephants and giraffe through to kookaburras and Macaws. Michelle has also hand reared cranes, storks, penguin chicks, baby reindeer, sheep, goats, horses and wallabies. After many years of handrearing animals, Michelle decided to train animals for displays, such as our daily Penguin Parades and Sealion Demonstrations (the picture below shows Michelle training our male sealion, Cousteau). Michelle is now assistant head keeper at the Welsh Mountain Zoo and still spends much of her day cleaning enclosures, preparing food and training a variety of animals. You can see Michelle at our chimp, bird and sealion shows daily throughout the year. Michelle is also head of presentations and has to ensure that a high standard of husbandry and training is met. On top of all these duties, Michelle is also in charge of maintaining the animal records, through a special programme called ARKS, this links up with zoo's around the world and holds information on all the animals in zoos.
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 Michelle is also an assessor here at the Welsh Mountain Zoo and her job is to train the trainee keepers up to a high standard then access their work so they pass NVQ modules. Currently the presenters are training a young raven, which will be introduced to the Winged Wonders Flying Displays in the near future. |
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