Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Lau­ra Tardieu has loved an­i­mals since she was a child, so it came as no sur­prise when she chose to work at a zoo. Tardieu is em­ployed at Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo, where she has as­sumed the po­si­tion of tem­po­rary zo­ol­o­gist since Feb­ru­ary. Dressed un­pre­ten­tious­ly in a pair of track pants, po­lo shirt and sneak­ers, Tardieu looked quite re­laxed while seat­ed in the lob­by of the Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety's of­fice on the zoo's com­pound dur­ing a re­cent in­ter­view. The 28-year-old shared her ex­pe­ri­ences at sev­er­al for­eign zoos and the changes she hoped to im­ple­ment in the di­ets of the an­i­mals here at home.

Her in­spi­ra­tion

When she was ten, Tardieu said she was in­spired by a doc­u­men­tary and knew at that point ex­act­ly what she want­ed to do. "My dream was in­spired by a film. There was a zo­ol­o­gist who was pro­tect­ing ele­phants whose tusks were be­ing hunt­ed, and I felt strong­ly about that, and I said to my­self 'I wan­na do what he is do­ing.' That was my in­spi­ra­tion," she said.

She added that she in­her­it­ed her love from an­i­mals from her fa­ther.

Af­ter ob­tain­ing an ho­n­ours de­gree in zo­ol­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern On­tario, in Cana­da, Tardieu re­turned home and be­gan work­ing at the zoo. Apart from that, she has com­plet­ed in­tern­ships at four for­eign zoos: Om­a­ha's Hen­ry Door­ly Zoo in Ne­bras­ka, The Smith­son­ian Na­tion­al Zoo in Wash­ing­ton, DC, Na­tion­al Aquar­i­um in Bal­ti­more, and the Peace Rover and Ranch in Flori­da. She al­so com­plet­ed a two-week ven­om train­ing course at the Na­tion­al Aquar­i­um and a three-month an­i­mal train­ing course at Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo. To top it off, while at uni­ver­si­ty, she copped the He­len I Bat­tle Medal and Schol­ar­ship in 2005-2006 and the Al­bert O Jef­frey Schol­ar­ship in 2005.

In­ter­est­ing field

A past stu­dent of Prov­i­dence Girls' and Maple Leaf In­ter­na­tion­al, Tardieu said she chose zo­ol­o­gy be­cause "it was an in­ter­est­ing field...still rel­a­tive­ly new, and new stuff keeps pop­ping up all the time." She said zo­ol­o­gy was a well known field in Eu­rope, Aus­tralia and North Amer­i­ca. Con­trary to what many peo­ple think, Tardieu said there was more to the po­si­tion than feed­ing and clean­ing. "It's not just feed­ing and clean­ing, but main­tain­ing the en­clo­sures; mak­ing sure they are ad­e­quate and the an­i­mals' di­ets are suf­fi­cient. It is about the well-be­ing and the health of the an­i­mals."

Speak­ing about her in­tern­ships, she said, "It was very ed­u­ca­tion­al and in­for­ma­tive. You learn a lot when you ac­tu­al­ly have to do it. Talk­ing about it is one thing. "It isn't about play­ing with the an­i­mals. A lot of hard work is in­volved, but it is fun work if you like an­i­mals." While abroad, Tardieu was ex­posed to the sys­tems and pro­to­cols car­ried out by the zoos, which she hoped could be im­ple­ment­ed here. The zoo is un­der­go­ing ex­ten­sive ren­o­va­tions, in a bid to keep up with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards. "I learnt a lot over there about their sys­tems and their pro­to­cols. They have every­thing down to the signs."

In­ten­sive re­search

Ear­li­er this year, Tardieu had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to spend five weeks at Om­a­ha's Hen­ry Door­ly Zoo in Ne­bras­ka. While there, Tardieu gained knowl­edge in nu­tri­tion and di­et for­mu­la­tion and zookeep­ing prac­tices used by the As­so­ci­a­tion of Zoos and Aquar­i­ums.

A re­port, which she pre­pared for the Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety on her re­turn, stat­ed, "My five-week nu­tri­tion in­tern­ship at the Hen­ry Door­ly Zoo was ex­treme­ly ed­u­ca­tion­al for me, and I suc­ceed­ed in achiev­ing my pri­ma­ry pur­pose of gain­ing some knowl­edge in di­et and nu­tri­tion. "I was al­so able to learn a great deal about the or­gan­i­sa­tion and op­er­a­tions of the zoo, by in­tern­ing at the var­i­ous ar­eas of the zoo. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, I learnt about the in­trin­si­cal­ly im­por­tant role that ed­u­ca­tion and tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer play in re­search and con­ser­va­tion pro­grammes of North Amer­i­can in­sti­tu­tions."

These days, most of her time is spent con­duct­ing re­search about the 100-plus an­i­mals at Em­per­or Val­ley. She said with a huge smile, "A lot of my work right now is sit­ting be­hind the com­put­er. It's tir­ing, but it's got to get done." She hopes to be able to pre­pare di­et sheets for the an­i­mals and de­vel­op ways to main­tain the all-round well-be­ing of the an­i­mals. "Cur­rent­ly, there is a kitchen keep­er who has every­thing in his head. What I want to be able to do is have di­et sheets... For ex­am­ple, this is a tou­can, and this is what he eats and the quan­ti­ty." Her next step af­ter for­mu­lat­ing the di­ets will be to fo­cus on the an­i­mals' en­clo­sures. "It is still a learn­ing process for me."