Giron Florez, Adriana - Executive Director
Acopazoa – Colombian Association of Zoos and Aquarium
Colombia, South America
I studied animal science at the university, even this career is focused on animal production, since 6 th semester I started to develop all my research projects on wild animals.
I started in the zoo world, working as a volunteer in Cali Zoo – Colombia , then and after developing my degree project there, I was fire as Leads keeper.
At that moment, in Colombia the keeper issue was focused just on clean and feed the animals, I started analyzing the keeper´s routines and improving the environmental enrichment concept and practice in the keeper´s job.
In 2001 I made a diploma degree in Durrell Wild life Conservation and my project there was focused on keeper training ant the way to improve their commitment with the animal welfare. On 2003 and 2006 I had the opportunity to be in the 1 st International Congress of Zookeeping, this evente made me understand the importance of the animal training as a tool to promote the animal welfare and to keep the motivation in the keepers.
I was in a Steve Martin course at NEI and I had the opportunity to know animal training job in Animal Kingdom, Metro zoo, Queen Zoo, Melbourne Zoo and Taronga Zoo.
Since 2006 I am out of Cali Zoo, working as consultant on animal training and keepers training in different zoos at Colombia .
At this moment I am the Executive director of Acopazoa and we are working so hard for the developing of a keeper network in Latinoamerica.
