As my study abroad plans to spend a semester in Costa Rica fell through I had to begin looking for an apartment back in Dallas. I was not thrilled because, as much as SMU has done for me, for a while it wasn’t my favorite place. I probably shouldn’t have chosen a school known for business and not at all for science, but at the time I was desperate to get away from Florida for a little while. But my plans of transferring were not looking bright and I was hoping to find a ray of sunshine to make my stay in Dallas more appealing. Enter, the Dallas Zoo.
My friends when I spent time in our “base camp” building
I actually got an unpaid internship at a zoo! That about sums up the phone call my poor father got after I was accepted into the intern program at the Palm Beach Zoo. I was over the moon and his mild shock couldn’t change it. I think that my parents had known all along that I wouldn’t end up being a doctor. I just couldn’t stay away from those animals! After spending an entire school year choosing to wake up early and shovel tiger crap instead of stay out late at parties I was now choosing to seal my fate in the zoo world.
I was sitting in my parents room watching animal planet when I watched a group of volunteers rescue fourteen cougars, five lions and one tiger from a neglectful home in Poetry, Texas. The floors were covered in feces and many of the cats were without water and on the verge of starvation, then these people came in in their lime green shirts and took them and gave them a better home.
