Tuesday Spotlight: Jawnie Payne
/BY CARA SCHAEFER
With caracal kittens and porcupines for coworkers, work for Jawnie Payne is a bit...wild.
Jawnie is a zookeeper in Nashville, and her job involves everything from handling grumpy parrots, to demonstrating the benefits of “pests.” We spoke with Jawnie about the surprises — and pleasures — of her job.
Zookeeper Jawnie Payne with a Caracal kitten (photo courtesy Jawnie Payne)
OUT THERE: How did you become a zookeeper?
JAWNIE PAYNE: I never knew it was really a career choice until I was already in college. I started working seasonally at the Columbus Zoo, just working my way up to finally working with animals. I had to move halfway across the country to Texas to get my first full time zoo keeping job, which is normal for zookeepers to have to do.
OT: What’s one of the coolest animals you’ve ever worked with and why?
JP: A binturong or bearcat because it’s an animal that not many people know about. Yesterday we met a librarian, she said that her school mascot was a bearcat and she had no idea that it was a real thing! They’re just these weird old-world mammals that smell like popcorn when they scent mark and look like a bear and a cat but they’re not related to either of them. They’re arboreal and have really long tails that they can support their body weight with to hang. One of ours looks like a werewolf sometimes.
OT: What would surprise people the most about your job?
JP: Probably that you have to go to school for it. People will always ask all of us if we are volunteers at the zoo. And they’re usually shocked that we have to have, for the most part, a four-year degree. And the fact that we don’t just scoop poop, we do training and educate the public.
Jawnie Payne with a baby flamingo (photo courtesy Jawnie Payne)
OT: Have you ever had an animal’s behavior completely surprise you?
JP: We have a small parrot. He’s a Yellow-headed Amazon, so he’s bigger than a lot of other Amazon parrots, but they’re still like a small-ish bird. He probably weighs like a pound, or a little less. But he can be very grumpy. He’s an older bird. Usually he’s totally fine and he’ll take seeds from you nicely and he does his behaviors and he shows off his wings and he’ll talk for you. But the other day I got him out, he’s also not a fan of being on people’s hands, he’s very specific. I stepped him up on a stick that he steps up on and I went to hand him a seed. He leans past the seed, bit my finger, and then leaned up and laughed at me.
OT: What essential lesson do you hope each visitor takes away from interacting with you and the zoo’s education animals?
JP: We all hope that they learn about that animal. In a lot of cases just being exposed to animals they’ve never seen before or heard of. When they get that tangible experience a lot of times, it kind of sparks peoples’ passion a little bit more, which is why zoos are so important. Sometimes we make a big difference, especially with opossums. People hate them. They think they are going to make them sick. We’re able to say, “No, they are going to eat all your snakes and all your ticks and all your mice, and they’re not going to give you diseases, and it’s amazing to have them around.” Sometimes we’ll have people come back and say they have an opossum living under their porch and they’re so happy.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Jawnie Payne with a bearcat (photo courtesy Jawnie Payne)
You can follow Jawnie on Instagram @zookeeperjawnie and on Youtube here.
This interview is part of our Tuesday Spotlight series. The series explores what "outdoorsy" means, through conversations with individuals and organizations that are engaging with the natural world in thought-provoking ways.
