Lions and tigers and goats – oh my!

Socializing baby penguins, hand-feeding a gimpy goat and getting pinched by a hermit crab are among the amazing moments Julia Hart experienced this summer while volunteering at the San Francisco Zoo. Julia is participating in the Talk on the Wild Side program, in which she teaches zoo visitors about giraffes and rhinos and then herds chickens in the children's zoo.

She adds zip to the zoo experience by using 'biofact carts' to bring an extra dimension to looking at animals. 'You can see the giraffe, but you can't touch it. I have a pelt in my cart so you know what it feels like,' she said, explaining the artifact packed carts, each holding skulls, vertebrae and fur the volunteers wheel about. Whether in the African safari area or the insect zoo, there's a cart for each location.

Hart spends two days a week at the zoo, overnighting in the city with her grandmother or her aunt. Arriving in the morning, the volunteers are given a walkie-talkie and a schedule, then Hart's off on her rounds, spending maybe an hour with a cart at the bear den, next assigned to demonstrating how black scorpions turn blue when you flash them with a black light, before heading to the petting zoo where she makes sure 'no sheep is running after a kid and no kid is running after a goat.'

Hart says the most exciting time is working with the baby penguins, because she gets to be up close with them. 'We sit with them – we are not allowed to pick them up, but if they jump in your lap that's totally fine.' She's watched them grow, seeing their feathers come in and how they learn to swim. 'They vocalize and they are really entertaining. You smell like fish all day afterward, but it is worth it because they are soft and cuddly.'

Hart, 16, will be a junior at Sonoma Valley High School this year, where she is on the varsity track team. She loves animals, volunteers at Pets Lifeline, is a Girl Scout and has played soccer since she was 4. She works part time at the No Name Café and is the teen representative on the Sonoma Valley Regional Library board. Volunteering at the zoo has cemented her desire to attend college and pursue a career working with animals, perhaps on a conservation site.

'Julia is a fantastic volunteer and it's been a joy working with her,' Carissa Rowley, her zoo volunteer leader said. 'She has a compassion for animals and enthusiasm for learning about them. She is especially excited when she takes out the Komodo dragon cart.'

Hart says she likes running the San Clemente goats through their agility course and feeding the donkeys and Paprika, the goat with the injured leg. When the summer ends she will miss her favorite sheep, Hazel and Merlin the alpaca. Hopefully they will all still be there next summer, because Hart is going to jump at the chance to spend another summer learning at the San Francisco Zoo.