Seven days of Zoo volunteering

I have done my seven-day volunteering work at the National Zoo, Ampang. My friends and I, which are 10 of us had involved in this zoo volunteering. We took turns to be the driver and it took about 30 minutes to reach National Zoo from IMU. At the national zoo, we were asking to divide ourselves into three or four per group. Then each group was working in different departments. There are 10 departments that available and we are not allow to choose department to be worked in. I myself had worked in 5 different departments with 2 repetition along this seven days.

First day (17th August) - Bear Department

I was same group with Hoon Mun, Yoke Li and Sasi in this department. Then we were further divided and i was working with Yoke Li at the goat, pademelon and deer place. We are asked to collect the animal's food waste (branches) and sweep the dried leaves. Then the rubbish and branches were collected and thrown to the rubbish area. 

We worked from 8a.m. to 4p.m. with a lunch break at 12p.m. to 2p.m. We had built our arm muscle!! 

 

Second day (7th November) - Ape Department

This is the ape centre. Hoon Mun and I were working here for this day. First we were asked to collected the rubbish and dried leaves around the centre. Then we were asked to prepare the ape's food. Hoon Mun distributed the vegetables and breads to different buckets equally. While I was cutting the fruits (papaya, guava) into the buckets.

After preparing the food, we cleaned up the place. Then we were asked to duty at the entrance. Tourists are not allow to smoke and bring any food or drinks into the ape centre.



Third day (9th November) - Sarvana Department
Today is again me and Hoon Mun plus Lam which is in a group. We were asked to work at the sarvana department. Sarvana area is the area for giraffe, zebra, antelope, rhinoceros and so on. At the department, we were separated to work for different animals. I was working with the zoo keeper at the giraffe enclosure. I was asked to sweep the giraffes' faeces in their enclosure. After lunch, we were asked to feed the animals. Finally we took photo with the keepers in the sarvana department after all the things were done.

Fourth day (16th November) - Holding Area

Holding area is the area that holds the animal which is newly received or sick. All the animals have to be checked before they are ready to be showed to the tourists. There are cows, bears, leopards, goats and others in the holding area. Hoon Mun, Joe, Lam and I were working together to clean up the cages. Joe and Hoon Mun were helping to cut the papayas and fishes as the food while Lam and I were working in the cage to sweep the faeces, wash the floor and fill up the drinking water for animals. Then we were asked to sweep the dried leaves along the holding area. Before lunch, we were taking turns to feed the baby goat with a bottle of milk.

After lunch, we fed all the bears with some vegetables, friuts and breads. There are 2 soups that were prepared specially for 2 bears there which they named them 'boy boy' and 'girl girl'. Then we fed the leopards with a bowl of meats. The female leopard looked so lazy that she didn't want to walk back to its cage although everyone of us were calling her for so many times. We cleaned up all the things and took a photo with the keeper of the day.

Fifth day (19th November) - Ape Department

Again I was working at the ape department and doing the same things like what I had done before. The main different is that my partner was not Hoon Mun, but Eugene and Lam. First at the ape centre, we were asked to scrap the wall for painting. We sat there and scrapped, then I was so lucky to be asked to cut the fruits for apes as Eugene and Lam had to continue scrapping. Just after scrapping and cutting fruits, rain was coming. We had to stop our job since we were working outdoors. After the rain stopped, we then collected the rubbish and dried leaves around the ape centre. Then again we were asked to guard the entrance after lunch.


Sixth day (20th November) - Enrichment Centre

Coming to the sixth day of being zoo volunteer, I was feeling a bit tiring but still it was fun for me. Today I was working for half day from 8a.m. to 12p.m. with Lam, Hoon Mun and MK. I was working at the enrichment department with Hoon Mun where we were so excited that it is a different department from the others. Enrichment department is a department where they make the toy for animals to test their agility and cleverness. Those toys are used to train the animals' brain. They put the animals' food into the toy to test their intelligence and the animals have to try to get their food from the toys. We were asked to colour the boxes and balloons to make them more interesting for their looking.

This is my product!!
Is it looked like giraffe's skin??
(which I planned to draw)

But I failed...but luckily it does look like the skin of leopard!!!

and also the balloons that we had coloured....they are colourful and i am sure that the animals will like it so much!!! haha...


Seventh day (23rd November) - Bear Department
This is the last day as a zoo volunteer and it was the happiest day among the seven days. Only 5 of us were joining for the day which are Su-Xian, Yoke Li, Joe, Eugene and I. There were a lot of volunteers for the day so five of us requested to stay in a same group and we did! We were working at the bear department which I had done before. So I quite clear about what we should do at there but still there were a zoo keeper that leading us. Joe and I was in a group of two and working at the goat, pademelon and deer area. We were also going to the bat cage to change their water and hang their fruits up. The same things that I had done which are clean up the place, fed them and sweep the dried leaves.
After lunch, it was raining so we had nothing to do. We sat there and chit chat for an hour to wait for the rain to stop. Then we continue our cleaning up work after the rain stopped until 4p.m. We washed our boats and say 'GOODBYE' to national zoo. We got a certificate as we had done zoo volunteer for 40 hours.

Although it was tiring, but I had lots of memories and fun there. I got my experience to be a volunteer at the national zoo.

It was definitely a memorable seven-day of being zoo volunteer!!
(especially with all of you, my friends~)