Jodi Carrigan has a fancy job title at Zoo Atlanta in Georgia: level III keeper in the zoo's Primate Department. She oversees the interns and volunteers and has more responsibilities than a level I or II keeper. Carrigan also is the secretary of the American Association of Zoo Keepers. At Zoo Atlanta, her daily duties entail training, enriching, cleaning, feeding, and caring for the primates. In addition, she is responsible for public speaking, which includes educating the public, and also for educating a staff of interns and volunteers.

She started as a volunteer at the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium while she was in college. “I volunteered to get some experience and to see if this is what I'd enjoy doing for a living,” she says. “I fell in love with the profession and the animals, and was extremely lucky enough to get a job right after graduating college at the Miami Metro Zoo working with primates. From there, my boyfriend at the time — and now husband — moved to [Zoo] Atlanta, where he worked with the giant pandas. I obtained a job with the Primate Department. I followed a dream I had for working with primates.”

At the zoo, Carrigan works with gorillas. Zoo Atlanta has 23 of them, which makes it the second-largest gorilla collection in North America. She also studied and works with 11 Bornean and Sumatran orangutans, which make up the largest orangutan collection in the country.

“We practice protected contact with our apes, which means we do not go in with them,” she says. “There is always something in between us and the animals. For one thing, apes are several times stronger than humans, and we want them to be animals and socialize among themselves. We only intervene if it's absolutely necessary, for example if a mother rejects its newborn or if there's a serious injury or illness. We want them to be among gorillas and orangutans, and when you add a human to that mix it changes everything.”

At times, she does have hands-on contact with many of the animals. She has to check and brush their teeth, listen to their breathing with a stethoscope, file down nails, take temperatures, and vaccinate them.

Carrigan got a bachelor of arts degree in anthropology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She says that most institutions require keepers to have a bachelor's degree in a science-related field — zoology, anthropology, animal science, or biology.

Carrigan says that being a zookeeper caring for primates is very competitive. “Most people love what they do and stay there for the duration, which doesn't leave too many positions available,” she states. “Many people interested in working with primates can't get a job working with them right off the bat and often obtain a position in some other area of the zoo, for example working with small mammals, and even in the commissary where the animals' diets are made. They get their foot in the door and their face known.”

Salaries for zookeepers vary among zoos and wildlife parks. “Anyone that works with animals will tell you that they don't do it for the money,” says Carrigan. “It's not a high-paying profession. I love what I do. I am lucky enough to say that I have a job where I wake up in the morning and I really love going to work to be with the animals. Not many people these days can say that about their profession.”