Lillian Schemadovits-Norris’ workday is filled with poop.
Primate poop, tiger poop, Malayan sun bear poop.
“You don’t have time to be grossed out, though,” she said, noting with a laugh that black-and-white ruffed lemur poop smells like macaroni and cheese.
Schemadovits-Norris, a 2008 Elizabethtown College environmental science grad, is a zookeeper at the Wildlife Safari in Winston, Oregon. And, though poop is prominent, it’s only a small part of her job.
She came to Elizabethtown from Hawaii in 2004 because she was looking for “a small school far from home,” she said. With a passion for science, her meeting Dr. Thomas Murray, professor of biology, cinched her interest in applying.
She admits, though, to having several points while at Elizabethtown College, when she called her mom 5,000 miles away “freaking out, not knowing what I should do.” She considered changing her major several times.
“But Dr. Murray was my academic advisor and, from Day One, he and Dr. (Jeffery) Long always gave me support. Support. That’s what I think of when I think of E-town.”
At home in Hawaii, over holiday break in 2006, Schemadovits-Norris got to know the person who worked with tigers at Honolulu Zoo. “I asked a lot of questions,” she said. That summer she returned to Honolulu and volunteered for 40 hours a week. “They saw I was interested,” she said. “They gave me a lot of freedom to do different jobs.” Part of her work was giving “Keeper Talks” about the zoo and its animals, and there was a lot of manual labor, too. “I like working hard and I don’t mind getting dirty.”
Jobs were hard to come by in 2008 when Schemadovits-Norris graduated from E-town and she began to feel a bit lost. “School was easy for me. I knew what I had to do. School was structured.
“I worked retail for a while and was a substitute teacher.” She also continued volunteering at the zoo for special projects. “Basically, I milled around for a year.”
She hadn’t thought of zoo keeping as a job but, in spring 2009, she took an internship at the International Exotic Animal Sanctuary in Boyd, Texas. Almost 200 people applied, and only eight got jobs. She was among them. With the internship, she got free housing and a basic stipend. That was “more than most zoo internships; I felt like I hit the zoo internship jackpot!” she said. “I was there for six months, working 10-hour days, six days a week. And it was one of the greatest experiences.”
In addition to learning about animals, Schemadovits-Norris said her work at the sanctuary taught her about her personal work style. “Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today,” she said. “I also learned that I wasn’t doing it for the money (equivalent to $1.89 an hour) but for the animals – like landscaping when it’s 108 degrees.”
When the internship was over, Schemadovits-Norris found herself with a very specialized skill set and only 220 zoo and sanctuary facilities in the United States. And, she said, she knew she would only work for Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA)-approved organizations, narrowing her search even further. AZA- approved facilities uphold strict standards in management protocol, vet care, animal care, diet and nutrition.
On a whim, she moved to Florida and worked at an animal hospital as a kennel tech, assisting the vet. After a year, she switched gears and worked in property management. But, she said, “I felt myself moving further and further away from the animals and environmental science.” So she started grad school in 2012 at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. “I wanted to explore more about environmental policy,” she said. She also found herself at the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Tacoma. “All of a sudden I was a zookeeper intern again.”
It was there, that she said she fell in love. She was working 40 hours while completing her master’s degree and realized this is the work she’s destined to do.
At the park are animals native only the Pacific Northwest – bears, wolves, coyotes, foxes, otters, raccoons, birds of prey. “It’s a giant 500-acre exhibit with herds,” she said. Bison, mountain goats, sheep, moose.
In 2013, after her two year grad school program, Schemadovits-Norris said got her first paid position with a zoo at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Washington. She was hired to work seasonally in the kids’ zone, she said, working with reptiles, herps, meerkats and lemurs.
And, as usual, she continued looking for a job. “It became an obsession,” she said. “I’d check AZA every day.” Having the seasonal job, however, seemed to be the golden ticket. “I got more attention from other zoos” including one with Wildlife Safari. “It was a working interview,” she said. “I worked for a day while other zookeepers watched and interacted. They watched my instincts. I thought it was great.”
She was hired in September 2013 in the Village, a 300-acre drive-through area of safari herds – rhinos, wildebeests, lions (behind a fence). “It’s free to the public, like a zoo within a zoo” with 55 species.
The animals, though, are her reason for going to work each day. They, or rather their deaths, also are the worst part of her job. “It’s like a child,” she said. “When they begin to decline and you need to make that decision. Ultimately it’s the vet, curator and supervisor, but we give an opinion because we work closely with the animal.”
A recent death is still raw for Schemadovits-Norris. Mateo, a male maned wolf, for which she was primary trainer, started to fail. He was 13. “He declined superfast … he stopped eating.
“We took turns doing overnights. Every four hours we had to give him medicine. It rarely happens in zoos but we didn’t need to make the call,” she said, her voice dropping to quiet. “He went on his own.”
Schemadovits-Norris is now lead keeper working with six others; she also is the intern coordinator. “That’s a job I fought for,” Schemadovits-Norris said. “I really wanted to work with the interns. I wanted to give back for all I learned when I was them.”