The Dallas Zoo’s Favorite Zookeeper

When Harrison Edell was in grade school in San Francisco, his grandmother often brought him to the city zoo. He remembers spending the day watching the animals and the zookeepers who cared for them and thinking that they had the coolest job in the world.

When he was 5 or 6, he told his parents he wanted to be a zookeeper when he grew up. “I think they hoped I would grow out of that,” Edell cracks.

He didn’t; and now, more than three decades later, he oversees the care of all of the animals at the Dallas Zoo as the vice president of animal operations and welfare.

During that time, Edell says, zoos have changed dramatically, both in the way they approach animal welfare and exhibit design and in terms of conservation. Many of those changes, and the work Edell does, play out behind the scenes — like when he oversaw the safe journey of two adult hippos from New Mexico to Dallas, or when he helped nurse a baby owl back to health and released it into the wild.

One of the most challenging aspects of Edell’s job is overseeing one of the 600 unique species-survival plans developed by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, which closely monitors the breeding and sustainability of species in captivity.

“Before an egg hatches, I know where that bird is going to go,” Edell says. “I know who its potential mates are going to be.”

But at the end of the day, Edell says working at the zoo still means having the coolest job any kid could imagine.

“I remind my keepers all the time that in little kids’ eyes, you are a rock star,” he says. “You have the coolest job in the world. As a keeper, you’ve got to find how to capitalize on that infatuation and fascination to create minds that are going to be open to an environmental education.”