Volunteers as Products of a Zoo Conservation Education Program

Abstract

Zoos embrace docents/volunteers as a means of interpreting the threats to wildlife and biodiversity to visitors. To accomplish this, zoos provide docents’ education, training, and work experience. Docents themselves also engage in solitary and social wildlife experiences outside of their volunteer obligations. This study examined what motivates docents and how they change as part of their experience. Results from a mailback questionnaire (91% response rate, n = 365) documented that both altruistic (interpreting wildlife to visitors) and egoistic (learning about wildlife themselves; socializing with like-minded others) motivations were predictive of continuing satisfaction with their volunteer experiences. Docents also reported starting or increasing many conservation behaviors after beginning to volunteer at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Docents with more years of experience tended to report more involvement with conservation behaviors. Results support an environmental socialization framework to explain the impacts of an environmental training program. Implications for future research and practice are presented.

Keywords:

• altruistic behavior
• conservation behavior index
• docent
• egoistic behavior
• environmental socialization

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study would not have been possible without funding and assistance of Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. The authors would like to thank Steve Taylor, Sue Duffy, and Noreen Lazor for their help with this project along with the Zoo volunteer administration staff and the docents who offered their time and perspectives to the study.