Today I had the honor of going behind the scenes of an important San Diego Zoo production, the Wild Ones Show at the Hunte Amphitheatre. I met the cast and crew of the show with Britta Wilson-Pastor, animal trainer, as my guide. She has an amazing past in television, and once was a Miller Light girl. After some years in modeling, Ms. Wilson-Pastor felt that she wanted a career that was less superficial and more society-conscious. She had always loved animals and helping them seemed natural to her. With a degree in psychology and a minor in biology from Long Beach State, she applied to the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park as an educator guide. As soon as an enrichment position opened at the Zoo, Ms. Wilson-Pastor applied and was accepted. The Zoo later had to dissolve the enrichment department, and she was incorporated into the Wild Ones Show. Although it took some getting used to, she came to love working in the show area. Her passion has been to make the lives of the animals as comfortable and enjoyable as possible.

A large part of her job is to train the animals to do natural behaviors on stage. Almost always, the main method of training is positive reinforcement. I understood the concept well because I had trained my dog by the same method. It is based on the notion that rewarding an animal for doing the right thing will increase the likelihood that the individual will repeat that action. For example, giving a dog food or verbal praise every time it stops barking will increase the chances of the dog being quiet. For young dogs or wild animals, it is often best to immediately reward before the individual starts doing the undesired behavior again. The solution to that problem is a clicker, a wonderful yet simple device that makes a clicking sound to alert the animal that a treat is on the way. Negative reinforcement is used very infrequently, but involves the removal of a painful or unpleasant object for doing the right behavior. The use of a bridle on a horse is a good example; pressure is placed by the bit on the horse’s mouth, and the negative sensation of pressure is released when the horse turns its head. Another method for training is punishment, a method that neither Ms. Wilson-Pastor nor her team uses. As an example of positive reinforcement, she trained intern Julian to jump and sit down on cue in under five minutes. She also demonstrated that lollipops are effective as rewards for training human males, a feat I thought impossible.

The best part of Ms. Wilson-Pastor’s job, in my opinion, is her close contact with the animals. She and her team are responsible for a large number and variety of different creatures, and often are able to work individually with them. During the meeting, I met Baprang the binturong, Desiree the red-tailed hawk, Acacia and Ruth the hedgehogs, and Sven-Olaf the golden retriever. The binturong is a very interesting animal, which smells like hot buttered popcorn when excited. This popcorn odor gave Baprang her name, which means popcorn in Vietnamese. With the hawks, Ms. Wilson-Pastor prides herself on having improved their enclosures by raising the perches off the ground for flight purposes. It is amazing how smooth the hedgehogs are when they are resting, even though their quills look menacing. Sven-Olaf is king of the roost at the show. He is the companion to Karoo the cheetah. Companion dogs help to calm cheetahs during transport or human contact in general. It surprised me how important the job of a domestic animal can be to the Zoo, which houses exotic animals.

The show is important to conservation education by giving the public an up-close experience with such amazing animals. Ms. Wilson-Pastor’s job is very interesting and full of fun. If I were to work with animals, I would want her position. She gets to interact more hands-on with more animals than the average keeper. There is a lot of strategy and work involved in training the individuals, and it’s for a very good cause.

Contributed by Erin - Zoo InternQuest Careers Team

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