Zookeeper living a dream
BROOKFIELD | Working with dolphins, seals is not all play -- but it's all fun
The steel gate looks like it was designed to restrain a charging rhinoceros.
A scuffed sheet of plexiglass blocks the view of the creature that lies beyond the three-inch-thick bars; it appears only as a big, snorting, blob-like thing.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)
PHOTO GALLERY
Kids' dream job
Cool Fact:
How do dolphins sleep?
"It's a very different type of sleep than what we're used to," says Mark Gonka, a Brookfield Zoo keeper. "Scientists believe [dolphins] will actually shut down parts of their brain and they will actually close one eye and keep one eye open. They have to be aware of their environment. In the wild, they have to stay away from predators. . . . You'll see them swimming in a very gentle pattern with a bunch of other dolphins."
Before he opens the gate, Mark Gonka makes a request to a visitor: Don't stand between the animal and the water.
"If he gets startled, the first thing he'd want to do is go in the water," says Gonka, a 36-year-old Brookfield Zoo keeper. "If you're in between him and the water, you'll end up in the water with him."
As Gonka opens the gate, "Harley" surges up toward Gonka --and plants a wet, whiskery kiss on the keeper's cheek.
"He's very loving," says Gonka of the 450-pound California sea lion. "He's trying to give me a lot of kisses today."
Such are the unique rewards of being the lead sea lion, dolphin and seal keeper at Brookfield Zoo -- a job the Chicago Sun-Times is featuring as part of an occasional series about children's dream occupations.
Not surprisingly, Gonka -- who always seems to have a boyish smile on his face -- loves his job. He's in charge of caring for three gray seals, four harbor seals, three California sea lions and four dolphins.
"I don't have any days when I don't want to go out and play with the animals," he says.
But it certainly isn't all play. When he's in the sea lion exhibit, Gonka is checking Harley's mouth for broken teeth and the animal's dense, cold fur for any unusual cuts or bruises. Harley lies perfectly still as Gonka runs his fingers over the animal's blubbery surface.
Before Harley arrived, the exhibit housed walruses, which accounts for the thick metal gate. The tusked mammals enjoyed playing with their poop, which, of course, had to be removed.
"We call it finger painting," Gonka explains. "They'll lie in it, they'll be sleeping in it and they roll around in it."
This all seems a world away from the bottle-nosed dolphin exhibit in another part of the zoo. Here, Gonka sits in a concrete bunker-like office preparing for the public dolphin show. Large windows offer a silent, turquoise-blue view of the dolphin's underwater habitat. A dolphin approaches, nose first, and stops to observe an unfamiliar visitor. As it backs away from the window, it keeps its eyes on the visitor.
Later, during the show, Gonka works poolside with one of the dolphins. He uses hand gestures and a high-pitched dog whistle -- and lots of fresh fish -- to get Tapeko to perform a range of maneuvers, including letting a visitor touch Tapeko, a 26-year-old female. Tapeko's glossy gray head feels a bit like wet plastic, but the animal's pinkish-white belly is soft and spongy.
Gonka says the dolphins aren't forced to do anything -- it's all voluntary. And dolphins aren't always worried about pleasing humans.
"If there are social things going on in the pool, and one of the dolphins is kind of low on the totem pole -- and they are getting picked on by the other dolphins -- sometimes that dolphin might be frustrated and decide to take a swipe at a trainer," Gonka said.
But that's rare, he said, as he scratched Tapeko's tongue, an action dolphins enjoy.
Working this dream job has left Gonka mostly just in awe of these magnificent animals.
"I always wonder what they're thinking," he says. "Sometimes I wonder who's training who."