Why zookeepers wear KHAKI

In Australia, khaki has historically been the outdoors shirt colour. I guess that is because army shirts were readily available, cheap and hard wearing. Zoo uniforms have followed this, although there are uniforms that are green. One major zoo tried to introduce blue polo shirts with red and orange flashes (if I remember right). They lasted about two years.

More recently most outdoors workers now wear safety shirts in orange or yellow, I am glad zoos have not followed this trend although one side effect is that it is harder and harder to find work gear in more traditional colours. This is especially true for womens wear.

I am hard put to think of an Australian zoo of any size that does not have a staff uniform, although for smaller zoos it is just a polo shirt. I remember Jersey Zoo in the UK never used to have uniforms, until a small child fell into the gorilla enclosure. Visitors could not find a staff member to inform.

Moonlit Sanctuary recently introduced a new uniform, largely designed by staff themselves. It has a sand / beige shirt and black pants. I think they look very smart, and I have not noticed any problems with them getting excessively dirty.
 
The environment plays the biggest part in What color your uniform should be.


When I worked with primates I noticed that my uniform would be immaculate since I had to change into PPE anytime I did any kind of Labor otherwise you're just cutting fruit, shifting, feeding and training.


Terraniums and outdoor reptile exhibits were a little more complicated cuz it required kneeling and some unusual infrastructure (LSS)


Carnivore was only a problem when you are dealing with the animals feed otherwise the upkeep and labor was again pretty clean overall


The real trouble starts when you get into Horticulture, herbivore and aviculture and of course any of the support staff like groundskeeping/trash management.
The biggest problem occurs of course whenever you have to do any kind of Horticultural work or facility maintenance


Botanical and petroleum oils were of course the biggest offenders but good old-fashioned soil stains caused quite a headache as well.
I can't count how many times I had to take a knee in the dirt to do something and then rush to a keeper talk.


No time to change your uniform so you just had to run to a faucet and feverishly scrub at your dirt stain


Would have rather spent that time checking that the animals are shifted properly rather than cleaning my BEIGE trousers.
Honestly this kind of attitude come from circus management stragity and the great white hunter


More worried about appearance than efficiency

And always with the underlying tone of European domination over the uncivilized jungle beasts and indigenous peoples culture of that foreign land.
 
MRJ said:
In Australia, khaki has historically been the outdoors shirt colour. I guess that is because army shirts were readily available, cheap and hard wearing. Zoo uniforms have followed this, although there are uniforms that are green. One major zoo tried to introduce blue polo shirts with red and orange flashes (if I remember right). They lasted about two years.

More recently most outdoors workers now wear safety shirts in orange or yellow, I am glad zoos have not followed this trend although one side effect is that it is harder and harder to find work gear in more traditional colours. This is especially true for womens wear.

I am hard put to think of an Australian zoo of any size that does not have a staff uniform, although for smaller zoos it is just a polo shirt. I remember Jersey Zoo in the UK never used to have uniforms, until a small child fell into the gorilla enclosure. Visitors could not find a staff member to inform.

Moonlit Sanctuary recently introduced a new uniform, largely designed by staff themselves. It has a sand / beige shirt and black pants. I think they look very smart, and I have not noticed any problems with them getting excessively dirty.
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At Hamerton we provide fleeces, tee-shirts and sweat-shirts in dark (bottle) green with our logo on the left breast. Keepers provide their own suitable trousers, which for most of our year are jeans - although there is always a possible glimpse of knee, however fleetingly...
 
"From St. Ann's it comes to you
The best kali weed you ever drew
So why should you run and hide?
From the red seam, the blue seam
The khaki clothes too"

In these classic lyrics from reggae great Jacob Miller one can appreciate how colonialism impacted the afro Caribbean Rastafarian community as khaki was seen as the classic color of oppression.

You would think the modern animal park would have enough sense to avoid such a color...FAIL

Here he performs in classic military green.
Reggae artists often adopt these colors in protest and to illustrate the struggle to break free from the tyranny of colonialism

 
Andrew Swales said:
In the absence of a picture of Steve Irwin - perhaps these last posts should be split into a 'big white hunter' or 'colonial uniforms' category...?
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I would argue thats it's all the same in theory

Khaki or better yet beige is the color of the bourgeois, privileged overseer class when they are in the "field"

it is the classic color of colonialism, it simply represents the European domination over the wild and untamed land and their savage people.

With all the focus on "optics" and public opinion one would think the Modern Animal Park would be keen on avoiding this image

in a classic failure to recognize the history of this color they have failed.

This is what happens when people get promoted based on who they are not what they know.
 
Tiffany Saunders said:
I would argue thats it's all the same in theory

Khaki or better yet beige is the color of the bourgeois, privileged overseer class when they are in the "field"

it is the classic color of colonialism, it simply represents the European domination over the wild and untamed land and their savage people.

With all the focus on "optics" and public opinion one would think the Modern Animal Park would be keen on avoiding this image

in a classic failure to recognize the history of this color they have failed.

This is what happens when people get promoted based on who they are not what they know.
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I would still doubt that such thoughts were foremost in the minds of most (Australian? or American?) zoo uniform designers. In the UK, some zoos use very bright colours, pale blue, yellow even.
 
british-redcoats.jpg
Andrew Swales said:
I would still doubt that such thoughts were foremost in the minds of most (Australian? or American?) zoo uniform designers. In the UK, some zoos use very bright colours, pale blue, yellow even.
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I couldn't agree more this is light years away from their minds.

Hopefully one day they'll read this thread and start thinking about it.

People do lots of stupid things for tradition, they just go on autopilot and copy whatever they did last year

Like I said it's pretty trivial when you consider the military personnel who died because their uniforms were improperly colored
 
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Daktari JG said:
Definitely predated Jack Hanna
Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom on Sunday nights with Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler | Wild Kingdom | Pinterest | My childhood memories, Childhood memories and My memory

For the show Mutual of Omaha Marlin Perkins normally wore a suit, but when in the field it was almost always khaki
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Great example but remember these people were actors and television personalities under pressure from networks and advertisers to portray a certain image that fit within the stereotypical View of the average American consumer.

I can guarantee you 100% that these men did not do the daily chores of animal keeping in a zoological Park in that getup

And if they were dumb enough to try they would wind up buying new uniforms frequently and scrubbing the ones they own with harsh chemicals just like everybody else that does the daily hard work feeding cleaning and upkeeping the Zoological Garden.
 
Marlin Perkins was the director of the the St Louis, Lincoln Park and Buffalo zoos. He started his career as a day laborer (which I take to mean a maintenance man), then become a reptile keeper.
St Louis was sporting khakis in the mid to late 60s for sure.
 
Daktari JG said:
Marlin Perkins was the director of the the St Louis, Lincoln Park and Buffalo zoos. He started his career as a day laborer (which I take to mean a maintenance man), then become a reptile keeper.
St Louis was sporting khakis in the mid to late 60s for sure.
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What a great example of someone who worked their way up.

Almost Unheard of these days.

See if you can find some pics?

Of course in those days photography was far more "rehearsed" and unlikely to feature the "labor"

Plus they has way more time on their hands and would "dress up" for media
 
Vintage Franklin Park Zoo--1955

Walter Martin Elephant Keeper

One can clearly see a wise color choice for animal keeping in 1955 as this is a real animal handler not a t.v. personality

1955 Walter Martin Elephant Keeper Franklin Park Zoo 2.jpg
 
Just a note about the use of red for the British army back in the day (or blue for France, or any other colour, it wasn't just the Brits). To quote from the Wikipedia page on red military uniforms:

Rationale for red
From the modern perspective, the retention of a highly conspicuous colour such as red for active service appears inexplicable and foolhardy, regardless of how striking it may have looked on the parade ground. However, in the days of the musket (a weapon of limited range and accuracy) and black powder, battle field visibility was quickly obscured by clouds of smoke. Bright colours provided a means of distinguishing friend from foe without significantly adding risk. Furthermore, the vegetable dyes used until the 19th century would fade over time to a pink or ruddy-brown, so on a long campaign in a hot climate the colour was less conspicuous than the modern scarlet shade would be. As formal battles of the time commonly involved deployment in columns and lines, the individual soldier was not likely to be a target by himself.
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Crowthorne said:
Just a note about the use of red for the British army back in the day (or blue for France, or any other colour, it wasn't just the Brits). To quote from the Wikipedia page on red military uniforms:
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It was often said that the commanders wanted conspicuous uniforms so they could better identify their soldiers position as opposed to the enemy.

Military history is replete with foolish uniform decisions and extraordinarily good ones

Shows you just how important color can be.
 
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