Behind-the-scenes look at animal training

Death, however, will not be denied on this sunny day. Instead, a half dozen unlucky rats will be smothered with CO2. Before a collective sigh of relief can be exhaled, a trio of women in their twenties wheels in a shoulder-high metal tank of the explosive gas, precariously strapped to a handcart by a bungee cord, and totes in a plastic bin of rats. These women are second years, meaning they are in the second year of the program. Moreover, they are the Rat Room managers. They oversee a small colony of rats in a room the size of a large walk-in closet. The rats are raised to feed the zoo’s reptiles and birds of prey. A Rat Room manager with schoolmarm glasses and visor pulled low cinches a spotted rodent around the shoulders with her thumb and index finger and hoists it up for all to see. Except for its busy nose, the bright-eyed rat goes slack, its pink tail hanging straight. “Be careful, because they will, I repeat will, bite you,” she says.

Everything is ready to go. All that is needed is a plastic bin, a small plastic garbage bag, the CO2, and, of course, the rats. The managers are at pains to explain themselves and keep repeating that they do not relish their task. “Then we feed the golden eagle and see the enjoyment he gets out of the food. It’s the circle of life,” one manager, unsmiling and squinting in the sun, explains. “If you are upset by it, if you want to cry, go for it,” she says. “If it’s upsetting to you, let your emotions out.”

A Rat Room manager quickly, unceremoniously loads six rats, noses twitching, little ears upright, into a plastic bin covered by a small green garbage bag. There’s hardly enough time to spit out a good-bye. Another manager closes the bag around the carbon dioxide tube. The other holds her hands down on the rats, because they sometimes push their way out. The third manager opens the gas valve. In the bleachers, no one says a word. The two minutes tick away slowly as everyone stares at the plastic bag. There are no noticeable rustlings in the bin. No squeaks for help. The gas is turned off. The now limp rats are removed one by one. The managers lightly tap the eyes with their index finger to make sure the rats are stone dead. There is no blood, no smell.

While men are embarrassed to cry, women can be embarrassed not to, but there is nary a sniffle. Instead of a wet-hanky fest, there is a solemn hush. This is broken as the new first years raise their hands and ask practical questions like how often do they gas rats and for how long exactly. The bin of gassed rats is whisked away to a freezer. The canister of CO2 is wheeled offstage. That’s enough of death for one day.

A sheep zips across the back of the outdoor stage. A pig, his hide a sooty black, ambles out and pokes at a ratty red carpet with his nose until the length of it unfurls and two chunks of apple pop out. Having devoured them, he lazily saunters offstage, his scrawny tail giving a little twitch as he exits. “We’re going to need to cut his tusks again,” Dr. Peddie sighs, sitting in the bleachers next to me. The first years will find that the sudden shift in mood is emblematic of life at EATM, where emotions run high and the unexpected is around every corner.

Orientation is packed with traditions, one of which is the off-color show the second years present. It’s a chance for them to strut their training stuff and cut loose after a long, grinding summer of running the teaching zoo by themselves. What follows is a ribald beauty pageant of beasts that breaks all the rules of a proper animal education presentation. They even have the animals do tricks, a forbidden word among enlightened trainers, who prefer behaviors instead. In one hand, the MC carries two dead squirrels frozen in an amorous embrace. He occasionally holds them to his sweaty brow. When a student rides Kaleb, the caramel-colored camel, onstage, the MC says, “Here’s a big hairy beast onstage with a camel underneath.” He warns that Kaleb could “freak out at any minute” and notes that a camel has thick knee pads and prehensile lips. “When would that come in handy?”

Another student totes Happy, the American alligator, onstage like a big log. The MC rattles off some alligator stats — they are exothermic, only grow as big as their enclosure, and have extra eyelids — then encourages his audience to take the Velcro strap off his snout. “Really, it’s like opening a present.” He adds, “Their skin makes excellent shoes and purses.” He pauses. “Would you ever say that in a regular show?” None of the first years answers. Just laughter. “First years, what have you learned in your first three days? Wake up!” he taunts.

Half the show’s humor comes at the student handlers’ expense. A good number of the animals don’t do as told. A little big-eared fox suddenly bounds off a student’s shoulder as she exits the stage; despite her trainer’s protests, C.J., the coyote, takes a long drink of water from a shallow moat that rings the stage; Julietta, the emu, won’t take her exit; Banjo, the macaw, won’t get on his roller skates.

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