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December 1st, 2008
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Managing the animal kingdom

Prague zoo curator Jaroslav Šimek works overtime and takes on all surprises

By Kimberly Hiss
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
August 6th, 2008 issue

JAN PŘEROVSKÝ/THE PRAGUE POST
Šimek always knew he wanted to be a zoo curator. "I never had a period where I wanted to be an astronaut or a truck driver."
JAN PŘEROVSKÝ/THE PRAGUE POST
Šimek cares for 36 species of hooved mammals, plus kangaroos, aardvarks and birds.
The Šimek File



Born: 1973, Prague
Childhood ambition: To work with animals
Position: Ungulate curator, Prague Zoo
Biggest headache: Animal escapes
Greatest reward: Animal introductions into the wild
Jaroslav Šimek spent his childhood doing exactly what you’d expect from a future zoo curator — collecting animals. But the toads, newts and snails he’d bring home were a far cry from the giraffes and ostriches he’d be caring for one day.
“To be honest, I wasn’t a very skillful breeder then,” he admits during a hot afternoon walk through the Prague Zoo. “But, when I was 12, I observed the courtship dance of newts in my aquarium.”
Šimek is the zoo’s curator in charge of ungulates, which means he’s reponsible for about 220 hooved mammals, representing 36 species, including giraffes, antelope and European bison. He also manages kangaroos, aardvarks and 40–50 species of birds, including ostriches.
“When you’re dealing with animals, you never know what will happen in the next few minutes,” he said as we passed a field of lounging bongo antelope. “The moment you think everything is organized, you get a call, and you have to fix a problem.”
As if to prove the point, his phone rang with the first of many interruptions to our tour through the habitats under Šimek’s jurisdiction.
Šimek remembers visiting Prague Zoo as a child with his parents. Even then, his interest went beyond casual animal watching. During one trip, his most exciting moment was meeting the zoo’s then director, Zdeněk Veselovský.
“I was absolutely delighted to see this person in real life because I knew him from books and TV,” Šimek says. “He was an icon for me.”
Šimek’s love of animals, especially birds, grew from there. He visited the zoo library, joined an after-school program for bird watchers and eventually got his bird-banding license. He was the kind of youth who had no trouble telling people what he wanted to do when he grew up.
“I never had a period where I wanted to be an astronaut or a truck driver,” he says. “I just knew I wanted to work with animals.”
Šimek got his master’s degree in ornithology from Charles University and his Ph.D. from the University of South Bohemia. After university, he wasn’t immediately sure if he wanted to go into teaching or research, and spent the next few years working on translations for Animal Planet and Discovery Channel.
When a friend contacted him saying that the ungulate curator position was open at Prague Zoo, Šimek’s path started to define itself. After meeting with the director and deputy director of zoology, he took the job effective Jan. 1, 2004, and quickly became known for his genuine commitment to his animals.
“Jaroslav loves them; he’s very sensitive to them,”says Petr Velenský, the zoo’s reptile curator. “On the other hand, he can control his emotions and manage matters with a very clear head. I think Jaroslav is the most rational of us four curators at the zoo.”
When your antelope jumps the fence
Šimek was on the phone (a female aardvark was having post-surgical complications), as we approached the Africa House, a 2-hectare (4.9 acre) mixed-species exhibit, that’s home to herds of giraffe, antelope and zebra. We paused on the wooden observation deck to watch the giraffes’ impossibly thin necks reach up to bales of feed hanging from the trees.
The exhibit presents one of the primary challenges of Šimek’s job — introducing unfamiliar animals into the same habitat. “Every species can behave differently,” he says after hanging up the call. “They’re individuals, like people, so you have to find the proper balance.”
While Šimek insists there’s no such thing as a typical day at the zoo, he describes what his routine is supposed to be.
After getting to his office around 7 a.m., he starts by reading daily reports from the zookeepers, detailing needs for repairs or orders from the feeding department. It is also during this time that Šimek might be in touch with other European zoos, making arrangements to receive animals from elsewhere or to ship animals from his own exhibits to other facilities.
Šimek then makes daily rounds of his areas of the zoo, which means visiting 11 stations plus the quarantine station — where sick or newly acquired animals are kept.
But he’s sometimes unable to make rounds if a problem comes up, and that morning made a perfect example.
“I got the first call from the camel keeper that a baby camel had a skin problem,” he says. A few minutes later, the calls about the female aardvark began — she was moving laboriously and had started scratching herself.
Velenský can relate to the wild-card routine. “Ten minutes after entering the zoo gate, usually all your plans go to hell,” he says, then rattles off a list of typical complications such as “animals’ health problems, social problems, nutritional problems, problems with reproduction,” plus “technical problems of enclosures, pavilions and stables,” not to mention, “personal problems.”
Of the job’s biggest challenges, Šimek ranks animal escapes high on the list, adding that antelope, in particular, are notorious fence-jumpers. But he also has to deal with animal aggression against the keepers. When one male antelope had been particularly hostile, Šimek decided to relocate it to a zoo in Poland, where it might be better placed in a breeding group.
Euthanizing an animal was also a difficult responsibility, and an ailing 18-year-old antelope had been put down earlier that day.
Be free
But the job has its triumphs as well, and, after taking a call about medication for the aardvark, Šimek took obvious pride in telling the story of a successful European bison introduction to the wild.
“Many people think it’s easy to release an animal,” he said, putting his phone back on his belt. “But you don’t just pack it in a crate, drive to Africa, and say ‘be free.’ It’s very difficult.”
Šimek had coordinated a transport of European bison to Poland’s Bieszczady Mountains in 2005. That August, he’d had a young male and female tranquilized, put in crates and trucked to the southeast corner of Poland. After releasing the pair into a large enclosure, which abutted the habitat of a free-range herd, the bison were to be given months to acclimate to the terrain and watch the wild bison through the fence.
Back in Prague a few weeks later, however, Šimek got a phone call that a storm had toppled a tree into the fence.
“So the bison were released early,” he says, used to rolling with surprises. “But they still joined the wild group, so it was perfect.”
Šimek says he plans to stay at Prague Zoo for quite some time. He’s hoping to establish a new breeding group of Elds deer and is preparing to organize the upcoming relocation of many of his exhibits when the zoo starts construction on an elephant and hippo house.
For now, in the calm before that renovation, Šimek says one of the best things about his job is finding the rare quiet moment when he can enjoy where he is.
“I like staying later in the evening when everything is done for the day. Almost all the visitors have left, so it’s a peaceful time when the animals are relaxed and grazing,” he said.
Then his phone rang.
— Hela Balínová contributed to this report.

Kimberly Hiss can be reached at tempo@praguepost.com


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