Environmental studies major gains experience in herpetology department at Zoo Knoxville
Oct. 13, 2021
Gillian Funk ’22 has always had a fascination with reptiles and amphibians, even as a little girl. Now a junior at Maryville College majoring in environmental studies, it was only natural that Funk would relish the opportunity to spend her summer interning at Zoo Knoxville in the herpetology department.
Funk, who lives in Knoxville, is no stranger to Zoo Knoxville.
“My mom used to work at the zoo, and we would do our birthdays a lot of times there,” she said. “They would bring harmless animals to the birthday party, and there are pictures of me holding a turtle or with a snake wrapped around my arm. I always loved the animals in the herpetology department. When it came time to do my internship for Maryville College, that internship popped up and I thought that would be so much fun!
“I also really wanted to learn about the native reptiles and amphibians and their conservation here in Tennessee,” she continued. “The zoo does a lot of conservation work for the native animals, going out and taking populations and working with conservation groups in the area. I was so enthralled with all they did, and I wanted to be a part of it.”
“Never boring”
Funk described her internship as “always exciting.”
“No one day was like another,” she said. “Not unpredictable, just different. That’s what made the internship such fun. I did so many different things, and it was never boring.
“I learned a lot of husbandry skills, about the upkeep of the animals, everyday care for them, what they eat, and the best way possible to care for them while they are there with us,” she said, including the importance of disinfecting the cages and enclosures. “There were a couple of days where we would do nothing but bleach an entire room. That was the biggest thing for the herpetology department. We have so many species in one area that everything has to be kept clean, it has to be disinfected, so that we are not transferring any diseases.”
She also learned about SSP, or Species Survival Plan, a program that focuses on animals that are near-threatened, threatened, endangered or otherwise in danger of extinction in the wild. “Our zoo actually works with an agency on making sure that there’s enough population numbers for the species and if there’s not, we sometimes will be able to reproduce this species at the zoo.”
Another part of her job was going into the field and collecting data about the populations of certain animals in Tennessee. “This is to make sure the population is still up, or if the population is endangered, to mark where they are so we can come back and find it and collect data on it,” she said.
She helped with feeding some of the birds and other animals. “I personally got to do what we call ‘jump the croc,’” she said. “We hoist their food on a line over their water. The croc jumps up out of the water and grabs it off the line.”
Big Al and friends
Funk’s major responsibility was in working with Zoo Knoxville’s Aldabra tortoises, a threatened species native to the Aldabra Atoll, a raised coral atoll close to Africa in the Indian Ocean. Aldabra tortoises are the second-largest species of tortoise on Earth, second only to the Galapagos tortoise.
“I would drain their pond, scrub it clean and fill it back up,” Funk said. “Honestly, that was my favorite part of the day. The tortoises would actually line up in the pool to be sprayed off. They have this little mud area, and they would come in and have mud caked all over their faces, all over their shells. They would just walk up to me like a car wash and I would spray them off.
“They loved to be petted. Sometimes you could scratch their shells just right and they would do this little dance, swivel back and forth. It was so cute!”
For her internship, Funk did a study on Big Al, a 525-pound Aldabra giant tortoise estimated to be at least 150 years old.
“My study was teaching him his new paddock,” she said, explaining that Big Al had lived in a different paddock for almost 40 years and was unfamiliar with the new one. “Tortoises have a mental map, we call it, of the area they live in, and they don’t go outside of that mental map. So, he had to relearn his mental map.” The way this was accomplished was baiting him with his favorite treats, banana leaves and watermelon, especially. “I would lay the treats on the ground, and he would follow me around. This is how I would teach him his paddock.”
She also worked with Tex, another Aldabra giant tortoise.
“Getting to work with Big Al and Tex made the whole experience,” she said. “They are just like big puppy dogs. They just want to be fed and want scratches, and they want to be hosed off when it’s hot.
“When you call their name and they see you coming, they raise up on all four feet and they raise their head up and look at you,” she said. “They have this almost kind of smile, because when they open their mouths it’s almost like they’re smiling. They absolutely love attention! You always think of tortoises as hovering into their shells and they’re scared, but the ones we have, they love attention, they seek attention, they want to be petted and they want to be adored. It’s just so cute.”
Lifetime skills
Dr. Mark O’Gorman, professor of political science and coordinator of the environmental studies (ENV) program at MC, said internships such as these help students begin to transition into professional activities related to their major.
“With environmental studies, connecting with nature is a central theme,” he said. “Whether studying or protecting species, helping to implement policies to sustain our natural resources, or trying to help humans change behaviors to help deal with complex environmental problems like climate change, outside is the workspace for ENV students.
“MC internships help students make connections to ENV, and determine what kinds of hands-on experiences will be part of their career,” the professor continued. “We’ve required the ENV internship class since we started the program nearly 30 years ago. This curricular commitment affirms the importance ENV faculty places on our ENV students gaining hands-on experiences.”
Students can use the internship experience to help determine what types of work they most want to do in the future—for example, how much time they want to spend outdoors compared with office work.
“Some have used their internship experience to change their minds, which is an important outcome for a student to realize,” O’Gorman said. “To have MC students gain course credit, along with gaining some important early practical thinking about their future, makes internships a win/win.”
He describes Funk as a good ENV student. “She’s probably one of the more outdoors-acclimated students I’ve seen in some time,” he said. “She is on the MC equestrian team, so being around animals, and doing the daily work on keeping stalls and a barn clean, is very familiar to her. I think Gillian’s real-world animal experience gave her an extra competitive advantage when she applied to summer intern in the Zoo Knoxville herpetology program. Her mix of MC experiences, in and out of the classroom, helped affirm how the larger liberal arts experience at MC matters.”
Funk said her internship was “an amazing experience.”
“I’m an environmental studies major, so it’s a lot about environmental law, conservation, protection, preserving. That’s what a whole zoo is about. … The protection of the animals is what fascinates me. My major is about knowing the laws and protecting the environment but also the animals that live in that environment. That’s something that I’ve always wanted to do later in life, to work for an agency that protects our animals and our environment.”
Story written by Linda Braden Albert for Maryville College