FROM looking after ants in her shed to hand-rearing a baby kinkajou, the life of a zookeeper is never dull.

Amanda Gott, manager of Amazonia, tells ANN FOTHERINGHAM why she wouldn’t swap her day job for the world.

Amanda Gott won’t be a minute, her colleague tells us cheerfully as we wait expectantly in the foyer, as she has just been held up dealing with a snake.

No hurry, we emphasise, hastily, in case Amanda feels the need to bring her work out to the foyer with her.

REALLY, no hurry.

When she does appear, it is – thankfully – minus the snake, which was a yellow anaconda in need of a water change.

“It takes two of us now because of the size of her,” explains Amanda, calmly.

“She’s so big, she could wrap herself round us quickly or give a nasty bite, so for health and safety reasons, we always make sure there are two of us.”

The yellow anaconda is one of two impressive snakes at Amazonia, the tropical house tucked away behind the rollercoaster rides and brightly-coloured hubbub of M&D’s theme park in Strathclyde Park.

The other is Eric the Burmese python, a bit of a local celebrity thanks to his links to the RAF.

“He was once an RAF mascot,” smiles Amanda. “So he is pretty famous. He’s not very lively today, as he has just been fed. He gets a rabbit and a rat every Sunday.”

Moving swiftly on, a walk round Amazonia is like stepping off the edge of Scotland into a strange, noisy other-world of screeching creatures, vivid colours and odd smells.

“Some kids don’t much like the smell,” smiles Amanda.

“Funnily enough, it was always one of the things - that mugginess, the clammy odour - that I liked about the tropical house near where I lived.”

Inside Amazonia, it’s hard to know where to look first. Beautiful blue morphos butterflies flap by, a ringed teal duck flops into the water of the ‘palm swamps’ and the teeny, newest arrivals – twin marmoset monkeys – cause delighted schoolchildren to stop and stare.

Amanda’s enthusiasm for this hot, humid place spills over into the stories she tells and the wondrous sights she explains on a whistletop tour of the zoo.

“We might be the first UK zoo to sustain its own butterflies if we get the plants right,” she says. “That would be truly amazing.

“Probably the most unusual creatures we have are the golden mantilla – little frogs from Madagascar which are on the critically endangered list.

“Come in to the nocturnal house - it has fruit bats. It shows you what these creatures get up to at night.”

The 34-year-old pauses.

“I love this job because everything is different, everything is fascinating,” she says. “I learn all the time.”

Amanda grew up in the small Yorkshire village of Harewood.

“My dad worked on a local estate, which had a bird garden, and as a kid I’d help him out,” she explains.

“I also always loved monkeys – I had tons of cuddly ones. I always wanted to run my own zoo.

“I was always the only one of my friends to know exactly what I wanted to do when I left school. I figured if I was going to have to spend most of my life working, I wanted to do something I loved.”

After a timetabling frustration meant Amanda couldn’t take biology in addition to the other two subjects she most loved - music and German - she took an animal care course at a local college and then went to Bangor University to study zoology.

“After graduating it took a while to find a job and I did start to wonder – what if I don’t get a job working with animals?” she recalls.

“I really don’t want to do anything else. But I didn’t give up and eventually, it happened.”

Amanda’s first paid ‘animal-y’ job was as an education presenter with Zoolab, touring schools and helping children understand more about different species.

“I kept the animals in my flat – corn snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, that kind of thing,” she says, airily. “Only one of my friends was a bit put off. She would only come to visit if she knew I didn’t have the spiders home with me…”

After a spell at Flamingoland safari park (“big animals, like rhinos and giraffes – didn’t take those home with me,” grins Amanda) she moved to Birdworld in Surrey, where she became fascinated by birds of prey and she has been manager of Amazonia for the last five years.

“I’m not scared of any animal or insect,” she says, surprised by the question. She adds with a frown: “Although I’m not keen on cats. Or slugs.”

Amanda’s dedication to her job does not stop at the end of her working day.

She kept leaf-cutter ants in her shed (even asking her very understanding neighbour to pop in and feed them when she was on holiday); has had a scorpion delivered to her house late one night; comes in on Christmas Day to feed and care for the animals; and has spent the last few months hand-rearing a baby kinkajou (a raccoon-like animal from South America) at home.

“Her name is Poppy,” she says, fondly. “I don’t really have favourites but I do have a soft spot for her.

“Rearing a kinkajou can be difficult - it’s very time-consuming, and for the first few weeks you do have to get up at night. It’s a slow process.”

Amanda loves to travel, when she can - Indonesia is a favourite - but her job is her priority.

She adds: “I knew this wasn’t a nine to five job when I took it on – it can’t be.

“I still dream of owning my own zoo, but this place is amazing. It feels like my own, in a way, because it’s so hands-on.

“And if that means taking my work home with me, that’s fine. My boyfriend, my friends, my family – they know what to expect now. No-one’s surprised any more by what they might find in my living room….”