My volunteer job at the zoo is the best. I take animals out and let the visitors see and learn a few things about them. Last week, I took Cornelius, a corn snake, out to meet the visitors, and Cornelius showed lots of gentle interest and curiosity in the people. These animals that I take are not on exhibit so the only way to see them is for someone like me to bring them out.
Most reputable zoos have two categories of animals, exhibit animals and program (or education) animals, and animals can’t be both. Zoos want their exhibit animals to keep their natural behaviors as much as possible. No zoo wants a monkey to ride around the zoo on the shoulders of someone, or the emerald tree boa to want to be snuggled. This would not be natural behavior.
But the program animals that we take out need to be happy to be held and happy to be in a crowd. I spend many hours letting these animals get to know me and to trust me. Cornelius, the corn snake, has been hanging out with me for several years — since he was the size of a pencil, and he’s more than 4 feet long today). He trusts me to keep him comfortable and safe.
This is not normal behavior for a wild snake. To have Cornelius on exhibit, maintaining his natural behaviors, would mean I could not pick him up (he’d squirm to get away) and I would never be able to let visitors near him (he might bite). But as a program animal, he has different expectations of the people he knows and these expectations include trust that we’ll all keep him safe, comfortable, and happy. Cornelius is one of our program animals, more frequently called an ambassador animal.