Keeper Educational Exchange Programme - KEEP

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Keeper Educational Exchange Programme - KEEP

A tool for zookeepers to gain and share knowledge in the pursuit of optimal animal welfare.

28/10/2026

🎉NEW PLACEMENT ALERT🎉

The Ape Department at Dudley Zoo are excited to offer an amazing 2 day opportunity to work with their fantastic ape groups; Bornean orang-utans and chimpanzees as well as an exciting range of other species including lar gibbons and howler monkeys!

During this two-day experience, you'll get chance to work alongside their experienced keepers as they carry out their daily duties. You will gain hands-on insight into animal husbandry, including animal training, enrichment activities, feeding routines and enclosure management.

To work with these fantastic animals whilst working with their dedicated and experienced keepers, register with us, submit your cv and cover letter and get your application in! When applying please specify in your cover letter if you have any specific interests.
*Minimum experience requirement is 1 year of full time animal keeping experience in the UK and Ireland. *
🦧🦍🐒
Deadline for application is 14/12/2026.
Placement dates: 25th-26th January 2026

26/10/2026

🎉NEW PLACEMENT ALERT🎉
The amphibian team at Chester Zoo are excited to offer an amazing 2 day opportunity to work with their fantastic range of amphibians!
The team work with a fantastic range of species including dart frogs, mantellas, newts, salamanders, mountain chickens and lots more!

This exciting opportunity will give the successful applicants insight into their daily husbandry routines, training, and conservation efforts.
To work with these fantastic animals whilst working with their dedicated and experienced keepers, register with us, submit your cv and cover letter and get your application in! When applying please specify in your cover letter if you have any specific interests.

*Minimum experience requirement is 1 year of full time animal keeping experience in the UK and Ireland. *
🐸🐸🐸
Deadline for application is 9/11/2026.
Placement dates: 24th-25th November 2026

25/10/2026

Happy International Zookeepers Day!! - Giveaway competition winners! 🥳

We're excited to announce the winner of our International Zookeepers Day giveaway is Shannon from Dartmoor Zoo with her grumpy Scottish wildcat!
Our runner up is Bethany from Flamingo Land with her lovely penguin!

Shannon and Bethany we'll be in touch to organize your prizes!

Thanks again to all who entered, we really appreciate your support of KEEP, we couldn't do it without you all!

20/10/2026

🎉NEW PLACEMENT ALERT🎉- LAST CHANCE TO APPLY!!

The reptile team at Chester Zoo are excited to offer an amazing 2 day opportunity to work with their fantastic range of reptiles!
The team work with a fantastic range of species including komodo dragons, Sunda gharial, ploughshare tortoise, Gaboon vipers and Bermuda skinks!
This exciting opportunity will give the successful applicants insight into their daily husbandry routines, training, and conservation efforts.
To work with these fantastic animals whilst working with their dedicated and experienced keepers, register with us, submit your cv and cover letter and get your application in! When applying please specify in your cover letter if you have any specific interests.
*Minimum experience requirement is 1 year of full time animal keeping experience in the UK and Ireland. *
🐊🐢🐍
Deadline for application is 21/10/2026.
Placement dates: 5th-6th November 2026.

17/10/2026

🎉NEW PLACEMENT ALERT🎉

The invertebrate team at Chester Zoo are excited to offer an fantastic opportunity to work with their incredible collection of invertebrates!
The team work with a fantastic range of species including conservation priority species like the Bermuda snails, unique beauties like the Emerald jewel wasps or the slightly less menacing butterfly and moth collection!
This exciting opportunity will give the successful applicants insight into their daily husbandry routines, breeding, exhibitory and conservation efforts.

To work with these fantastic animals whilst working with their dedicated and experienced keepers, register with us, submit your cv and cover letter and get your application in! When applying please specify in your cover letter if you have any specific interests.
*Minimum experience requirement is 1 year of full time animal keeping experience in the UK and Ireland. *
🐌🪲🦋
Deadline for application is 02/11/2026.
Placement date: 18th November 2026.
More info on how to apply on our website - keeperexchange.org

14/10/2026

🎉NEW PLACEMENT ALERT🎉

The reptile team at Chester Zoo are excited to offer an amazing 2 day opportunity to work with their fantastic range of reptiles!
The team work with a fantastic range of species including komodo dragons, Sunda gharial, ploughshare tortoise, Gaboon vipers and Bermuda skinks!

This exciting opportunity will give the successful applicants insight into their daily husbandry routines, training, and conservation efforts.

To work with these fantastic animals whilst working with their dedicated and experienced keepers, register with us, submit your cv and cover letter and get your application in! When applying please specify in your cover letter if you have any specific interests.
*Minimum experience requirement is 1 year of full time animal keeping experience in the UK and Ireland. *
🐊🐢🐍
Deadline for application is 21/10/2026.
Placement dates: 5th-6th November 2026.

Meta has made it harder to add urls to our posts - so please check the final image for where to find the listing on our website.

07/10/2026

🎉NEW PLACEMENT ALERT🎉
The Parrots and Penguin team at Chester Zoo are excited to offer an amazing 3 day opportunity to work with their fantastic range of birds!
The team work with a fantastic range of species including cassowary, Javan green magpie, Humboldt penguins and great green macaws!

This exciting opportunity will give the successful applicants insight into their daily husbandry routines, training, and conservation efforts.

To work with these fantastic animals whilst working with their dedicated and experienced keepers, register with us, submit your cv and cover letter and get your application in! When applying please specify in your cover letter if you have any specific interests.

*Minimum experience requirement is 1 year of full time animal keeping experience in the UK and Ireland. *
🪺🦜🐦

Deadline for application is 21/10/2026.
Placement dates: 10th-12th November 2026.
https://keeperexchange.org/jobs/chester-zoos-parrot-and-penguin-team-cb324aa5

06/10/2026

KEEP shout-out! 😍🦒

We would like to say an enormous thank you to the wonderful team at West Midlands Safari Park for their amazing generosity!
They have once again kindly funded our running costs for the next year which allows to keep offering exciting zoo keeper placements from the Midlands to Madagascar and many more places in between!
Their generous support allows to support CPD opportunities both near and far whilst working on exciting ideas and projects!

KEEP is run by keepers for keepers and so initially when we set up this project we had to dig deep into our own pockets and so financial support means so much to us as it allows us to fund our mission moving forward!
Furthermore they have already supported us by hosting visiting keepers and sending some of their own on placements to other institutions!

If you or your institution/business are interested in sponsoring us - all contributions are greatly appreciated - please get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!

04/10/2026

Happy International Zookeepers Day!! 🥳🤩 Shoutout and competition give-away (keep reading to the bottom)!

We want to give a massive shout-out to our friends and colleagues - the zookeepers! A truly remarkable bunch of people, some of the toughest yet most compassionate, skilful yet humble and passionate people you are ever likely to meet.
To the many incredible and dedicated zookeepers around the world who have taken part in a KEEP placement whether visiting another zoo or hosting other keepers, an experienced keeper taking part in a conservation placement, a registered keeper or those who follow all our posts we want to say thank you!
We'll continue to do our best to seek out opportunities from anaconda to zorilla to help your professional development!

KEEP is run by zookeepers for zookeepers to give us all the chance to help promote highest possible standards of animal welfare by sharing our ideas, expertise, knowledge and passion with our colleagues so we can ultimately provide the best care for our animal colleagues!

🐒🦎🐅🦓🦏🦧🦒🦚🦜🦥🦂🐧🦇

We thought whilst its lovely to say nice things about you all, we thought it'd be nicer to show we actually mean it! We are planning on giving away a bundle of goodies - including a canvas print of your favourite animal - to a registered member of KEEP!

To apply all you need to do to enter is be a registered member of KEEP (bonus points if your zoo is signed up and even more so if you've taken part in a placement) and comment with your favourite photo of your favourite animal(s) below!

Remember to be with your picture choices though please!

Application deadline: 11/10/2026

Good luck!

03/10/2026

🥳KEEP PLACEMENT SUCCESS!🥳

The hoofstock team at Howletts Wild Animal Park recently welcomed Indie from Chessington World of Adventures to spend time with their amazing assortment of ungulates!

Indie said;
"My time at Howletts was amazing Shelley and the team were so welcoming and kind. It was great to learn so much about species I’ve never worked with before as well gain further knowledge on how they manage their deer park with multiple different species! I had the best couple of days with the team and can’t thank them enough!"

We want to say a huge thank you to the hoofstock team at Howletts for being brilliant and welcoming hosts whilst sharing your knowledge and expertise and big thanks to Indie for signing up, taking part and getting stuck in! 🤩
Don't forget, if you're currently a Zookeeper with over a year's paid experience, you're eligible for the programme! To register now, head to - you never know where you may end up!

Address

Trumpington

Website

http://www.keeperexchange.org/

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