Zoo Docents

Come be a part of life at the Brandywine Zoo! As a Docent, you’ll guide guests through the world of wildlife, answer questions about or narrate animal behavior and be a part of creating or sustaining the lifelong love of animals in our guests. Docents are a very important part of our education team here at the zoo. As a zoo docent, you’ll be a member of a critical group that assists staff in making sure our guests walk out of the zoo more knowledgeable and prepared to think about our animals and conservation solutions out in the world.

The Brandywine Zoo Education Department is seeking fun, mature and engaging volunteers for the Docent Program. These volunteers complete a series of required formal trainings. The Brandywine Zoo’s Docent Program offers a new level of responsibility and commitment for individuals who can contribute consistent service and dedication to the Brandywine Zoo.

If you have questions or comments, please email sara.kennedy@delaware.gov.

Location: Brandywine Zoo – Wilmington, DE
Supervisor: Manager of Volunteers – Sara Kennedy
Schedule: Minimum of 24 shifts per year
Apply: By February 28, 2023
Training Dates: For program year 2023, training dates are: TBD

Qualifications

• Applicants must be 18+ years old.

• Willing and able to complete a background check performed by the Division of Parks and Recreation.
• Fluent in the English language (verbally and via written communication).
• Provide proof of negative TB Test within the last 12 months before start date.
• Must have an interest in working with the general public and effective public speaking skills such as enthusiasm, voice inflection, and varied facial expressions.
• Must have the ability to change messaging to fit with people from various backgrounds and age groups.
• Candidates must exhibit consistent professional characteristics such as a punctuality, positive attitude, initiative, emotional maturity and self-responsibility.
• Able to commit to upholding all Zoo safety and personnel policies, and support the overall mission of the Brandywine Zoo.

Responsibilities

• Interpreting conservation messages by conducting activities in the zoo for guests of all ages.
• Educating guests about the animals at the zoo.
• Handle (often fragile) biofacts such as pelts, bones, etc.
• Assist educators with traveling programs.
• Participate in the zoo’s special events as schedule allows.
• Other duties as assigned
• Follow all Brandywine Zoo and Delaware State Policies and Procedure

Training: Docents will receive onsite training from the field experts they will be working with to help become the best interpreters they can be! Topics covered include animal natural history, conservation initiatives, how to be a great interpreter, and more! In addition to the skills learned during training, docents will have the opportunity to build critical skills that can be used in various careers like education, conservation, natural resources management, animal management, ecological studies, etc. We also have various ways to further your knowledge about animals, conservation, and interpretation through access to additional online trainings.

Opportunities for school credit or Continuing Education Credit are available.

Docent Perks: Docents will have the opportunity not only to visit ALL Delaware State Parks at no fee, but also participate in many of the tours, programs, and associated events for free. Delaware State Parks span the length of the state and whether it be canoeing at Lums Pond State Park, surfing at Delaware Seashore State Park, attending a concert at Bellevue State Park, or touring the living history facility at Fort Delaware, there is certainly something for everyone.

All Delaware State Parks 18+ volunteers are required to undergo and successfully complete a background check performed by the Division.

Volunteens

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

Come be a part of the life of the Brandywine Zoo! We’re seeking dynamic and engaging teens who are interested in education and conservation. This program is volunteer position that alternates between various positions throughout the zoo including educating guests, helping in the barnyard, and being an assistant camp counselor. You’ll be a member of a critical team that assists the Brandywine Zoo staff in making sure our guests walk out of the zoo more knowledgeable and prepared to think about our animals and conservation solutions out in the world.

If you have questions or comments, please email sara.kennedy@delaware.gov.

Our VolunTEEN program is full for 2023!  Check back in March of 2024 when applications open again.

Summer Camp Assistant
Camp Assistants will work M-F for their selected weeks assisting our Zoo Camp Staff with on-site camps. Assistants will help lead activities and games, assist staff with managing campers, and contribute to an overall FUN and educational camp for our campers! For information on the camps you could help lead, please visit our Summer Camps page.

Shifts: 8:00AM-4PM, M-F, minimum of 1 week

Barnyard Monitor
Barnyard monitors will assist zoo guests in friendly interactions with the goats during their visit. This includes interpreting the goats, showing how to gently interact, and even brushing the goats. Goat yard monitors may also be asked to clean and rake the barnyard during their shift.

Shifts: 9AM – 12:30PM or 12:30PM – 4PM. Preferable to select one reoccurring day.

Exhibit Interpreter/Docent
Talk to our guests about our animals, assist with animal demonstrations or shows.

Shifts: 9:30AM – 1PM or 12:30PM – 4PM. Preferable to select one reoccurring day.

KESTREL NEST BOX MONITORING

Active season for monitoring is late February through August with once a week check-ins on assigned boxes.

The Brandywine Zoo’s American Kestrel nest box program started in 2014 and was the first in-situ field conservation project conducted by the Zoo in its 109 year history. To this day, while operating on a shoestring budget, with one stipended research apprentice and 6-8 volunteer monitors, we are fully committed to learning as much about this small falcon as we can.

From 2014-16, the Zoo operated primarily independently in installing and monitoring nest boxes, but in 2016 we formally formed the Delaware Kestrel Partnership (DKP) to include other resource partners in the state in this effort to study Kestrels. Today, the DKP is made up of The Brandywine Zoo, The Delaware Zoological Society, Delaware Fish and Wildlife, Delaware State Parks, Delmarva Ornithological Society (DOS), Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research, Delaware Nature Society, and The Peregrine Fund’s American Kestrel Partnership (AKP), in addition to a number of public lands groups and private landowners.

This Partnership has allowed the Zoo to develop protocols and knowledge sharing opportunities, investigate historic Kestrel research in Delaware, and work as a group to determine the underlying cause(s) to Kestrel population decline in the State.

Banding opportunities are invite-only by either the Curator of Education and Conservation or the Conservation Research Apprentice.

Peregrine Fledge Monitoring

In partnership with the Delaware Ornithological Society’s (DOS) long-running Peregrine Falcon nest monitoring project, The Brandywine Zoo is helping to coordinate volunteer monitoring efforts during falcon fledging.

Since 1992, DOS has been monitoring a nesting pair of Peregrine Falcons who annually take up residence in a man-made nest box in Downtown Wilmington each year. The current falcons are “Trinity” and “Red Girl,” and the live webcam hosted by DOS sees up to 10,000 viewers per day during peak nesting season!

For more details about this project, please visit the DOS Wilmington Peregrine Falcon Watch web page.

HELP US MONITOR FALCON FLEDGLINGS AS THEY TAKE THEIR FIRST FLIGHTS!

Each year, as the season’s new falcon chicks approach fledging (taking their first flight), volunteer monitors are brought together to watch for these first harrowing flights. Volunteers take two-hour shifts from just before dawn to just after dusk to watch for these flights. This is important because sometimes the fledglings end up “grounding” themselves (they end up on the ground and don’t have the wing strength necessary to get enough lift to get to a higher location) and, because of their inexperience with flying cannot get back up to their nest.

Volunteers will go recover the fledgling and return it to the roof of the Brandywine Building if this happens.

Fledgling monitoring usually occurs around Memorial Day, and lasts from 7-10 days.

If you’re interested in becoming a monitor, you may apply to become a volunteer through Delaware State Parks. Select the Zoo and specify that you want to be involved with the peregrine project.

In the fall of 2017, The Brandywine Zoo partnered with the Lincoln Park Zoo’s Urban Wildlife Institute (UWI) to conduct passive monitoring of wildlife within the State of Delaware. This project specifically focuses on monitoring green spaces inside and outside of Wilmington, Delaware at field sites along an urban to rural gradient. This monitoring project is conducted using game cameras placed along a transect running through rural to urban areas in New Castle County. The images and activities observed will be used to help connect people to nature and educate the public about the importance of biodiversity within a natural community.

We are currently not accepting volunteers, but check back soon!

Volunteers for this project would help our research team deploy cameras around New Castle County, Delaware for our monitoring efforts. Various camera deployment projects range from three times a month, four times per year (January, April, July, and October deployments) to several other ongoing projects that take place year-round.

At minimum, a volunteer for this project would be assigned 3-5 camera locations for the seasonal deployments (January, April, July, and October deployments), where they would deploy cameras prior to the first of the month, check back on cameras at two weeks for battery life and memory cards, and pull cameras from the field at 1 month (no less than 28 days after deployment). Deployments and maintenance, depending on location, could take up to an hour per site, plus driving time, but could feasibly be completed in one day or two half-days.

This opportunity requires being outdoors, in all weather, for extended periods of time, bending, lifting, or carrying sometimes heavy objects, traversing uneven or even slippery terrain outdoors, crossing streams, climbing riverbanks, etc.

We are currently not accepting volunteers, but check back soon!

Individuals (or families) can help tag critical information in photos received from our camera traps set up around New Castle County as a part of the continental Urban Wildlife Information Network.  We joined with the goal to study and report on urban wildlife activities in the Delaware valley to the greater network, but also to better connect our own communities to the wildlife in our backyards.  NOTE: All volunteers for this project need to have a Gmail friendly email in order to access the online portal. Volunteers can work independently and at their own pace.