Some of these people are in the health professions while others meet just to make sure the place runs. It's a very interesting position indeed. We take care of many animal species at the zoo and some of them have special management requirements. Luckily, most higher mammals are more similar than dissimilar to humans, and the old lessons learned in our basic biology and medical sciences studies apply themselves well to these circumstances. Anesthetic requirements for many higher animals are similar to human anesthetics as with the gorillas and mandrills.
Many anesthetics consist of nothing more than intramuscular ketamine and a secure airway.
I get involved when operative conditions dictate prolonged anesthesia on difficult or rare animals. Then we generally conduct inductions with narcotics and major tranquilizers which are administered intramuscularly followed by transport to the hospital facility. No time is wasted sorting IV's at this point, patients are either intubated orally under direct vision or manually using your left hand palpating the epiglottis and guiding the endotracheal tube while your right hand pushes it forward into the trachea. I would caution everyone not to attempt this type of maneuver on any animal until you can evaluate the sometimes slight differences between the well anesthetized wild animal and the marginal. A bite block in an animal's mouth saved my hand once when I was in error.