Buy a Lumigny Safari Reserve ticket
Buy my ticket 
Many of us humans “love” animals, and many young people would like to work with or for them all their lives.
In fact, we get a lot of letters from schoolchildren and students asking what they should study to do this. We do our best to reply, but we sometimes misplace letters. So here you’ll find all the information we (you) can provide.
Generalities
Because of the special nature of our park, many young people who “love” felines contact us to become feline specialists and work alongside us. First of all, there is no specialized training to work with or study them, either in France or anywhere else in the world. It takes passion, perseverance, hard work and a little luck to find your place with them…
On the other hand, if you love animals, here are the different jobs you can do to be close to them:
Animal Caretaker
The job of the caretaker is different of the idea we usually have of it. The caretaker doesn’t spend his time “cuddling” the animals, some never even touch them !
It’s a very physical job and the tasks are monotonous (but it is a necessity to always be careful !). The animal caretaker works outside in all seasons : 60% of the time is spent cleaning (animal enclosures, boxes, utensils, vehicles, etc.); 35% of the time is spent preparing and distributing food; 5% of the time is spent observing the animals and building new facilities for them. This is undoubtedly the job closest to wild animals. The animal caretaker must also be able to enforce the park’s rules and regulations, and inform visitors if necessary.
It is also a job that can be sentimentaly difficult as an animal we are attached to can leave, temporarily or definitively, in another park to breed with others partners (for more details on the reasons, check the page on the breeding programs).
TRAINING :
3 schools in France : CFFPA de Vendôme (41), Institut Rural de Carquefou (44) and CFAA de Gramat (46)
Training duration : between 1 or 2 years (BAC …..)
There are a lot of requests now (1000 candidates for 20 places per school) and renewal of the profession is slow, so job opportunities for young people are rare.
Admission to these schools is based on motivation, lucidity about the profession and animals, experience and knowledge. Academic level is not always an obstacle.
A good animal keeper won’t satisfy his ego by touching or caressing the animals; he must first and foremost think for the animal. As wild animals are very afraid of humans, you need to have as little contact as possible. A student who wants to become a soigneur and stroke tigers or bottle-feed monkeys will have little chance of finding a place in a zoo. “Loving animals” is not enough to make a good animal keeper…
Veterinaries
Who hasn’t dreamed of being a vet at the age of 10? Probably the kids who wanted to be firemen, cosmonauts or footballers… It’s a profession that attracts many young people.
The veterinary profession is very rewarding, because it involves treating animals for their illnesses or injuries (just as a doctor does for humans), but as a result, veterinary surgeons essentially see sick animals on a daily basis. This can be morally hard for some people…
TRAINING :
4 schools in France : Maisons-Alfort, Nantes, Toulouse and Lyon
Admission is by competitive examination or by application, and the curriculum is very demanding, since a considerable amount of knowledge is required to exercise this profession. It takes 5 to 7 years of study after the BAC.
90% of veterinary graduates work in clinics with domestic animals. Only 1% will work with wild animals. The remaining percentage work in government departments (DSV, ministry, etc.) or teach in schools.
For people who want to work in a veterinary clinic but don’t have the necessary qualifications to be a doctor, there are special training courses for veterinary assistants (= animal care assistants). This person will assist and help the doctor during operations, and usually also runs the clinic’s secretarial office. Very few people with such a diploma will find a position in a zoo, as students graduating from animal care schools are much more advantaged.
Researchers
The job of translator is really interesting even if he is not rightly valorized in France. Researchers working in biology are generally interested in a really precise thematic in a specific domain (the ethology = study of the animal and human behaviour, the animal physiology = study of the animal’s body functioning and certain organs in particular, the genetic = the science of genes, …). It’s quite “cerebral”, since you have to read a lot of articles, invent experiments, plan them, carry them out, write articles with the results, publish them to validate them and present them at conferences.
In ethology, contact with animals is very limited, because when you’re studying them, you mustn’t influence them so as not to bias the expected results.
TRAINING :
The course of study is a university course. So it’s very easy to enroll, since you’re going to a science faculty. On the other hand, the difficulty lies in not being distracted from your objective by the atmosphere of camaraderie, absenteeism, lack of motivation, lack of clarity in the university system, the different kinds of outlets that exist… Overall, you need to be responsible and autonomous to go to university, otherwise it’s a waste of time.
To become a researcher, it takes 8 years of study after the BAC, and success depends very much on the internships completed and the contacts made during these years, as well as the grades obtained in the 3rd and 4th year exams.
As with the veterinary profession, there are very few researchers in zoos, and even fewer in France, where almost all parks are private, i.e. they are not financially supported by their town hall, department, region or the state… (whereas many foreign parks are supported and recruit one or more researchers…)
Curator, registrar, studbook keeper, coordinator, …
Curator, registrar, studbook keeper & coordinator are jobs found exclusively in zoos. These jobs are little known in France. In fact, there is no adequate French translation for these English words (except perhaps for coordinator, which is now common parlance). These people often come from a biology background (ethology, reproductive biology, conservation biology, engineering schools). The park veterinarian also sometimes holds this position in addition to his or her veterinary role. In a nutshell, this job involves managing and monitoring the park’s animal population. The curator is in charge of exchanges and communication with other zoos, the administration and other program coordinators, managing animal arrivals and departures, and deciding whether or not to let animals reproduce.
Animators/Mediators/Educators
This is undoubtedly one of the fastest-growing professions in today’s parks. Whatever they’re called, animators are the link between the animal and the visitor. In a society where people read less and less, their role is to make the general public aware of the threats to biodiversity. While there is no single form of training required to become a mediator, you need to wear many hats. You need to have a facility for communicating and popularizing scientific knowledge, a taste for human contact and, above all, a desire to pass on information. A good mediator doesn’t listen to himself; he has to be a good listener to be able to pass on the right information, in the best possible way.
TRAINING:
In France numerous cursus can allow to become animator. DEUST nature guide, BTS Management Protection of Nature, universitary cursus universitaire in biology, BTS tourism are formations which allows to think about this job. Th success depends on the capacity to link this pluridisciplinarity.
Conclusion
It exists a lot more jobs linked to animals (groom, breeder, forest ranger, …) but it’s not up to us to add more precisions about them.