Features: Love at first bite

Before Joyce Parker started working as a reptile and amphibian keeper at the Philadelphia Zoo, she had a tremendous fear of snakes.

"I was terrified," Parker said. "My intuition wasn't to work with reptiles."

But in 1980 Parker, who began at the zoo as a housekeeper two years earlier, applied for a position as an animal keeper in order to put her kids through Catholic schools. Initially she was hired to work as a relief keeper, where she rotated to the zoo's different animal exhibits. Less than two years later she was promoted to work as a full-time Animal Foreman Keeper in the Reptile and Amphibian House, where she has now worked for more than 25 years. She overcame her fear of snakes after her first snakebite, when she was bitten while handling an Emerald tree boa.

"One of the fears was being bitten," she said. "But my first bite wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

As a keeper, Parker has handled reptiles such as the reticulated python, the eyelash viper, and the king cobra - the largest of venomous land snakes, which averages between 12 and 15 feet long. Now she can't even pick a favorite snake.

"It varies," she said. "I like the cobras and the reticulated python - she's one of the nicest big snakes I've worked with."

Her time spent working at the zoo, which is stocked with three types of antivenin and had its last venomous snakebite in 1958, has given her a chance to grow close to certain cold-blooded characters. She is well known by the zoo's staff for her special bond with Starfire, the zoo's recently deceased, 14-foot king cobra.

"I worked with him for about 23 years," Parker said. "He had to lay on his side to eat his last meal."

Harley Newton, the zoo's pathologist, recalls the bond shared between Parker and Starfire during the snake's last days.

"She would sit down there with this incredibly venomous snake," Newton said, "and help him shed his skin."

Parker also has animal buddies at home.

"I have lizards, turtles, tortoises and toads," she said of her pets. "I just can't turn anything away."

Parker's boss, Brint Spencer, said the numerous animals Parker keeps at home is typical of the zoo's reptile and amphibian keepers.

"For reptile people, that's how it is," Spencer said. "In 2001 or 2002 when I did this survey, the reptile and amphibian keepers here had kept [animals] at home for an average of 24 years, and at that point they averaged 63 animals, 17 species... and 11 linear feet of reptile and amphibian books."

Today Parker is excited to work with the newborn Surinam tadpoles. The Philadelphia Zoo is the only zoo in the country to have this species, she said. And this former snake hater has no plans to leave the Reptile and Amphibian House.

"I'm gonna be here till retirement," Parker said, laughing.