Gender Of Zookeepers - 70% Are Women

[snowleopard]

In the brand-new book "Animals Always: 100 Years at the Saint Louis Zoo" there is a statement that 70% of all keepers in American zoos are women, which is in sharp contrast from past decades. On ZooChat there was a fairly recent poll that identified the fact that 80% of ZooChatters are men. An interesting couple of statistics...

 

[CindelP]

In Zoochat those numbers are explained by the fact the only men have time to come to the internet and be part of those polls, while women have a life after work

 

[Peter Dickinson]

As they say, "there are lies, damned lies and statistics". In a situation like this one would have to first determine the percentage of 'Zoochatters' who are actually Zoo Keepers and not simply zoo fans.

 

[Ann Littlewood]

When I was an zoo keeper, back before the earth cooled, women were rare. In fact, I was the third woman--ever--on an animal staff of 20 or so in a zoo that was 90 years old. That was in the 1970s. I was still there to see women move into the profession. I have to wonder if the advances in animal husbandry training, as opposed to farm methods using ropes and prods, happened at least in part because women were more receptive to them than men. But perhaps that's unfair. Certainly good trainers come in both genders nowadays.

 

[Ituri]

It would be interesting to see statistics involving genders of "leads" and "curators". From my observations I would assume (big assumption) that those two spots are still largely male dominated.

 

[Ann Littlewood]

Yes, that would be interesting. The new director of Oregon Zoo is Kim Stanley, a woman. Mary Heely runs the Sacramento Zoo, and that's all I remember at the moment!

 

[reduakari]

Yes, that would be interesting. The new director of Oregon Zoo is Kim Stanley, a woman. Mary Heely runs the Sacramento Zoo, and that's all I remember at the moment!

That would be "Smith" and "Healy." There are dozens of female zoo directors in the US, including (off the top of my head) Seattle, Toledo, Tulsa, Pittsburgh, St. Paul, Akron, Monterey Bay, Tucson, San Francisco, Houston, Audubon Aquarium, Prospect Park. I would guess that 40-50% of curators are women, and an even higher percentage of lead keepers/supervisors.