‘THE THING WITH ELEPHANTS IS THAT EACH HAS ITS OWN PERSONALITY. THEY DON’T JUST ALLOW ANYONE TO COME IN, FEED AND CLEAN THEM.’

Jean Hromadka, 30, cares for elephants, said to be one of the most perilous of zookeeper jobs. The Asian elephants at the San Diego Wild Animal Park are her whole life, her family, her future. She explained to Times photographer Dave Gatley the appeal of working with the giant beasts.

For the longest time my mother wanted me to get a real job, and my brothers and sisters thought my job was neat, but I don’t think they necessarily understand. It’s kind of a difficult profession to describe, especially the dedication involved.

I don’t see myself as a zookeeper playing with animals all day. I see myself as making sure these animals will be around in the future, that I’ll somehow get involved with their survival in the wild. We just have to make sure there is a place for these animals to go.

I think our farm had something to do with my becoming interested in animals. As a real small kid, I was always out in the mud with the pigs and in the henhouse with the chickens.

When we lived in Illinois, we would visit these Catholic nuns who had spent a lot of their lives in Africa. The whole convent was made up in African artifacts, musical instruments and masks. They would even take us down to the basement as kids and show us slides of all the animals and the villagers. I think that is what sparked the whole thing. I remember seeing pictures of giraffes and elephants. The big animals impressed me the most, and that’s when I figured what I really wanted to do.

I got an animal job at Marine World U.S.A., outside of San Francisco, and I worked on animal acts. When I found out we had a small zoo right outside of San Jose called the San Jose baby zoo, I quit both my hospital and Marine World jobs. I was going to volunteer at the zoo until I got hired as a keeper. It took me six weeks to get the job.

I remember feeling privileged being able to sweep goat turds off the sidewalk. That’s how enthusiastic I was. Or the remedial tasks like scrubbing out a hippo night house. I mean that’s got to be one of the most disgusting jobs in the park, and yet I knew I was doing something for that animal. I learned a lot about basic zookeeping and got the experience of working with baby animals and raising just about everything--hippos, rhinos, all sorts of primates.

Taking care of baby animals is probably the reason I decided to work with elephants. I got the chance to raise the 2-year-old Bisi, from Zimbabwe. She was traumatized coming from the wild into captivity. I had never been exposed to a baby elephant before; there was this instant rapport and I fell in love with her.

The thing with elephants is that each has its own personality. They don’t just allow anyone to come in, feed and clean them. That takes time. They’ll know if you have elephant experience, and they’ll pull little tricks on you to see your reaction. These animals are big, they’re moody and can hurt you. Some are aggressive, some are nervous, and you have to know which it is when you step in there with them. For the most part they are very gentle, very passive animals.

The only way you can become the best elephant keeper possible is to spend a lot of time with them. That’s why we scrub these animals down every day. Their appearance--their toes, the feet and the skin--that’s top priority. You take care of the feet and skin if you’re going to be an elephant keeper. You have to make sure your animals are on a good diet program, and that everybody in your barns’ crew works together with the same attitude about training.

Elephant training is considered a man’s job because this animal is so big. The attitude is that you have to be big, burly and strong, to manipulate a strong animal. It’s not true, because you can be 300 pounds or 100 pounds and you’re still not going to be able to move that animal around. It’s more a mental game, not using your physical strength. The man I used to go to for tips on animal training was a very gentle man, and he was about 98 pounds.