Keeper Q & A

 Name: Ken Hovey

Title: Animal Area Technician, Herpetarium/Island Life

Tenure: I started working in zoos in 1981 and have been at the OKC Zoo for 21 years.

Residence: Newalla, Oklahoma

Keeper Q & A

1. Why is your job important, both to you and in general?
Educating the public is always been one of my priorities. Over the years I have heard of all sorts of phobias. Spiders, snakes, frogs and any other animal you can think of. Most can be traced to the lack of  informaton people get as children. If  kids, or adults, see a snake or tortoise while visiting the zoo they leave with a better understanding. 

2. What are some of your favorite animals to work with and why?
The caudata (newts and salamanders). I have worked with big cats, primates, birds, hoof stock, fish and snakes. There hundreds of species of newts and salamanders and they are so diverse. They come in a wide variety of colors and sizes. Some are small,blind, and live in caves and some grow to 5 feet and weigh 150 pounds and some can poison you if you eat them. You can’t find that in mammals or birds.   

3. What do you love the most about working at the Zoo?
Everything. Whether collecting microscopic  bugs to feed salamander larvae, raking up tortoise dropings with the tortoise following hoping to get a treat, watching Soloman Island leaf frogs hatching and hoppping away, scrubing pools while flamingo mingle around me. It's all great.

4. What is one common misconception people have about snakes and/or lizards?
That snakes will chase you and attack you. Actually, being only a few inches tall, they are probably scared to death and are trying to get you to leave them alone. Imagine coming across something thirty times your height. With that, the something has a long stick. What would you do? Leave them alone they will leave you alone.

5. What is your favorite Zoo memory from when you were young?    
One of my favorite memories was watching the Tasmanian Devils at the San Diego Zoo. They would chase each other around a hollow log when one would jump into the log while the other kept on spinning around and around, just like the Taz in the cartoons. 

Brief Bio: I was born in Chula Vista, California. Raised as a military brat I traveled to most of the States and a couple of countries and finally graduated high school in Niceville, Florida. I went to Iowa State with plans of becoming a veterinarian but I was leaning towards frogs and salamanders rather than dogs and cats.  During one summer I got a job at a local zoo in Tyler Texas, which was home at the time, and there, I discovered that zookeeping was the life for me. That was 1981.