A zoo or aquarium animal keeper feeds, cleans, checks and trains the animals in one area every day. Keepers write down what each animal did, report changes to the curator and vet, check every lock, and give talks to guests.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, museums, zoos and gardens · BLS, May 2025
This role is for zoos and aquariums, where it may be called Aquarist. Animal Keepers give daily care to the animals in their area: diets, cleaning, health checks, enrichment, and training. You record what you see, report changes to the Curator and veterinary staff, and follow every safety protocol. You also explain your animals to guests during keeper talks.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Prepare diets in the commissary to each animal's diet sheet and feed on schedule.
Clean and disinfect habitats, holding areas, pools, or tanks to your area's protocols, and test water quality where needed.
Observe each animal daily and record appetite, behavior, and health in [ZIMS or your records system].
Report changes in health or behavior to the Curator and the Veterinarian right away, and help with exams and treatments.
Give enrichment from your area's plan and train husbandry behaviors with positive reinforcement.
Follow safety protocols every time: lock and shift door checks, [two-keeper rules for dangerous animals], and emergency drills.
Give keeper talks and answer guest questions about your animals.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Check every animal at the start of the shift, then shift animals onto exhibit after lock checks.
Clean holding and exhibit areas, and set out diets and enrichment.
Run training sessions and any checks the veterinary staff request.
Give a keeper talk or feeding demonstration for guests.
Bring animals in, check every lock, and finish daily records and the shift handoff before leaving.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Daily animal records completed by end of shift: [your target].
Enrichment plan items delivered: [your target].
Husbandry training goals met: [your target].
Safety protocol audits passed: [your target].
Habitat inspection scores: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
Bachelor's degree in [zoology, biology, animal science, or a related field], or equivalent animal care experience.
[1+] years of hands-on animal care at a zoo, aquarium, sanctuary, farm, or veterinary clinic, [paid or volunteer].
Follows written care and safety protocols exactly and reports mistakes right away.
Completes the health screenings your animal program requires, such as a TB test for work with primates.
Comfortable speaking to groups of guests.
6. Preferred Experience
Experience with the species in this area, such as [great apes, big cats, birds, reptiles, marine mammals, or fish].
Operant conditioning experience.
Open water scuba certification for aquarium dive work.
Familiarity with your accreditation body's animal care and welfare standards.
7. Physical Requirements
Lift and carry feed, hay, and equipment up to [50] pounds.
Kneel, bend, climb ladders, and work in water or on wet, slippery floors.
Work outdoors in all weather and around animal waste, odors, and allergens.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Full-time. Animals need care every day, so weekends, holidays, and rotating shifts are required.
Shifts often start before the site opens.
On-call rotation for animal emergencies and severe weather.
Protective equipment provided for disease and chemical exposure.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new animal keeper gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
Kennel, farm and clinic jobs share the basics with this one: feeding, cleaning and watching for illness. At a zoo or aquarium, wild species, crowds and federal exhibitor rules change the work.
Every animal is checked every day
Federal rules for licensed exhibitors call for a daily check of every animal the Animal Welfare Act covers. They also call for a quick, direct way to tell the attending vet about health or behavior problems. Keepers do most of that watching. A good keeper notes appetite, stool, movement and mood in the records, and calls the vet as soon as something looks wrong, not at the end of the shift. Source: eCFR: 9 CFR 2.40, attending veterinarian and adequate veterinary care.
One missed latch is one too many
Keepers move animals between holding and the exhibit through shift doors. One door left unlatched can put a keeper or a guest within reach of a dangerous animal. Lock checks, two-keeper rules and escape drills are part of every shift. Hire people who check a latch twice on a rushed day, and who speak up the moment they find one they missed.
Training runs on rewards, not hunger
Keepers teach animals to step on a scale, offer a foot or hold still for a blood draw, so exams need less restraint. The treats come out of the day's diet. Federal exhibitor rules ban using hunger or thirst to train animals. Holding back food for a short time is allowed only if each animal still gets its full diet that day. Source: eCFR: 9 CFR 2.131, handling of animals.
The keeper is also the guide
Keeper talks, feedings and animal encounters put keepers in front of families and school groups most days. The best ones can explain what an animal is doing and why, in plain words, while still keeping an eye on the animal and the crowd. Look for someone who enjoys the questions, even the hundredth one of the day.
Fish and reptiles fall outside the Animal Welfare Act
USDA's Animal Welfare Act rules cover warm-blooded animals, so most of a zoo's mammals and birds fall under its licensing and inspections. Fish, reptiles, frogs and other cold-blooded animals do not. Their keepers still work from written care plans. For aquarists, water tests and pump and filter checks take up a big part of each shift. Source: eCFR: 9 CFR 1.1, Animal Welfare Act definitions.
How much zoo and aquarium animal keepers make
The closest BLS group for zoo and aquarium animal keepers is animal caretakers. Animal caretakers who work for museums, zoos, gardens, and historic sites earned a median of $18.91 an hour ($39,320 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s above the $35,360 median for animal caretakers in all industries. About 8,250 of the 266,910 animal caretakers in that survey work for museums, zoos and gardens.
Usually hourly with overtime. Holiday shifts, storm call-ins and late nights with a birth or a sick animal add up, so budget overtime for them. Moving senior keepers to a salary does not by itself end their right to overtime.
Museums, zoos and gardens
$39,320$39,320 median Middle half $34,330–$50,820 10th–90th $29,680–$64,180
All industries
$35,360$35,360 median Middle half $29,820–$40,050 10th–90th $27,250–$50,060
$20k$30k$40k$50k$60k$70k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Museums, zoos and gardens
$29,680
$34,330
$39,320
$50,820
$64,180
All industries
$27,250
$29,820
$35,360
$40,050
$50,060
BLS groups museums, zoos, botanical gardens and historic sites together. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Follows written care and safety protocols exactly, including every lock and shift door check
Notices small changes in an animal's appetite, gait or behavior and writes them down
Hands-on animal care, paid or volunteer, at a zoo, aquarium, sanctuary, farm or clinic
Reports a mistake right away, such as a missed feeding or a door left open
Speaks clearly to a crowd of guests or a school group
Can work early starts, weekends and holidays on a rotating schedule
Teach these on the job
Your diet sheets and commissary routines
Operant conditioning and your area's training plan
Your animal records system
Care for the species in your area
Water testing and life support checks, for aquarium work
Your emergency codes and escape drills
Keepers log daily notes in an animal records system, often ZIMS from Species360, and work with scales, shift doors, hoses, scrub brushes, water test kits and two-way radios. In the ad, name the species in the area, your records system and any dive work.
Zoo and aquarium animal keeper interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Use the past year of your own records to set each target, and talk the results through with the keeper and the curator every quarter.
Daily animal records completed by end of shift
Compare each keeper's entries in the records system with the animals in their area for every shift. A missing note on a quiet day is how a slow illness gets missed.
Enrichment plan items delivered
Check the enrichment calendar against the keeper's log each week. Note which items the animals used, so the plan can drop the ones they ignore.
Husbandry training goals met
List each training goal with its steps and review progress with the curator monthly. Count a goal as met only when the behavior holds with a second trainer.
Safety protocol audits passed
Have a supervisor run surprise lock checks and drill reviews. Write down every miss, why it happened and what changed, and share the trend with the whole animal team.
Habitat inspection scores
Score each habitat on a written checklist for cleanliness, hazards, barriers and water quality. Walk it from the guest side as well as the keeper side.
Career path
Intern or volunteerLearns animal care basics at a zoo, aquarium, farm or vet clinic.
Keeper aide or seasonal keeperCleans, preps diets and shadows keepers in one area.
Animal KeeperCares for the animals in one area every day.
Senior or lead keeperWrites protocols, trains new keepers and runs an area.
CuratorLeads animal care for a department or the whole collection.
A keeper looks after the same group of animals day after day. The shift starts with a check of every animal. Then come shifting animals onto exhibit, cleaning holding areas, setting out food and enrichment, and training. Midday often brings a keeper talk or a vet check. The day ends with bringing animals in, checking every lock and writing up the day's notes.
How much does a zoo and aquarium animal keeper make?
Animal caretakers who work for museums, zoos, gardens, and historic sites earned a median of $18.91 an hour ($39,320 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $34,330 and $50,820 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
Does a zookeeper need a college degree?
Most zoos do. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says most zoos require a bachelor's degree in biology, animal science or a related field. Hands-on time matters too, and BLS points to internships and volunteer work at zoos and aquariums as good ways to get it. The template also accepts equivalent animal care experience, so decide before you post if the degree is a must or a plus.
Can a zoo require a TB test before a keeper starts?
Yes, if you do it the right way. Federal disability rules let an employer require a medical exam after a job offer and before the first day, as long as everyone entering that job gets the same exam. Keep the results in a separate, private medical file. If a result leads you to pull an offer, the reason has to be tied to the job, and only when no reasonable accommodation would let the person do it. Ask your occupational health provider which tests your primate or other programs need.
What is the difference between a zookeeper and an aquarist?
Both are animal keepers. An aquarist cares for fish, corals and other aquatic animals, so the job leans on water chemistry, filters and pumps, and often scuba diving to clean and feed in large tanks. A zookeeper works mostly with mammals, birds or reptiles on land. Some areas, such as penguins or otters, need both skill sets, so list them both in the ad.
How should we test keeper candidates?
Watch them work. A short, paid working interview or a guided walk through holding shows whether a candidate reads a diet sheet closely, checks locks without being told and spots an animal that looks off. Ask them to give a two-minute talk on an animal they know. Then ask about a mistake they made with an animal and what they reported.
