Summer work in australia?

Z

Zooexplorer

New Member
Sorry if this is in the wrong part of the forum, feel free to move the thread. I'm new to this forum.

I am currently working in my local zoo in the UK and have been for a number of years. I have worked in a number of departments in this time including General grounds keeping, retail and also in the café. I have recently been thinking about coming to Australia for the summer to work and maybe do little bit of volunteering, at a zoo. I was just wondering whether zoos in Oz hire people from the UK for the peak season? Any tips and advise would be brilliant.

Thanks in advance.
 
I know that in Europe and North America zoos have a definite "busy season" across the summer months and are a lot less busy for obvious reasons in winter. Thus they often hire a lot of temporary staff for an extended summer season.

While zoos in Australia (at least around the major cities) are definitely busier in warmer months, numbers are a lot more even across the year so there is little need for a large number of temporary staff in the summer. The exception would be the actual school holiday period, which would account for about 5 weeks around Christmas and 2 weeks at Easter. Then the tendency would be to employ senior high school students to boost staff numbers for those periods.

Each zoo would have it's own policies regarding volunteers, however there are opportunities available.
 
I agree with what MRJ said above, and suggest you contact the zoo in the city you are planning to visit in order to see what they offer. If, however, you are happy to work outside the industry and only volunteer, then you should have little problem as there are many opportunities in that field.

And in case you aren't aware of it, Australia has very few zoos compared to the UK, although we do have quite a number of fauna parks displaying predominantly (or entirely) native species.

:p

Hix
 
Thanks for the reply's. I will contact a few Zoos to see what they say. As I'm prepared to volunteer but would need to work to cover costs.
 
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