animal care specialist

director

zookeeper

manager

journeyperson electrician

DENVER ZOO

Working as a Camp Captain at Denver Zoo was an okay experience. Some of the people I worked with were great and some of them were not so great. It was fun and exciting to get to come to the zoo to work every day and get kids excited about learning. However, I do believe the expectations of the employer were not always reasonable. I was shamelessly (illegaly) told to work unpaid overtime for a seasonal hourly position, and was expected to run a rigorous school-like experience for campers despite a complete lack of resources- the classrooms are empty rooms devoid of even chairs or a carpet, there is little time offered to prep lessons before the first week (which is by far the hardest), and the students are held to developmentally inappropriate standards- at least the 4-6 year old age cluster in my particular curriculum I was assigned. Ultimately, summer camp at the zoo should be educational and further the message of conservation (and it is!) but also light and fun. We also need to keep in mind that 4-6 year olds who have never been in school before and have limited attentional stamina should really have more play and wonder-based experiences to help build curiosity and background knowledge. Students were often disengaged by the subjects and activities in our curriculum, which were too advanced for their agegroup. (Eg, asking 4 year olds to create a project that demonstrates what animal adaptations would allow a sea lion to survive in the jungle. This is a great activity- but is one that should be assigned to a much older group.)
I will say that when it comes to support for behaviors, Denver Zoo comes through far more than the traditional schools I've worked at. If campers are making the environment dangerous or disrupting the experience of others repeatedly, Denver Zoo does have actual reasonable consequences you can impose when necessary (like having students removed from the classroom) and they will actually back you up. They also give feedback on your teaching at the end of the session. My evaluator gave incredibly detailed and thoughtful feedback in a reasonable way that both noticed my strengths and gave helpful action steps for improvement. She was caring, professional, and wonderful to work with. An instructional coach hired by the zoo was not as good about giving feedback- she made unreasonable demands in a very unprofessional tone without noticing what strengths were already happening in the room and was extremely patronizing. (She was the one who asked me to work unpaid overtime. At an hourly summer job.) The feedback also did not reflect what was actually happening in the room. (Eg, telling me I had to ask students questions off a specific list of vague questions when I was already asking these kinds of questions relating to the curriculum, simply without physically glancing at the list). After working with this woman for two days my entire team and I almost quit and I expressed my concerns about this experience so hopefully Denver Zoo does not work with her again and you will not be subject to the same experience. She did not come back to our room, at least.
My last concern is that, on multiple occasions, Denver Zoo enrolled extra students in my class beyond the maximum, which meant that the student to teacher ratio was not compliant with what is allowed for summer camp counselors (I was once multiple children above the upper limit), a problem that became considerably more complicated when keeping track of these extra children when out in the zoo among the crowds. This was a safety concern. I received an apology the second or third time it happened when they realized I had more than one extra student in my group, and they did at that point afford me an adult helper to fix the problem. My question is- why did we have students beyond the upper limit enrolled to begin with?
Ultimately, I think Denver Zoo has room to improve in the way some of their employees treat summer camp instructors and should revisit their curriculum to make sure all of it aligns to the developmental needs and background knowledge of the age groups learning it. Some more resources would also make this a better experience- namely, they need places for students to sit, clean rooms, and actual classroom materials suited to the tasks being asked of the children- particularly having enough supplies for children to participate in the engineering challenge. Providing all the shirts the guests paid for would also be helpful- it was awkward telling parents we simply didn't have the stock. I would still consider returning, however, because of the support I did receive from some of the people who work there, their strong and admirable mission, and the unique experience of being able to teach at a zoo.

I worked at DZF for over 5 years and I would describe my time there as a slow decline. When I started, I felt supported. My leader was invested in my future and made me feel valued. I was coached and taught. I learned skills and took on responsibility knowing my supervisor had my back. 

After multiple reorgs, my supervisor continued to change and the support from my executive started to worsen. They talk a lot about being transformative and accepting, but their are limitations to their acceptance. There are four or five individuals that really run the zoo, everyone else has to either get on board or get out of the way. Most staff in senior leadership have not only been at DZF for 15+ years, but they have only worked at DZF. They make drastic policy changes with little to no consideration on the impacts to staff or any time to adjust. They preach transparency but you are not allowed to question the leadership. HR cannot keep a secret, they hold grudges and provide limited support. If you have children, they will be incredibly flexible with your schedule. If you do not have children, you are expected to make up for the gaps created by those absent because of them.

The expectations on staff are endless. They continue to add roles and requirements for staff, far outside of their specific job, but expect staff to still produce at the same level with little to no help. Additional staffing requests are met with eyerolls if you're not one of the favorites, but those favorites can promote, hire and make changes with little to no questions. The chosen four or five, make decisions that drive the workload up for other teams and expect salary staff to work well beyond their 40 hours and OT for hourly staff is discouraged. Taking vacations is impossible. If you're not called or interrupted during your vacation, you can expect to return to an onslaught of additional work, probably new policies and potentially another reorg. 

There are endless guidelines and policies but no support to meet them. Some staff will feel pressured to overcommunicate and still fail while other teams have no rules and frequently live by "ask forgiveness, not permission." 

Safety is not a priority and is not taken seriously. Some of this is from ignorance, other times its from laziness. Individuals are promoted into roles with limited experience, they are moving too quickly to consider safety, others are not taught safe practices when they're asked to do tasks outside of their role. The Safety Manager is spread too thin and doesn't have the support of leadership when trying to enforce safe best practices. 

Lastly, the way they have handled COVID is disrespectful. They gave staff a false sense of security stating if they had 95% vaccination rate, they wouldn't require it. Then they blamed it on OSHA, then federal regulations. When all of these fell thru they still passed a staff mandate. Setting a vaccination requirement is not the problem nor something I disagree with, its the delivery to another new policy with limited understanding of the impacts. They didn't own that they made the decision, but made excuses. They provided a false sense of security by allowing staff to submit exemption letters, then immediately rejected them. They didn't communicate to managers that individuals we're being pushed out and some we're caught off guard when staff announced their last day due to the mandate. Leaving teams hanging and struggling to again make up for more work load with no support and no adjustment into deadlines or expectations. 

The zoo can sometimes be a fun place to work as you get to see many unique animals in a space that you would never normally see them. You get to wear many different job hats which can give a variety of experience. Although this is great it does not make up for the culture that is currently there. 

I worked at the zoo for over 3 years. In those 3 years I had 3 different bosses due to the company constantly reorganizing. As such I was never given a proper annual review during my tenure.  

I worked roughly 55-60 hours each week. The leadership team says not to work longer hours but overwhelms you with so much work it’s near impossible to stay current with your work.

Although you get a generous amount of time off. When you take time off you feel like it’s a crime because you come back to even more work than you had before. 

When I mentioned this to my supervisor it was met with me being negative. I quickly realized my 3rd boss didn’t seem to qualified for the position as they constantly made unsafe decisions because they didn’t know any better.
My boss indicated they felt blind-sided when I put in my two week notice and during that time frame made multiple attempts for me to stay while questioning why I would ever leave.

I tried to talk to HR about different ways to talk to my boss but every time  I reached out to Hr i always felt the response was such like I was bugging them and that they had better things to do than to address my concerns.    

To give you a picture of the culture issue. The Zoo recently laid off all staff that did not meet the covid vaccination requirement right before Christmas. All exemptions were unilaterally.  denied. This was not a government mandate but a decision made by the executive team. After they laid off the staff they realized that they were short staffed for events an made remaining staff work longer hours. 

The executive team is composed of a few staff that have been at the zoo over 15+ years. They are stuck in their ways and do not wish to change. When they do try and change something it’s normally a copy cat from another zoo that’s poorly executed. 

If I could speak directly to the executive team at the zoo I would say.  “Please step down and allow others with more diverse experience to try to shape the zoos future”. There’s a reason why there are soo many open positions 

Overall, I recommend the Denver Zoo as an employer and had there been an opportunity for me to advance (and earn enough income to live well in the expensive Denver area) I would never have left.  My colleagues were amazing, and they truly embody the conservation work they advertise.  The animals are treated very well, and they have a top-notch veterinary health program.  There is always something interesting happening in the animal health/care world of the zoo, and the team is very open about sharing this information with staff and even the public.  The zookeepers are (mostly) very nice and willing to share "insider" information about the animals with other staff, which helps guest-facing staff engage more effectively with the guests.  The only downside was that the zoo field is highly competitive as is the Denver job market, so job competition was extremely high.  Even with significant past experience in this industry and being more than qualified for multiple openings during my time there, I was not seriously considered for more career-type roles, and living in Denver long term on a customer-facing role salary was not feasible for me.  It is challenging to work up the ladder here, but overall the culture is amazing!

I met so many fantastic people at this job. It really had the potential to be the best job in the world, but management is so incompetent in so many departments across the zoo. HR is useless at best and was often cruel in its treatment of team members. Communication is a serious weak point across the entire organization, and nearly every department suffers from it. This ranged from small omissions and miscommunications that made the job more difficult than it could've been to major issues such as departments not coordinating with one another, and the sharing of information that was easily verifiably not true. I was very disappointed by my experience, and would not ever recommend working in the position that I had unless I knew some major changes took place. Many departments that I worked in or closely with were revolving doors of people excitedly coming on and then leaving immediately due to the environment created by directly by management.

This may or may not be the culture at zoos as a whole, but my experience with Denver Zoo was, rather than work with employees to coach them or help them improve when they fall short, in many cases they are just cast aside for someone else whom the manager prefers. Because these positions are so desirable and Colorado is an at-will state, no improvement plan is put into place when employees are struggling. Instead, they are laid off and replaced. The people at the zoo love what they do, but management does not know how to fully utilize the talent that they have under them.

Overall, my time in the gift shop was okay. I personally wouldn't recommend this job to someone unless you are looking for a part time job and are in high school. I got to learn how to be a Barista, which was nice because now I have experience in that. The management was hardly management. There was always gossip around the zoo and they definitely weren't professional. In the summer you get a lot of hours but in the winter be prepared to get called off every other day or to be very BORED. The best part of the job were my coworkers. I made a few really good friends in the gift shop. A typical day depends on where you are positioned but mostly you take payments and make change, or stock and clean. Oh yeah, don't expect a raise either no matter how long you are there or how good of an employee you are. They are cheap cheap cheap.

Personally management needs to develop interpersonal skills, the shift availability needs improvement. People end up giving up there shift and can never get approved for any available shift and it's terrible, when a person has 4 years retail experience and gets turned down for the shift. Management is terrible at responding to messages being sent to them, they also don't listen or act like they care when it comes to work experience. Not only have I been turned down for other shifts, that I should be well qualified to wprk
turned do

The denver zoo is not a bad place to work for, however in my role with admissions I noticed many good and bad things about it. They are very willing to work with your schedule a will glady take you as an employee, even if you can only work one day a week. However, hours can be very scarace, and since the denver zoo isn't open for a full 8 hours, you end up working every day to compensate for the lost couple hours if this job is your primary source of income. All in all, I had a pleasent experience with my team most days and the work could be fast paced and exciting at times. Events were always fun to work and around december there is a lot of hours avalible for over time.

I had an amazing experience working at the Denver Zoo! The environment is vibrant and filled with passion for wildlife conservation and education. The team is incredibly supportive, fostering a collaborative and friendly atmosphere.
Every day was unique as I interacted with visitors and shared my love for animals.
The zoo's commitment to animal welfare and conservation efforts is inspiring and makes you feel proud to be part of such a meaningful mission.
The opportunity to learn from experienced professionals and participate in various educational programs enriched my knowledge and skills. I couldn't have asked for a more rewarding and fulfilling workplace experience. Highly recommend working here for anyone passionate about wildlife and education!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Animal care specialist 10 salaries reported	$23.96 per hour
Director 2 salaries reported	$9,788 per month
Zookeeper 6 salaries reported	$20.51 per hour
Manager 3 salaries reported	$60,333 per year
Journeyperson electrician 4 salaries reported	$34.90 per hour

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