Milwaukee zookeepers show passion for animals by getting tattoos of them

Two poison dart frogs crawl up Shawn Miller's left forearm, but he doesn't seem to mind.

He put them there.

One is a colorful Ranitomeya imitator; the other an equally stunning Oophaga histrionica. They're better known as a mimic poison frog and harlequin poison frog respectively, and they are permanently etched in the skin of the Milwaukee County Zoo's aquatic and reptile curator.

"It's important to me that they're herpetologically correct," said Miller. 

Miller did take one liberty in designing his tattoos — while the colors and markings are exact, the poison dart frogs on his arm are much bigger than in real life. He figured why get a tattoo of an animal so tiny it could comfortably sit on a human knuckle?

So because he loves amphibians and because, in a way, they're his co-workers, he made sure his poison dart frogs were proportionally gigantic and easily seen while wearing short sleeves.

Miller is no inked outlier. Many Milwaukee zookeepers have covered their epidermis with pictures of animals. And because they know exactly what the creatures look like, the tattoos are exact representations and not cartoons. The tattoos range from penguins, sea lions and ball pythons to lions, elephants and rhinos.

While there are no statistics on the number of American zookeepers adorned with animal tats, nearly four out of 10 Americans born after 1980 sport tattoos, according to the Pew Research Center. Some zoos, particularly Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, do not allow employees to have visible tattoos. But it's not a problem at the Milwaukee County Zoo.

Since it's common for people to get tattoos reflecting something significant in their lives, it's not unusual for zookeepers who spend all day caring for animals to take them home at night on their skin.

"Tattoos are very meaningful," said Heather Neldner, an aviary keeper who has worked at the Milwaukee County Zoo for 21 years. "Whenever you put something on your skin permanently it has meaning. All of my tattoos are a chapter in my life."

Neldner's first tattoo was of a parrot. She got it on her ankle when she was 18 and first started working with the intelligent tropical creatures in the zoo's bird show. She has a tawny owl on her shoulder and two Humboldt penguins on her ankle.

Not just any Humboldt penguins. Neldner wanted tattoos of zoo penguins Mongo and Houdini. She sketched out pictures of the birds named after the cold water current that's their natural home and took them to a tattoo artist.

"Mongo was the first penguin I ever met. He came running up to me as if 'Hey, new person, how are you?' He cemented my love for penguins," Neldner said.

Shelley Ballmann, president of Oceans of Fun at the Milwaukee County Zoo, has a small California sea lion on her left wrist. It's a replica of a Robert Wyland painting she has in her home. Wyland is known for his large murals of whales including a painting that used to adorn the Milwaukee County Courthouse Annex.

Ballmann, who has been at the zoo for 28 years, has worked extensively with rescue and conservation of seals and sea lions. While it's common for tattoos on backs and shoulders, Ballmann said she wanted her permanent emblem of a California sea lion to be easily noticed.

She's not surprised so many Milwaukee zookeepers have animal tattoos.

"Working with animals, it's not a job, it's a passion," said Ballmann. "These are not people who walk out of here at 5 o'clock and say 'I'm done.' They're often here long hours."

There's a Facebook group of zookeepers with animal tattoos which Ray Hren, who cares for the Milwaukee County Zoo's rhinos, hippos and Red River hogs, sometimes visits to learn what kind of tattoos other keepers are getting or contemplating.

Many people who decide to get tattoos soon learn they're like potato chips. You can't have just one. 

Hren has nine including a half-sleeve on his left arm featuring a black rhino — the zoo's Josie, whom Hren works with daily. He also has a bongo antelope right below Josie because the African antelopes with long antennae-like horns and white stripes circling their bodies are one of his favorite animals.

"Josie is 6 and still young, full of life, vibrant and a delight to work with," said Hren, who has worked at the zoo for 29 years. "When I first started working with rhinos, I had a picture in my mind of a mean, aggressive animal. But then I found out they have affectionate, intelligent and amazing personalities."

Hren took photos of Josie to a tattoo artist to create the image on his shoulder. He didn't have a high-resolution photo of a bongo named Meru, who gave birth to five calves and was the longest living in captivity, so he used a generic picture of a bongo.

Hren also has a giraffe near his left wrist, a snake on his back and another rhino on his right forearm. He frequently is stopped by zoogoers who ask about them. Hren loves that his tats start conversations that allow him to educate the public about the critically endangered black rhinoceros.

"I'd like to have my whole body as a canvas of endangered animals in the wild," he said.

Craig Pavlik has a tiger on his right forearm and a lion's head on his chest. The tiger's name was Sheba and he worked with her at a zoo in Detroit. Pavlik took several photos of Sheba to a tattoo artist in Detroit.

"I wanted a tattoo of a tiger acting naturally," said Pavlik, who has been a zookeeper for 31 years, the last 13½ at the Milwaukee zoo. "A lot of tattoos of tigers show them snarling or growling. But if they're doing that, that means they're scared and I didn't want that."

Sheba died from an illness a few months after he got the tattoo, which then became to Pavlik a memorial to a magnificent animal.

While Pavlik's tats are large, Katie Kuhn, the zoo's Florence Mila Borchert Big Cat Country supervisor, opted for a small, understated tattoo of an African lion she worked with at the Racine Zoo named Skins. The tattoo on her right foot also features three sets of tiny paw prints for Skins' mate, Grace, and their two cubs.

Kuhn used Grace's actual paw print by getting the lion to place her front paw in paint and then step on a canvas. She chose a lion because it was the first animal with whom she felt a connection.

"It was my first family I had experienced at a zoo, so they were important to me," said Kuhn. "We probably spend more time here during the week than we do at home. The animals are like family. I love them all dearly but you definitely build bonds with some."

Kuhn is considering getting two more tattoos, a frequent topic among fellow inked-up zookeepers.

Kuhn wants to get a tattoo commemorating a tiger cub named Kash born in 2016 that was hand-reared by zoo staff because of a leg infection — maybe something showing his forehead stripes, which are as unique as a fingerprint. She's also thinking about getting a tattoo to honor a jaguar named Pat who came to Milwaukee from the Belize Zoo — perhaps the Mayan pictogram for jaguar.

Amy Andree, a rover keeper who works in several areas including small mammals, primates and pachyderms, wanted an elephant head and trunk on her arm so she took a photo she snapped of a pachyderm named Lois she cared for at the Kansas City Zoo. The tattoo artist projected the photo on to Andree's arm so she could see what it looked like and then sketched the animal's outline.

Andree also has tattoos of dolphins on her back and a seahorse on the back of her neck. She's thinking about getting a tattoo of either a tiger or lion on her left forearm, in particular, a lion she saw on a trip to Africa who stared at her from about 10 feet away before turning and walking away.

Miller doesn't just have the poison dart frogs on his skin, he has an ornate rendering of a ball python on his bicep to commemorate when he raised the snakes, as well as a fringe tree frog on his shoulder, an animal he spent 39 continuous days observing in the jungles of Peru.

Not all animals Miller works with qualify for commemoration by tattoo. He has made four conservation trips to observe a frog on the island of Grenada.

"But they're dumpy looking. It would be like putting a brown blob on my skin," Miller joked.