Animal Keeper Intern
The Living Rainforest
South East Closing date for applications is: 9th Jul 2026| Contact: | Robyn Daniels ([email protected]) |
| Sector: | Animal Care |
| Type: | Work Experience |
| Contract type: | Full-time |
| Salary: | N/A |
Due to a sudden change of circumstances, The Living Rainforest has an opportunity become available for a work placement with our Animal Department to gain some much-valued experience within an Animal environment from this summer. Our internship programme has been running successfully for years and we are pleased to be able to offer a placement from September 2026 running until June 2027 date tbc.
The Trust for Sustainable Living is a registered charity based near Newbury, Berkshire. At our visitor centre, The Living Rainforest, the animal collection is contained within three tropical glasshouses and consists of more than 60 species. These include callitrichids, toucan and turacos, snakes, chelonia, stingrays, dendrobatids, and invertebrates and more.
Role and Responsibilities:
- The primary role of the intern will be to learn the daily husbandry and routines of our animal department. This includes feeding animals, maintaining enclosures, daily record keeping, diet preparation and animal health checks.
- You will also learn how to train and supervise our existing volunteers and participate in training new volunteers and work experience students.
- You will also receive training and participate in keeper talks (which run through holidays) and keeper experiences.
- You will have the opportunity to gain knowledge of the different aspects of the department such as veterinary treatment, enclosure design and record keeping.
- You may also be invited to attend internal meetings. This may include ethics committees and staff team meetings.
Terms of placement:
- This is a 9 to 10 month voluntary work placement with a registered charity, to begin in September 2026.
- This is an unpaid placement, however, we can assist with reasonable travel expenses
- The success candidate will receive hands-on experience with a variety of species, suitable training and work within a strong team with a wide range of skills and knowledge.
- Our hours are 8.30 am to 5pm. Five days a week on a rota basis. This will include weekends and bank holidays so you can see the full life cycle of our organisation.
The applicant
- This placement is ideal for a candidate working towards or has an Animal related qualification, who would like to partake in this internship in order to seek further industry experience.
- Applicants should be enthusiastic, hard-working and have a willingness to learn new skills.
- It is necessary that you have your own form of transport to get to and from The Living Rainforest each day as public transport is infrequent in this area.
Apply for this job:
To apply, please provide us with a CV and covering letter so we can learn a little more about you and your experience to [email protected].
Thank you for your interest in joining our team. Due to the popularity of some vacancies, if we haven’t contacted you back within 28 days, please assume that your application was unsuccessful.
We aim to be an equal opportunities employer and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.
The Living Rainforest is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and Adults at Risk. Therefore the successful applicant will need to undertake an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check for this role.
