All right, everybody. This is Ellen Weatherford, and I'm here with just a zoo of us, like always.

And this week, we have a new friend. This is Torrey Wingarder. Say hi, Tori.

Hi.

How are you doing today?

Pretty good. Pretty good. How are you?

I'm awesome, and I'm really excited to talk to you and to talk about our cool animal for today.

It's a little bit of a Florida icon, right?

Yes, absolutely.

So you're also in Florida, which is really exciting for me.

We have a little bit of somewhat local pride.

So first, before we launch into our animal, let our friends know who you are and how you got to where you are.

Basically, just like every other zookeeper, animal professional, I have always felt really connected to animals at a young age.

I was out exploring my backyard, things like that. Lots of time spent outdoors. And there was a pet store that was pretty close to

my house. And that's where I first kind of got my taste of taking care of animals. I'd volunteer there.

And I would clean the cages of like the reptiles, the birds, the hamsters and the puppies and the

kittens. And I volunteered there for about two years. And then when I was

17, I was hired. So I worked at the pet store for another two years. So I moved from Orlando

to go to school in Gainesville to the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo. And there I earned a degree in

Zoo Animal Technology. So basically what that means is just everything that you can think of that encompasses zookeeping. Like it just turns you into just a zoo animal professional. You get a little taste of everything. It's five semesters. So you get a part in like kitchen. You get to work with birds of prey hoof stock reptiles primates

even venomous reptiles which was really exciting for me that was my favorite part of my senior

year was working in our herb house i felt really connected to all of those different animals there

and i work with gopher tortoises there too and that's when I learned so much more about them than I knew.

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