Zoo InternQuest, Author at San Diego Zoo… – Page 17 of 32 – San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Stories

Zoo InternQuest is a seven-week career exploration program for San Diego County high school juniors and seniors. Students have the unique opportunity to meet professionals working for the San Diego Zoo, Safari Park, and Institute for Conservation Research, learn about their jobs, and then blog about their experience online. Follow their adventure here on the Zoo’s website! Insects are fascinating creatures. Even I, someone who despises most species of the class Insecta, can concede this much. While I thought no one could convince me otherwise to come within five feet of any bug bigger than the palm of my hand, I had yet to meet Ms. Ester Chang, a Senior Keeper working in the Entomology Department at the San Diego Zoo. On Thursday, Ms. Chang brought us into the Insect House, which houses some of the Zoo’s on-site collection of insects from around the world. Standing next to a wall cutout of a leafcutter ant colony, she informed us and a crowd of curious onlookers on the mechanisms that allow insects like the leafcutter ant to thrive. Our amazement at seeing the ants work alongside one another like some sort of super-organism was second only to the enthusiasm that Ms. Chang herself exuded when talking about them. Ms. Chang has been fascinated with bugs her entire life. As a child, she would often venture outside her house to examine the insects that crawled along the ground. It was therefore inevitable that she would end up studying entomology at UC Berkeley, albeit as a minor. Though she majored in American Literature, Ms. Chang seemingly could not distance herself from her true passion and began to work as an intern for the San Francisco Zoo, where she took care of the insects at the fittingly named Insect Zoo. This proved to be her first experience of many working with insects in a zoo environment. After all, the San Diego Zoo is hardly the only menagerie in the United States to house insects: the first exhibit building devoted entirely to insects was actually built at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden in 1978. Along with gaining some hands-on experience, Ms. Chang went on to receive a master’s degree in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University. It was both her educational background and her practical knowledge of insect keeping that eventually enabled her to get a career in the San Diego Zoo’s Entomology Department. Since then, Ms. Chang has fully embraced her insect-related interests and now works full-time with bugs. While her primary workplace is the Insect House, she is also involved with many of the entomological projects taking place behind the exhibits, including the work of Insect Keeper Mr. Brandon Rowley and their efforts towards the conservation of the quino checkerspot butterfly. For nearly ten years, Ms. Chang has contributed to the Zoo’s overarching mission to save species worldwide by tending to its vast assortment of exotic arthropods. After wandering past the windows of assassin bugs and golden silk orb-weavers, we entered the employee’s only subdivision of the Insect House. Rows and rows of containers lined the walls, each holding its own striking individual of a certain species. Behind the aforementioned wall of leafcutter ants, we could see a network of pipes and dispensaries that were literally crawling with ants of various colonies. It was quite a sight to behold. However, Ms. Chang had a few other creatures up her sleeve (though not literally, thankfully). First up was the Giant African millipede; true to its name, the millipede skittered along her hand mesmerizingly, its many legs waving up and down. At her encouragement, I let the millipede rest on my own hand and felt a rather curious sensation, like a piece of Velcro undulating on my skin. Next was the dead leaf mantis, which unsettled me too much for me to come into contact with it. Ms. Chang, meanwhile, handled it with ease. But the most unbelievable organism she showed us that day was the giant katydid, a long-legged leaf-like creature that looked like it was plucked right from the branch it was sitting upon. It appeared so much like a leaf that my eyes did not register its other features until I examined it more closely. When I expressed to Ms. Chang that such an inconspicuous insect would have taken thousands of years to evolve, she mentioned that all of the members of the Insect House had some specialized feature that was obtained through the incredibly slow process of evolution. These are the animals that Ms. Chang works with on a daily basis, and my surprised reaction was likely only one of many that she has seen throughout her years of educating the public. Because insects have such short lifespans when compared to ours, many species of insects are evolutionary masterpieces in both form and function. Just like the insects she loves, Ms. Chang spent years adapting to the world around her until she found something that she could enjoy and excel at. So despite my misgivings about insects, it is impossible not to be impressed by what she has managed to accomplish. Sunwoo, Careers Team Week Three, Fall Session 2017