STEM Untapped

Bitesize Episode: Kerry Hill - Animal Trainer

January 31, 2023 Episode 17
STEM Untapped
Bitesize Episode: Kerry Hill - Animal Trainer
Show Notes Transcript

In this bitesize podcast episode, the our student interviewers Rosie and Eliza are going to introduce you to Kerry Hill, an Animal Trainer at WWT Slimbridge. If you'd like to find out more about Kerry's work keep an eye out for the extended interview which will be released in a couple of weeks.

Some resources that Kerry recommends are:
British and Irish Association of Zoos & Aquariums - website and YouTube
Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust - website, Instagram and YouTube
WeBuzz by Animal Concepts podcast - listen on Spotify
Association of British and Irish Wild Animal Keepers - website
UCAS Scholarships, Bursaries and Grants - website
Access to Higher Education Funding - website

If you know a group of students who would like to interview female or non-binary role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Follow us on Instagram @STEMUntapped
Check out our website

If you know a group of students who would like to interview one of our role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com

Follow us on Instagram @STEMUntapped
Connect with us on LinkedIn @STEMUntappedCIC
Check out our website

Intro 00:00

Hi, I'm Izzy host of the STEM Untapped podcast. This week we are interviewing Kerry Hill, an animal trainer for a wetland conservation charity. 

 

Izzy 00:16

Kerry, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your job?

 

Kerry Hill  00:20

Course I can Yeah, I'd be happy to. So I have been working as an animal trainer at Slimbridge for the last three years, I think four months I think I worked that out. So almost three and a half years. We train really unusual species at Slimbridge. So normally, if you visit a zoo or maybe like a falconry centre, or an animal collection that does bird displays where the birds fly around you or come out and do some public interaction, they tend to use birds like owls and falcons, really cool birds with big scary taloned feet that can do some serious damage, so people have to wear gloves. And we fly ridiculous things by comparison. So super cute ducks we've flown, we've got a little egret with like these gorgeous plumes on the top of her head. They're a lot harder to take seriously. But I think we're one of the only places in the UK that I'm aware of that is flying birds like that. So flying wetland birds, some really cool species.

 

Rosie 01:26

Hi, I'm Rosie, I'm studying BTech sport, art and history and French, I think we'd like to interview you because I think the fact that you’re an animal trainer’s really interesting to us. And it's quite a variable when it comes to the STEM subjects. Because you often think of like quite common stuff like doctors or like mathematicians, you don't often go to stuff like that. And I think that's really interesting.

 

Eliza 01:55

Um, hi, I'm Eliza, I'm studying BTech sport, drama, and history. And I'm interested in what Kerry does for a job because doing an animal trainer is quite interesting with the relationships with the animals and other like experiences in that like area and industry of it.

 

Rosie and Eliza 02:15

So what does your like week typically look like? What sort of stuff do you normally do and is there anything that doesn't normally fit your schedule?

 

Kerry Hill  02:24

Every day, we do lots of cleaning of them, feeding them, preparing their diets, kind of just observing them. So sometimes it looks like we're not doing loads of work, because we're just sat with our animals or stood really near them and watching them, but just making sure that they're kind of behaving normally, they look themselves. So that takes up a lot of the main part of our day. And then over the course of a week, we probably have training programmes for each of our birds that we're working with. And we probably have goals that we try and achieve in the space of the week. So if we're looking to train one of our birds to do something like accept an injection, so we train some of our birds to come and stand on your arm and get used to a fake injection being prodded where they'll have the real one, we might say okay, by the end of the week, we want the bird to be tolerating the pretend needle pressing and quite hard where the needle is going to go. So we like to evaluate our training goals around once a week. And it's because our job can be so, like unpredictable, because we're working with animals and like working with kids and like working with some other people. They're their own little personalities, you know, sometimes because they can be unpredictable, it throws your whole day or your whole week out of whack. And that's fine. As long as you're adaptable, and we've got a team that is pretty adaptable and can respond to what the animals are doing. It's okay we try and make everything fit. And if not, that's okay, we've got the next week. We kind of all band together as a team and we can catch up on anything we've missed.

 

Rosie and Eliza 04:01

Is there anything that you wish you would like change about your job? Or do you like how it is?

 

Kerry Hill  04:06

I like lots of things about my job, I would always like more ducks because they one of the best parts about what we do, and the birds that we fly. We've been talking in our little training team recently about how an indoor flying arena would be really cool. So at the moment, we fly the birds open air, and it's lovely in the summer, right? Everyone can like sit out in the big theatre and see them up in the sky and that's great. Over the winter, sometimes the weather is not very good. And sometimes it's like a higher prevalence of disease as well that can affect the birds that we fly. So it would be safer and easier to fly them indoors. So that's something we've been talking about a lot recently. That would be great. We could add that.

 

Rosie and Eliza 04:54

So you said you're not a big team? Do you find yourself like taken seriously as a woman working in like the animal industry? Or do people often think, oh, like, you know, it's quite common for women to work with animals? Do you get criticism like that?

 

Kerry Hill  05:11

I think most people or some people, let's be fair, and say some people, have that view that because it's an animal care role. A bit like other care roles in like social science or things like nursing, lots of people have this preconceived image of it being a woman's job, because sometimes people think of women as kind of more stereotypically caring. And our vet team at the moment, for example, is two women, and one man, managed by a man as well. But we used to have a three female team of vets actually, at one point, we had all women. So I think depends what role you're doing, as well. So in animal care, generally, and kind of in animal science and animal welfare science, I think, if you have a more typically sciency role, it probably helps you to be taken a bit more seriously. And animal training is, like even animal behaviour, compared to other science, is kind of like a baby science, it's still, in some ways really in its infancy. So being taken seriously with it, I think there's still not lots of understanding of it, of what it entails and what the people that practically work with it do. So I think the more kind of like established the science becomes, I think that will help.

 

Izzy  06:27

Do you that's why people have that attitude about the conservation side of things, and it being fluffy. Do you think that might be because you're women?

 

Kerry Hill  06:36

I think it could have something to do with it. So I actually, before I came to do this chat with you today, I asked some of my colleagues if they had ever felt like their gender had made them feel maybe unequal at work. And they had some really interesting comments they said that they were happy for me to share. So one of my colleagues said that most of the time, men often assume that we can't lift things, because we're girls. So our job can actually be quite practical. You're outside all year round, you have to do things like shift big loads of wood chip on tractors and trailers, sometimes you have to carry like really heavy posts and pallets to go and make some enclosure furniture for your animals. And we're all quite capable of doing that. If something's a bit heavy, we just work more as a team. And we're careful to use the right equipment to help us where we can. So I thought that was an interesting one. So that's her experience. And then our male colleague, actually he said, I realised I'm not in a position to really share experiences. But I have noticed that if I'm with any of you and a member of the public, usually a man, asks us a question, they usually address me rather than you, which I assume is a gender thing, because I'm certainly not more approachable, is what he said. So

 

 

Rosie and Eliza 07:52

Do you have any, like rough days work?

 

Kerry Hill  07:55

Yes. But I want to say that every job probably there's rough days. I mean, in the winter, sometimes working outside isn't great in the cold and the wet and it's dark when you leave the house and it's dark when you come home. And that can be a bit miserable. And that can make a day that was kind of rough, a little bit rougher.

 

Rosie and Eliza 08:22

What subjects did you take at school to, like, get into this job?

 

Kerry Hill  08:26

This is really interesting because I actually took all the wrong ones the first time around. I was horrible at maths at school. And I think I would have really liked science, if I'd had the confidence to say to my teacher that I was struggling to understand because I think understanding something really helps you be interested in it. If you don't understand it, you're kind of just like, well, what's the point? I don't understand anyway. I wish now that I'd had the confidence to be like, Oh, can I have a bit of help? Because science is really interesting. And you can apply it in loads of really interesting ways. But it didn't know that at the time. So I focused on humanities, I did lots of English literature, English language, critical thinking, I did a critical thinking A level. And then my younger brother went to an animal college. So a land based college that does like what you're doing, it mostly did like level threes, and BTechs, and City and Guilds qualifications and stuff. And it looked really good fun. And I went and did that. So I went and did my level three extended diploma in animal management at this college. And that was the first relevant subject really that I'd done at school that had anything to do with animals.

 

Rosie and Eliza 09:36

Do you ever, like disagree with some of the, like the ways that zoos go about this? Because I think one of the main topics in like English that we used to do about like persuasive writing was like talking about like, Should zoos be allowed and stuff? Like it's quite like a contrasting topic some ways. So how do you feel about zoos?

 

Kerry Hill  10:01

Do you know something really interesting is that every single zookeeper I've ever worked with, feels the same. And that's the all of us wish that zoos didn't have to exist. If you put your whole, your whole life is learning about how to look after wild animals, you want those animals in the wild, the unfortunate reality is at the moment, we just don't have anywhere to put them back to. So what zoos are all about for the zookeepers, is keeping hold of those animals somewhere safe for now, making sure that we keep them really healthy, keep them as genetically diverse as possible, make sure they're displaying lots of natural behaviours, they're free from disease, you know, we're working on tackling diseases that lots of populations of animals in the wild are sadly dying from. So you've got scientists in zoos, working on things like that. So that eventually, hopefully, when we've got environments that are okay to put them back into, all of those zoo animals, in an ideal world, they would be ready to go. So lots of us actually really struggle with the concept of animals having to be displaced from the wild and having to be in a zoo for now. But it's kind of I think a lot of people feel like it's a necessary evil.

 

Izzy  11:19

Kerry, is there any advice that you'd give to anyone listening? Who is interested in doing what you're doing?

 

Kerry Hill  11:26

Try and get some practical experience with animals, because to even get your foot in the door. That's what lots of employers look for. And that tends to be what counts. So it's nice to have the animal related subjects and to do the things like the level three and the BTech. And maybe go on to university and do animal science, that's great. But often, zoos need somebody that can come in, and is already a little bit savvy about what they're asking you to do. So if you already know what size to chop the fruit for a turaco, that's really handy. It saves them having to train you something. So if you can volunteer and if you can intern somewhere that's really, really valuable. And it helps you as well, because it gives you a sense of whether or not the job will be for you. So actually going out and trying it and doing it for a little while, you'll pretty quickly realise whether or not you can stand to wash up, you know, 100 bowls, 100 food bowls in a day. Or if you don't want to sweep up rhino straw and rhino poo for two hours in the morning, like, you know, straight away whether or not it's for you. So yeah, I think that's really valuable, the practical experience.

 

Izzy  12:28

Thank you for joining another STEM Untapped podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, then subscribe for free on your podcast app. You can follow us on Instagram @STEMuntapped. If you know of a school or group of students who would like to interview female or non-binary role models do get in touch. Likewise, if you know of anyone who would be a great role model then let us know. Our details are all documented in the show notes.