He took a permanent position working in the hospital. You're shaving snow leopards one minute and drawing blood from condors the next. Eventually, Recchio joined the Reptile House staff as the junior member of a staff of four, plus one curator. The latter is a position Recchio openly covets, and expects to attain some day. This is not the way the lizards take their lunch in the wild.
Food is a huge part of zoo regimen.
Recchio says Clarence the tortoise eats better than he does. The two American alligators eat raw red meat, rabbit, rainbow trout and rat. Snakes are carnivores, and the keepers feed most of them mice. In exhibits housing multiple snakes, handlers use hook tools and temporary cages to separate the serpents. Otherwise, in a worse case scenario, one snake will finish eating first, smell prey on the other snake, and the two will start devouring each other.