Rachael Gaynes achieved a childhood dream when she was awarded First Class Honours in Biodiversity and Conservation Science (Macquarie University) and became a primate keeper at Taronga Zoo.

After eight years, she transferred to the UK and combined her love of animal management with her passion for education by becoming the Animal Collections Manager for a leading agricultural education provider.

Rachael has now returned to Australia and Taronga Zoo in her role as a TTI trainer/assessor (primarily for the Certificate II Animal Studies course including the HSC Program) and continues to works on the primate division.

Rachael has now returned to Australia and Taronga Zoo in her role as a TTI trainer/assessor and continues to works on the primate division.

Rachael primarily teaches the Certificate II Animal Studies course including the HSC Program.

Petra Hancock began her zoo keeping career in 1998 and has never looked back. She has worked/volunteered at many institutions including Melbourne Zoo, Taronga Zoo, Auckland Zoo, Singapore Zoo, Vancouver Aquarium and AQWA, as well as Perth Zoo where she is now based. Her experience includes a wide variety of species ranging from elephants to kangaroos, seals to zebras, koala to red pandas. 

Throughout her career, Petra has never forgotten what it was like to be brand new and this drove to her become a TTI trainer. She looks forward to being able to introduce the zoo keeping world to a new generation of animal technicians.

Lee loves teaching students about the animal care and tourism industries. She has worn many hats in her 17+ years at Taronga including coordinating Guest Experience and Behavioural Studies volunteer teams, delivering overnight stay programs as well as providing encounter training of small mammals and reptiles for non-keeping staff.

Lee operates her own tour-guiding business and loves to introduce visitors to the wonders of Australia. She is an active member of Tour Guides Australia and serves as Vice President on the board of Savannah Guides Limited. She has attended guide training schools from the Wet Tropics to the eastern cape of South Africa.

Lee currently teaches TTI’s Certificate II as well as presentation and enrichment units for Certificate III.

Shae is an Animal Training & Management Consultant. She has worked extensively in Australasia and overseas (including USA, China, Vietnam, and Jordan) within animal institutions, facilities and film production companies. Her animal training experience is vast and she has worked with marine mammals, elephants, bears, big cats, birds, hyena, wolves, primates, pigs and dogs. Shae has spoken at many animal training and welfare conferences, presented papers on animal training and appeared on TV and radio to talk about animal training. Training the Certificate III gives Shae an opportunity to share her passion for conditioning with the future zookeepers of Australia.

Photo: Shae working at Animals Asia.

Belinda Laming is a Supervisor on Perth Zoo’s Australian Fauna section and is enthusiastic about the role of modern zoos in wildlife conservation. She values the opportunities that her role as a TTI trainer provides to give you the skills and passion to support local, national and international wildlife care and conservation efforts.

She loves the endless learning opportunities that come with working with animals to better understand and improve animal husbandry and welfare.

In addition to her 16 year zoo keeping career, Belinda is the ZAA/ASMP Species Coordinator for Short-beaked Echidna (and previously Quokka) and provides husbandry advice and breeding recommendations to Australian and International zoos.

Belinda teaches various units within the Certificate III in Captive Animals.

Roxanne Monahan is a Senior Keeper on Taronga’s primates division, ensuring best-practice animal management and mentoring of junior staff. Roxanne has trained/assessed for TTI since 2009 in the Certificate III in Captive Animals and Certificate II in Animal Studies across the country. She focuses her teaching on infection control and the capture/restraint, reproduction and nutrition of animals.

Roxy has worked in animal institutions around Australia with a range of species including sea-life, reptiles, carnivores and ungulates and she loves to share her practical knowledge of the industry, whilst having fun in class and teaching skills.

Currently Roxy teaches multiple units within the Certificate III in Captive Animals.

Senior carnivore keeper, Deb Price has worked at Taronga Zoo since 2000 after starting her career at the Australian Reptile Park. Ten years ago, she challenged herself by joining TTI as a trainer/assessor.  

She is involved in all aspects of carnivore husbandry and management including diet and food preparation, training co-operative care behaviours, providing enriching environments and managing introductions and breeding of various carnivores. 

Deborah enjoys the mix of working as a carnivore keeper and arming future generations of keepers with a thorough knowledge of the industry. 

Deb delivers training within the Certificate III in Captive Animals across Australia.

Zoo keeper Sarah Silcocks has spent her working life pursuing opportunities to learn about, care for and conserve invertebrates, plants and birds. She is now working in her dream job on Melbourne Zoo’s ectotherm team where she directly contributes to their conservation through animal husbandry and research.  

One of the newest TTI trainer/assessors, Sarah loves to share with students her passion for sustainability, animal welfare, hygiene, nutrition as well as her special focus on invertebrates and birds.

Sarah delivers training for the Certificate III in Captive Animals.

Alison became a TTI trainer in 2017 and loves to share knowledge and information about the amazing species that she works with every day. She enjoys nothing more than getting her students out into the Zoo to explore, discuss, assess and interpret—usually with lots of laughs along the way!

Alison spent the first six years of her career working on Taronga’s carnivore division, working with the biggest carnivores (lion, tiger, leopards) down to the smallest (meerkats, red pandas) and for the past six she has worked on the primate division with great- and lesser-apes, lemurs and monkeys.

Alison currently teaches Certificate II Animal Studies including the HSC program. 

Marina has worked in the animal care industry for more than 18 years and has taught in various capacities for 16 years. She loves making learning fun, interactive and applicable to the real world. Her goal is to guide her students in preparation to not only join the industry but to excel in it.

Marina has a Masters in Marine Biology & Zoology, and has worked as an environmental consultant, vet tech and senior aquarium keeper, providing husbandry and health care of marine animals including those needing rescue, rehabilitation and release. She’s also just started her own practice as an animal physical therapist.

Marina currently teaches across both the Certificate II in Animal Studies and the Certificate III in Captive Animals.

Danni graduated from the University of Chester (UK) with a degree in Zoo Management in 2009. She has worked with exotic species including Tapir, Giraffe, Ring-tailed Lemurs, Aardvark, Dhole, Rhea, Zebra, Antelope, Reindeer, and (more recently) with Australian fauna and birds. Danni has hand-reared and supervised the care of a wide variety of Australian birds as well as mammal species such as gliders, dingo, possums and a range of macropods.

Danni has a particular interest in animal genetics and reproduction, as well as the broader conservation breeding goals of Zoos and Aquaria worldwide, which she developed during her time as the Species Coordinator for Little Penguin and Quoll.

Danni teaches various units in both the Certificate II Animal Studies and Certificate III Captive Animal courses. 

Michelle started her journey with Taronga as a Guest Experience and Keeper Volunteer. After 12 months in this role, she realised that Taronga was where she was meant to be. Since then she has worked within the Formal Education team, the Corporate Partnership teams, the Community Programs team as well as the Taronga Training Institute team. Having worked across a wide sector of  the organisation, Michelle felt that her experience would lend itself to training within the animal care and tourism industry. 

Michelle became a trainer with TTI in 2016 and has taught across both the Certificate II in Animal Studies and Tourism qualifications. 

Ryan also assists with the Burbangana program, which is a joint initiative run by the Taronga Conservation Society of Australia and Family and Community Services . This program is aimed at giving young people in care the opportunity to engage in activities in and around Taronga Zoo. 

Ryan trains several topics in TTI, but his passion is for Workplace Health & Safety. He enjoys highlighting the need for safety and genuinely want to ensure that anyone that comes to Taronga is not injured in any way, shape or form.

He looks forward to meeting prospective students and chatting in class.

Ryan teaches the WHS units in both the Certificate II Animal Studies and Certificate III Captive Animal courses.