Sheila Roe

 

Position: Shape—Australasia Committee Member

 

Sheila Roe started her career working at Melbourne Zoo’s Butterfly house in 1985.  Since then she has worked in several areas of the zoo including Primates, Veterinary Department and Carnivores.  As Sheila’s career developed, so did her thirst for knowledge in the area of animal husbandry and environmental enrichment. Sheila has travelled overseas and participated in small and large felid conservation programs and also attended several conferences in the pursuit of updating her skill set.

 

Sheila has assisted at Melbourne Zoo’s enrichment weekends to highlight their enrichment programs to visitors. She has presented several papers at conferences around the world on enrichment of carnivores. As a result of this, she was asked to participate in a symposium on the benefits of carcass feeding and presented a paper “Are we just feeding carnivores or are we providing enrichment as well”at the 2005 ICEE in New York. She also co-organised the first Australiasian Regional Environmental Enrichment conference (REEC) hosted at Melbourne Zoo in 2006.

 

In partnership with Rohan Cleave, Sheila has worked closely with Melbourne Zoo’s Graphic Department and Design team to create a mobile signage system to highlight and educate visitors about the benefits of environmental enrichment and how visitors can impliment enrichment at home for their pets. This campaign is known as a “Richer Life” and includes a web page link on Melbourne Zoo web page.

 

Highlights of Sheila’s career have been her assistance in the handrearing of a Western Lowland Gorilla, the successful breeding of fishing cats and Sumatran tigers at Melbourne Zoo, the hosting of the highly successful 1st Australasian REEC meeting and the completion of her certificates in Veterinary Nursing.

 

Sheila currently is working with large felids again which is a passion of hers and recently attended a husbandry workshop of large felids in the USA. She continues to try and gain experience and expand her knowledge from her inmediate work collegues and from collegues overseas. 

 

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