Museum CSO Ella with Bill the blue-tongued lizard.
Image: Deanna Henderson
Source: Museum Victoria
Five Customer Service Officers recently undertook reptile handling training run by Live Exhibits staff.
Having successfully completed their training, the now-accredited CSOs can take a lizard out into public spaces for 15 minutes at a time, to interact with Museum visitors.
Training ran over four weeks, featuring a one hour session once per week, with a follow-up session three weeks after completion. Sessions dealt with why we have live reptiles at the Museum, and discussed relevant links between the lizards and different Museum areas, such as the Southern Diversity exhibition, stories within Bunjilaka, and the Herpetology Department.
Specifics of how to handle live lizards were thoroughly covered, along with training in interpreting lizard behaviour and answering frequently asked questions from visitors.
This course will be run again in the near future, and may possibly extend to staff in the Public Program department.
With our lizards getting ‘out and about’ more often, be sure to keep a lookout for them and other Live Exhibits making appearances around the Museum!