Coastal Wilds Intern Zookeeper
This is Tommy the goat and I working on our morning training session. Here he is touching my palm after I used the verbal cue “touch”, and he was reinforced with a treat. July 23, 2025.
Training a skittish, untamed, untrusting, flighty goat is a demanding task. At Coastal Wilds this summer, each intern chose an animal to train in a useful daily task: my goat was named Tommy. The first week on the job, I knew I wanted to work with him; he had a bad reputation when it came to being handled; he knew how to fit through fences and steal food from the other animals. As weeks passed, he began to trust me, and he quickly realized that touching my hand with his nose got him a carrot. I worked with Tommy’s fear of being touched by slowly working my hand from his face to his side. After a month of consistent daily training, he began to lean into my touch and learned to love rubs and scratches. I am Isabella Hickman, a sophomore at the University of Maryland studying Animal Science on the pre-vet track with a certificate in Agricultural Business. This was just one of the many experiences I was a part of at Coastal Wilds this summer.
In addition to training Tommy, I got to witness the goofy personalities of each animal every day. One morning, when I was going through my chores, one of the male otters, Poseidon (Po), was antagonizing the other three otters, which quickly turned into the three of them chasing Po around the pool. Some of the other fun things that happened here involved a birthday party for a Zebra, hosing down Ferg, the highland cow, every day, weighing a newborn sloth, hugging on the donkey girls, and playing with the otters.
As an intern, you are the underdog, the lowest ranking on the pyramid, but at Coastal Wilds, their keepers never made my education the lowest on their scale. Every day, I was introduced to something new, whether that was monkey enrichment, deworming goats, weighing kangaroos, or giving animals their vitamins; I was always included. The staff made it their priority for my daily learning to be well-rounded. I was introduced to the infant otter pups the first week, and watching them grow has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. I was able to interview the veterinarian on exotic animal careers, what to expect from vet-school interviews, your first year as a vet, and plenty more recommendations.
The two interns who worked full-time were assigned a schedule every morning; I love to work with the large and exotic animals, so I was usually assigned with them. When I arrived at work, I would begin to pull out the feeders for the camels, goats, donkeys, zebra, tortoises, ducks, alpacas, cows, and rheas. After morning feedings, I would start my first training session of the day with Tommy, clean the yards, and muck stalls. I then would move on to diet preparation; as interns, we were given the task of preparing diets for all the animals, morning and evening, to make the next day’s work go slightly smoother. This involved cutting produce and weighing the amounts, in grams, that the animals would receive of each vegetable, fruit, grain, etc.
One of the animals I worked with the most was the four Spectacled Owls, their names are Moira, Marta, Lucy, and Twyla. I was granted the privilege to prepare their specific diets and hand-feed them at the end of my shifts. Being hands-on with varied species of animals every day helped me boost my skills in animal knowledge of different breeds and species. This summer internship will always hold a special place in my heart, between the animals with whom I developed a special bond and the people who allowed me to gain once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
