Thursday, January 19, 2017

Head Elephant Keeper




Head Elephant Keeper

Position available: elephant head keeper

Zoo Osnabrück offers the position of the elephant head keeper starting spring 2017.

Our institution has got a long tradition of elephant maintenance, starting protected contact as one of the first zoos in Europe back in 2002, gaining experience over the years.

Zoo Osnabrück has taken the challenge of housing a fully adult 6to proven breeder together with 4 bachelors 3-8 years old and prove that this social unit can work very well with the individuals taking part in that experiment, thus providing new opportunities for creating bachelor groups of elephant males including all age classes. Elephants are trained using positive reinforcement. A20-h- forage –system is being installed right now.
Osnabrück zoo now changes from bachelor holding to reproduction in the future by taking over a matriline within the EEP transfer recommendations in spring 2017.

We are looking for an elephant head keeper who ideally has got experience in:
- Elephant daily maintenance and reproduction within a team of several colleagues
- Excellent social skills in leading his team cooperatively
- at least 5years of experience in an elephant keeper team, preferably in a leading or deputy position.
- His own way of empathically training his elephants by positive reinforcement for all relevant procedures/ medical treatments in protected contact.
- Sufficient experience in all obstetrically relevant situations pre, in and post partum
- Knowledge about elephant pediatrics by accompanying elephant babies during their development from birth to childhood.
- Knowledge how to manage elephants during anesthesia/sedation/ transportation.
- Education and training of young colleagues
- Dedication to zoo education such as "keeper’s talk“
- Tenure/carrier featuring permanent learning and optimizing his professional skills

We offer
- A position valuated as EG 6 TVÖD- Tarif Germany with full-time contract (39h/week; average 2 weekend duties ; 30 holidays p.a), becoming unlimited in case of mutual consent after an orientation period of 2 years.
- A trustful, very close and regular cooperation in partnership with permanent back up by our zoo biological team (elephant manager, zoo vet, technician, zoologist, zoo director).
- The opportunity to become carefully introduced to the elephants and integrated in our staff by working on par together with the present head keeper until his retirement in 2018.
- The opportunity to find and form his new team due to two more open positions for elephant keepers to be announced in 2018/2019.
- Opportunities for further education
- Excellent living conditions downtown or in the beautiful surroundings of one of Germany’s most prefered cities.

Applications in PDF format including detailed c.v. and motivation are accepted until March 1 2017, to be sent to franek@zoo-osnabrueck.de




Peter Dickinson
Independent International Zoo Consultant
      

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