Summary
"Journalist Amy Sutherland takes readers on a fascinating tour of this boot camp of a school, with its nearly all female student body and teaching zoo of two hundred animals. Over the course of a year, Sutherland follows students as they touch their first animal (a tarantula), learn how to kill pigeons with their hands to feed the birds of prey, take the emu for a stroll, and rush to the emergency room with a bad animal bite or two. EATM pushes the limits of all enrolled as they master animal anatomy and hundreds of Latin species names in between hosing poop out of the big cats' cages and making sure Zulu the mandrill gets his morning juice in a paper cup. If the students survive the grueling twenty one month program, they will have essentially learned to talk to the animals."--BOOK JACKET. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.
Publishers Weekly Review
Graduates of the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program at California's Moorpark College land jobs in prestigious zoos, animal sanctuaries and research facilities, and they can be found in high-profile positions in Hollywood studios, the U.S. Navy and the organization Guide Dogs for the Blind. Sutherland (Cookoff: Recipe Fever in America) chronicles the intriguing year she spent with students at this "Harvard for exotic animal trainers," accompanying the "first years" as they interact with the exotic and not-so-exotic animals in the teaching zoo including baboons, cougars, servals, wolves, tortoises, snakes and rats. She attends classes in the rigorous academic program, goes to training sessions where the students learn to communicate with, rather than dominate, the animals, and discovers that the school is no place for anyone who thinks animals are cute: students may be attacked by emus, kicked by mule deer or backed into corners by camels. There is, however, much friction among the students, especially with the "second years." Sutherland observes that people who relate well to animals don't always relate well to other people, and this theme makes the book a fascinating study in human as well as animal behavior. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc.
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Table of Contents
|
Introduction |
ix |
|
Orientation |
1 |
|
Behaviors |
24 |
|
September |
35 |
|
Nutrition |
47 |
|
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