Keeper Educational Exchange Programme - KEEP

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Keeper Educational Exchange Programme - KEEP

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

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!

30/09/2026

🎉NEW PLACEMENT ALERT🎉

The rhino team at Folly Farm are excited to offer an exciting 3 day opportunity to work with their fantastic black rhino crash!

This incredible opportunity will give someone the chance to see up close how the team care for these individuals and manage a breeding group of critically endangered Eastern black rhino!

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!
Folly Farm are ideally looking for keepers with at least 3 years experience working with large ungulates especially Black Rhinos.
*Minimum experience requirement is 1 year of full time animal keeping experience in the UK and Ireland. *
🦏🦏🦏
Deadline for application is 26/10/2026
Placement dates: 23rd-25th November 2026.
Visit our website for more info and how to apply!

28/09/2026

🥳KEEP PLACEMENT SUCCESS!🥳

The gorilla and primates team at Howletts Wild Animal Park recently welcomed Carina from Banham Zoo to spend time with their amazing assortment of primates!

Carina said;
"My placement was amazing! Thank you to the Howletts and KEEP teams! I loved both my time with the gorilla and primate team at Howletts! It was really interesting to see how they manage the same and similar species that we have at Banham!"

We want to say a huge thank you to the gorillas and primates team at Howletts for being brilliant and welcoming hosts whilst sharing your knowledge and expertise and big thanks to Carina 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!

24/09/2026

🎉NEW PLACEMENT ALERT🎉- LESS THAN A WEEK TO DEADLINE!

The West Section team at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm are excited to offer an amazing 3 day opportunity to work with their fantastic range of species!
The team work with a fantastic range of animals including Andean Bears, African Lion, Tigers, Lowland Tapir and Giant Anteaters!
This incredible opportunity will give someone the chance to see up close how the team care for these individuals, which could potentially include cleaning and general husbandry of enclosures, enrichment, training and food preparation (which may include light butchery too).
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 if you have any specific interests or dates that work . The successful candidate can discuss a date for the placement - it will be 3 consecutive days in November either; 9-11th November or 23rd-25th November 2026.
*Minimum experience requirement is 1 year of full time animal keeping experience in the UK and Ireland. *
🐻🐅🦁
Deadline for application is 30/09/2026
Placement dates: 9-11th November or 23rd-25th November 2026.
https://keeperexchange.org/jobs/keeper-placement-west-section-noah-s-ark-zoo-farm-ef0e77bd

16/09/2026

KEEP Conservation are excited to announce an exciting collaboration with SEED Madagascar for an amazing chance to take part in in-situ conservation work in Madagascar! 🇲🇬🦎

Together we are looking for experienced reptile and/or lemur specialists to assist with vital surveys in January 2027 which is a fantastic opportunity for a keeper looking to be emerged in rural Madagascar surrounded by lemurs, chameleons, geckos, bats and more

Working in Sainte Luce, South Madagascar you could be part of vital surveys to help monitor and in turn protect vital habitat for the endangered Anosy Day Gecko (Phelsuma antanosy) and many incredible endemic species including lemurs, flying foxes, chameleons and more!
The Anosy Day Gecko is restricted to 4 isolated sub-populations in the entire world. The largest sub-population is now at severe risk of further loss and decline due to mining and subsequent habitat loss. Experienced keeping staff with experience in gecko behaviour as well as lemurs/flying foxes would be absolutely invaluable to the team in their efforts to protect the habitat and the endemic species that call Sainte Luce home.

Due to the remote location, this will require camping in Madagascar at the project's field site, but don't worry you will be alongside the field team so you won't be on your own out there!
This amazing opportunity is open to keepers with 5+ years’ paid full time experience. Priority is given to keepers experienced in husbandry of Madagascan reptiles and lemurs/fruit bats.
All applicants must be registered KEEP members to apply.
Applications are now open - please submit your CV and Cover Letter stipulating your interest to [email protected] and we'll supply more info on what is involved and how to apply etc - suitable candidates will be remotely interviewed by the SEED Madagascar team in preparation for the surveys. Remember, this placement is for KEEP members ONLY, and you'll need 5 years plus experience to be considered.
https://keeperexchange.org/listings/other/keep-conservation-placement-seed-madagascar-lbjxrlix
Deadline for application; 31/10/2026.

14/09/2026

Exciting announcement time!! 🥳

We have a new and shiny website! The URL remains the same but our wonderful team member Alec has helped deliver a new more functional and purpose built website that is easier on the eye and on the user!

Registered members and institutions will receive info on how to update their sign-in (don't worry it's super simple) but otherwise we're excited to launch the new site. It has some exciting new features and is a lot easier to apply and/or host a placement!
New features include;
- Search and discover to find placements that match your skills, interests and goals
- Apply and track – apply with ease and track your placements and dates in one place
- Message – connect directly with collections and keepers
- Team accounts – colleagues can collaborate, manage applications and stay aligned
- Stay notified – get important updates so you never miss an opportunity
- More than placements – explore directories, events and stories from the KEEP community

We are always on the look out for new placements to fill out the current placements so if you think you are able to host visiting keepers and show off something you're proud of whether it's tapir training, ectotherm enrichment or hawk husbandry we'd love to hear from you!

Don't think we would let this occasion pass without an exciting opportunity for a lucky keeper or two. All will be revealed on 16/9/2026 but for the eagle eyed you might just find out for yourself if you *survey* the new site properly...! 😏

Address

Trumpington

Website

http://www.keeperexchange.org/

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