Summer Animal Keeper Internship
The Living Rainforest
Berkshire Closing date for applications is: 30th Apr 2024| Contact: | Robyn Daniels ([email protected]) |
| Sector: | Animal Care |
| Type: | Work Experience |
| Contract type: | Full-time |
| Salary: | N/A |
The Living Rainforest is inviting applications for a work placement with our Animal Department to gain some much-valued experience within an Animal environment. Our internship programme has been running successfully for years and we are pleased to be able to offer a placement from June 2024 running until September 2024, although we can be flexible on the dates to meet your needs. In addition, we would be happy to provide a 6 months placement if required.
The Trust for Sustainable Living is a registered charity based near Newbury, Berkshire. At our visitor centre, The Living Rainforest, the animal collection is contained within three tropical glasshouses and consists of more than 60 species. These include callitrichids, toucan and turacos, snakes, chelonia, stingrays, dendrobatids, and invertebrates and more.
Role and Responsibilities:
- The primary role of the intern will be to learn the daily husbandry and routines of our animal department. This includes feeding animals, maintaining enclosures, daily record keeping, diet preparation and animal health checks.
- You will also learn how to train and supervise our existing volunteers and participate in training new volunteers and work experience students.
- You will also receive training and participate in keeper talks (which run through holidays) and keeper experiences to gain customer facing experience too.
- You will have the opportunity to gain knowledge of the different aspects of the department such as veterinary treatment, enclosure design and record keeping.
- You may also be invited to attend internal meetings. This may include ethics committees and staff team meetings.
- Where suitable, there may also be opportunities for research projects to be undertaken.
Terms of placement:
- The length of this summer internship is flexible. Ideally you would cover between June to September 2024. However, we would be happy to discuss a longer placement if you choose.
- This is a unpaid, voluntary work placement for a registered charity, however, we can assist you with reasonable travel expenses.
- The success candidate will receive hands-on experience with a variety of species, suitable training and work within a strong team with a wide range of skills and knowledge.
- Our hours are 8.30 am to 5pm. Five days a week on a rota basis. This will include working some weekends and Bank Holidays.
The applicant
- This placement is ideal for a candidate working towards an animal related qualification, who would like to partake in this internship in order to seek further industry experience.
- Applicants should be enthusiastic, hard-working and have a willingness to learn new skills.
- It is necessary that you have your own form of transport to get to and from The Living Rainforest each day as there is no public transport passing our site.
Apply for this job:
To apply, please send your CV together with a covering letter explaining why you'd like to be a part of our team to [email protected].
Thank you for your interest in joining our team. Due to the popularity of some vacancies, if we haven’t contacted you back within 28 days, please assume that your application was unsuccessful.
We aim to be an equal opportunities employer and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.
The Living Rainforest is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and Adults at Risk. Therefore the successful applicant may need to undertake an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check for this role.
