Bree Barney ’05 works with kangaroos at San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Barney looks after mammals in the zoo’s new Walkabout Australia exhibit. Photo courtesy of Bree Barney
There to watch out for the exhibit’s many mammals, making sure they stay safe and healthy, was Zookeeper Bree Barney ’05.
“We had an amazing turnout for this event,” she said. “Hundreds lined up to be one of the first to get a glimpse and get to hang out with the kangaroos and wallabies in the exhibit.
“I felt everyone was very excited because it was a new concept for many individuals — to be a foot away from an animal and learn about Australia.”
Walkabout Australia takes guests through four different kinds of Australian habitat — grassland, rainforest wetland and desert. As they walk they can encounter many species including western gray kangaroos, red-necked wallabies, brush turkeys, radjah shelducks, freckled ducks and magpie geese.
As an immersive exhibit, Walkabout Australia has no barricades or fencing. Instead the guests see the animals in a way they might see them if they’d encounter them in nature, Barney said.
Other animals like the double-wattled cassowaries and the endangered Matschie’s tree kangaroos can be seen in natural settings, but protected from park visitors.
“Many individuals may never get to experience the outback, grasslands, or rain forest of Australia, so this is a way they can,” she said. “I feel they also learn more because their excitement of being one on one with an animal is so strong that they learn facts and neat things about the exhibit and the species.”
Zoo-goers responded to the new exhibit in a big way.
“I felt everyone was very excited because it was a new concept for many individuals; to be a foot away from an animal and learn about Australia,” she said. “It was an amazing experience being at the gates and letting visitors go into the ‘finished Masterpiece’ for the first several days.
— Bree Barney ’05, San Diego Zoo Safari Park zookeeper
“It was like being a student and turning in your final project waiting to see if you will get an A, or if you will be disappointed by the outcome. I heard so many compliments and saw excitement in all of their eyes, it was definitely an A+.”
Barney is enjoying educating the public about the individual animals in the exhibit and encouraging them to help wildlife here in the United States and around the world. She’s able to do this because the exhibit isn’t just about introducing people to the animals, it’s also contributing to San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s mission to help preserve the endangered Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo.
“Making a difference internationally by helping conserve species is just an amazing feeling,” Barney said. “Somedays I think, ‘this is what I get to do every day?’ It is surreal. The work however, is just like any other job, you have your daily responsibilities and duties. … But honestly I have never woken up and went ‘I don’t want to be a zookeeper today.’”
Instead, Barney describes her job working with animals every day as a dream come true.
Bree Barney ’05 works with a sloth at Como Park Zoo. Barney has worked with a variety of animals throughout her career so far. Photo courtesy of Bree Barney
“Every day is different and keeps me on my toes and thinking outside the box. I have utilized every skill set I have in my career working with animals thus far,” she said.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from St. Cloud State University, Barney worked as a chemist and clinical research coordinator before her first role as a zookeeper at Como Park Zoo in St. Paul.
Many of the courses she took at St. Cloud State helped her to learn general concepts and scientific methods she still uses in her career today, Barney said, adding that she has kept in touch with many of her former professors including Professor Matt Julius.
“He (Julius) recently reached out to me congratulating me for my recent position at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park,” she said. “It really was appreciated and made me feel good knowing someone who shaped my education was proud of where and who I was today professionally.”
It was at the Como Park Zoo that she worked in the Tropical Encounters exhibit, a similarly immersive exhibit that is designed to feel like a walk through the rainforest.
“I loved working in Tropical Encounters, it was an amazing exhibit filled with flora and fauna from Central and South American rainforest,” Barney said. “I really enjoyed the mixed species and working with so many departments and staff with the care of the entire exhibit.”
While at Como Park Zoo and Conservatory she worked with hundreds of new species and oversaw the opening of many new exhibits, but Walkabout Australia is her first experience with macropods — the family of marsupials that include wallabies and kangaroos.
“Being a good zookeeper means that you are able to use research and resources to help you navigate through the unknowns as a baseline, and from there you are able to adapt to the collection and needs of the individuals and facility,” she said. “Macropods are unique, so knowing the things that make them unique in nature helps you manage them in captivity.”
