One of Greg Genuardi’s greatest joys is sharing his love for animals with others.
A native of Virginia, Genuardi was born and raised in Fairfax, 20 minutes outside of Washington, D.C. He attended the University of Mary Washington, a small liberal arts college in Fredericksburg.
“I’ve always wanted to work with animals, and I love animals, but I’m not a fan of blood, so I knew doing veterinary work was out of the question,” Genuardi said. “My parents love animals. Growing up outside of D.C., we often went to the Smithsonian Zoo, as well as other large zoos and animal locations in the northeast. The college I went to was so small that there was no zoology or environmental science, so I got a degree in psychology. It ended up working out pretty well because, senior year, I was on a research team with a professor who did animal behavior research. That was a good first experiment in animal care and research,” Genuardi said.
The research track would continue to give Genuardi the animal experience he needed to build up his resume.
“My college had a campus club partnered with a national service dog organization. We were able to raise dogs for that program on campus. From the summer of 2015 to the late fall of 2016, I raised a two-week-old puppy to be a service dog. I could take him anywhere with me as long as the professors and businesses were okay with it,” Genuardi said. “Then, I got a 3-month internship with the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. There were limited spots, and I had to compete for it. I was told after I had started working there that they were interested that I had trained a service dog. I did the internship, and after graduating, they wanted me back, so that was an extension of my first internship but more in-depth.”
During Genuardi’s second internship, he helped with the petting zoo and realized that he wanted to get into the educational side of being in a zoo.
“I spoke with the education manager at the time, and they hired me at the Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans, so I was helping do programs onsite about aquatic invertebrates and reptiles. We would do chats around the aquarium. After the first year, an outreach position opened up at the Audubon Zoo, so I continued doing that and going offsite for educational presentations at schools, libraries and hospitals. I was doing that for less than a year, and then COVID hit. It was no longer possible to do those things, so the majority of my department was laid off. I worked at a doggy daycare for a while but really wanted to get back into the field. I applied up here for a position in Little Rock, even though a lot of zoos and aquariums were at a standstill. I got super lucky and ended up getting hired here for the ambassador department in February of 2021, so I moved up here from New Orleans.”
Genuardi shared what his day-to-day activities look like at the Little Rock Zoo.
“We have a pretty set schedule for our day-to-day. We take care of penguins, birds of prey, small mammals and reptiles. There are generally three or four of us who rotate through these sections, and I rotate time between penguins and the amphitheater section. I split my time between those two on Tuesdays through Saturdays. We’ll hang out in the office for a little bit to outline our job duties and what to expect for the day. Then we’ll go to our areas. The penguins are a one-person routine because we’re very lucky to have a powerwasher,” Genuardi said. “You check on everyone and make sure they’re okay and healthy, and there are no concerns, then we thaw the fish that they get fed twice a day, and then we start cleaning the exhibit. We have three breeding pairs that stay out overnight because they have nest areas, and the other 12 go inside. Once the exhibit is clean, we test our water levels, and once that’s all okay, we put everyone outside and start cleaning everything on the inside. Penguins get enrichment to help with stimulation and bring out natural behaviors. We can give them laser pointers and tennis balls, and we have a lot of the Kong toys from their zoo line that we’ll use, depending on the behavior that we’re looking for.”
Once the penguins are taken care of, Genuardi begins the amphitheater routine.
“With the amphitheater routine, you check on all of the animals and clean the areas. If there are two people, we’ll split up and start making food and cleaning. We weigh our birds every day so we can check on their health. With our small mammals and reptiles, we’ll feed them and start cleaning. The reptiles are cleaned as needed, but our mammals are cleaned every day. Once all the cleaning is done by mid to late morning, the birds get enrichment three to four times a week, and mammals and reptiles rotate,” Genuardi said.
Genuardi has also gotten the opportunity to resume the outreach that he so loves.
“We’re back to doing programs when we can. Sometimes we have to help with outreach and offsite programs, depending on which animal is going. Some animals are staff only, based on their difficulty or specificity. Our amphitheater stage hosts all of our shows. The rest of the day depends on what we have in our schedules. We do maintenance and several other things as needed,” Genuardi said. “There are random things that pop up. We dive into our penguin pool to clean it since it’s 14 ft to 16 ft deep. There are plenty of random projects, from cleaning to creating enrichment to medical checkups and exams. By the end of the day, we start our closing routine, making sure that everyone is okay before we turn off the lights. We’ll check on everyone where they are and feed our nocturnal animals at the end of the day. We’ll regroup in our office around four or so and do any outstanding paperwork and log everything that happened for the day so people who come in next can be up to date.”
Genuardi shared some of the challenges that have accompanied his zoo career.
“Moving is definitely one of the biggest ones. Professional development can be hard to come about in the field. At the Little Rock Zoo, I feel like there are more chances for me here to build my skills and knowledge than where I was before. Anyone in the Zoo can apply to go to any conference they find, and each year the Zoo will pay for a handful of us to go. Moving around is the biggest way to get more experience and development because you can really only experience new things by going somewhere else, whether it’s by working with different ambassador departments or otherwise,” Genuardi said. “In New Orleans, I didn’t work with penguins, but here, I do. It can be financially hard to do all of that moving. I was lucky to live in New Orleans at the time that I did. If I went back now, it would be much more expensive. You have to be more flexible if you want to progress.”
Genuardi explained that incomes for zookeepers are beginning to change, especially in light of all of the work (expected and otherwise) that zookeepers often find themselves doing.
“Pay isn’t the best, either. It’s sort of like being a teacher. You’re doing a lot more work than what you’re paid for. There’s a push right now in the zoo field to pay zookeepers more, so it seems like starting pay is going up more in some facilities. I was lucky enough to be an intern because I had my parents’ support, but a lot of internships and experience opportunities are unpaid, which impacts the accessibility into the field. There’s a stipend here now for interns, which has become more popular over the last few years,” Genuardi said. “We’re pushing for higher pay in general and for internship stipends to be more common. It’s a barrier that we want to break through eventually. Negative perceptions of zoos are still kind of there as well. The general public can be a little challenging, too. There was a day in New Orleans when people were protesting aquariums. You never know who you might be interacting with, and then you have to figure out how you’re going to handle it. That’s why I went into the educational side, to help people understand what exactly zoos do. Being the person to show them and tell them those things helped me quite a bit.”
Genaurdi shared some of the successes that he’s had in his zoo career.
“The biggest thing that I’ve been happy with so far is where I’m at already. I think being in the position I’m in right now, I didn’t think I’d make it this far as soon as I did. I’ve worked with animals that I didn’t think I’d get to work with, like bald eagles and small anteaters. Being able to stay on top of all of that while also working with animals I’d have never imagined and it really broadened my mind. Just the amount of confidence I have in myself now and in the field while being in my mid-20s is faster than I thought I’d achieve it. I remember when I worked at the aquarium, a lot of people didn’t realize how much conservation work we did. We did awareness days. There’s National Snake Day and National Penguin Day, so we’ll do encounters and special chats to let the public know about these specific animals. We had a big one for World Oceans Day, and I was in charge of it in 2019, so I got to talk to a lot of water-related organizations along the coast, as well as the Health of Wetlands and the Gulf of Mexico. We had different activities and different speakers about taking care of the environment and being in charge of a conservation event like that so the public could learn — I’ll always be proud of that. The penguins are really endangered in the wild, so being able to help them breed here, too, has been so fascinating. If they lay eggs and they’re fertile, and they hatch okay, we help as much as we can and help their species as a whole when we do. Getting experience like that is something I’d have never dreamed of.”
Genuardi shared a few words of advice for someone hoping to enter the zookeeping field.
“If someone had just graduated high school, I’d tell them to be very open to possibilities while they’re in college. Look into clubs at your school and organizations in your surrounding community. This is a hands-on heavy field, so you need to have a four-year degree to get a position, but not necessarily a degree in the field. That’s where the hands-on experience comes in; whether it’s volunteering at a shelter or a local zoo, that’s good for your resume. Get involved with things that your school offers, and that’s what helped me get my first internship. It’s always good to talk to others as well. Be open about what you’re interested in because you never know who you might meet,” Genuardi said. “For people in college about to graduate, I went the intern route, so if that’s accessible to you, I’d recommend that or volunteering. That’s a great way to make a name for yourself. That’s how I got hired in New Orleans — someone had already noticed my work. Do something where you can demonstrate your skills and your work. If that’s accessible, that’s one of the better routes to go. If you can even just volunteer once a week, that’s super helpful, too, because you receive training and experience. It never hurts to apply, even if you don’t think you meet the requirements. There’s a good chance that it is related, and if you’ve got a good personality and team mentality, that works well, too. It’s really hard to train someone to change their personality. Animal-related things look good on your resume in general.”
Lastly, Genuardi shared some of the life lessons that he’s learned from a career in zookeeping and conservation.
“I’ve learned and tried to work on my confidence level. I felt like I took a different path from a lot of the people that I was around. I had imposter syndrome sometimes because my path wasn’t linear. But life isn’t linear. People will experience things at different times and in different ways. If you’re capable, you can do whatever you want at any stage in your life, and there’s no one mold for people to fill. People think there’s one specific way to look or do your job or behave, and it’s not that way and shouldn’t be that way,” Genuardi said. “A lot of people think every day for us is just hanging out with animals, but they don’t realize how mentally, physically and emotionally taxing this job is. This job makes you well-rounded. Deaths and medical concerns happen. You learn to work through it in a healthy way for your future, too. It’s made me more well-rounded and I can be more of myself because of that. We learn a lot of skills in this life of work, and you learn a lot about yourself, too. It sets you up for good ways to see the outside world, too. Our heart is in it and we’re passionate about it.”
READ ALSO: A DAY IN THE LIFE: DENNIS CAVANAUGH, WARNING COORDINATION METEOROLOGIST
