Dan offers food to Frances the badger during a morning feeding. Frances is one of the many animals featured in the Zoo's Oklahoma Trails exhibit. 

Name: Dan Woolf

Title: Animal Area Technician, Antelopes

Tenure at the OKC Zoo: 3.5 years

Residence: Oklahoma City

1.What are your primary responsibilities at the Zoo?

I work in the Antelope and Oklahoma Trails area taking care of a wide variety of different animals including hoof stock, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and spiders.

2. When did you know you wanted to be a zoo keeper?

I think I knew for sure that I wanted to work in this field while I was participating in the Zoo’s Junior Curator (JC) program at about the age of thirteen.

3. What do you love the most about your job?

I love that one day is rarely the same as the next because of the animals I work with.

4. Pick an animal in your area and tell us  a fascinating or little-known fact about that animal.

Prairie dogs are highly social animals that will use what looks like a kiss as a means of greeting and identifying each other.

5. What is your favorite zoo memory from when you were young?

I always loved going to the Island Life exhibit when I was a kid and trying to lift the Galapagos tortoise shell that was hanging next to the tortoise exhibit. 

About Me:

I grew up in Oklahoma City and received my general Associates degree from OSU-OKC in 2007. In high school I started volunteering at the Zoo through the Junior Curator (JC)program, which offers kids age 14 to 18 an opportunity to volunteer at the Zoo. As a JC I worked in the giraffe, bird and herpetarium areas and it was that experience that drew me to being a Zoo keeper. After high school I worked as an adult volunteer in Great EscApe before taking a part-time position in the antelope department, and now I work there full time.