Rachel Potter looks at options at working with creatures great and small

As a child Dawn Nicoll would often arrive home with an injured bird and attempt to nurse it back to health. She helped out at the local veterinary surgery, stables and animal shelter and enjoyed biology at school. When it came to deciding on a degree course, animal biology was the logical choice.

Zoology and animal biology degrees delve into the anatomy, evolution, behaviour, development, function and conservation of animals, from plankton to elephants. Undergraduate courses begin with a broad overview of the subject but, as the course progresses, students may have an opportunity to follow their own particular interests.

Nicoll studied at Edinburgh Napier University, which has close links with Edinburgh Zoo. She worked part-time in the zoo’s reptile department during her degree and was offered a permanent job as a primate keeper when she graduated in 2007.

Zookeeping is “hard graft,” Nicoll says. Her working day begins by checking the animals to make sure that they are well, then the enclosures are cleaned and maintenance jobs are done. Feeding and more cleaning takes place throughout the day. Keepers monitor the animals’ behaviour and provide enrichment activities to keep them occupied — hiding food around the enclosure, for example. Then there is behavioural training, which can include teaching baboons to go inside when access to their outdoor area is needed, or teaching lemurs to climb into carrying boxes.

There is very little physical contact with the animals because modern zoos are keen to keep them as wild as possible. “We are very much a hands-off zoo,” Nicoll says, dispelling the myth that cuddling baby animals is a big part of the job.

There is also a strong conservation element to the work. Nicoll is involved in research projects and gives educational talks to the public. She loves working with primates and says her ambition is to become involved in “wild conservation”, perhaps working with chimpanzees in Africa.

Working at a zoo is the most obvious career path for zoology and animal biology graduates but there are plenty of other options. Dr Tony Sainsbury, senior lecturer in wild animal health at the Institute of Zoology, says potential careers include academic research, wildlife conservation projects around the world, animal welfare work with charities, working for government departments and natural history film-making.

Sainsbury’s interests lie in reintroducing native British animals to the wild and monitoring infectious disease in these populations. He has been involved in projects to reintroduce species including the red kite, pool frog and dormouse.

An interest in how animals adapt to living in different environments led Professor Lloyd Peck to work at the British Antarctic Survey, based in Cambridge. It is one of the world’s leading environmental research centres, employing more than 400 staff and supporting five research stations.

Peck, a Cambridge zoology graduate, has been to the Antarctic 14 times, spending up to four months at a time living and working there. He says it is the science that keeps him going back rather than the experience of living in such an isolated place.

“For me it’s the ability to ask scientific questions that you could not ask as readily elsewhere. There is within human nature a deep requirement to try to understand the unknown and the difficult to know, and the last place on the planet to be explored was Antarctica.”

While living at a research station there are opportunities to scuba dive in the icy water and join pilots as they fly out over the icy continent but it is also hard work. Last time Peck was there he worked in the laboratory for 15 hours a day, seven days a week.

With up to 110 people at a research station there is no shortage of company and communication is much easier than when he first visited the Antarctic in the days before e-mail.

“Back then I was allowed to wire 100 words a week back home to my wife and she could write 100 back. Now you don’t feel as isolated. You can still message your friends on Facebook while you are there.”