{"id":991052,"date":"2026-08-09T13:05:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T13:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/991052\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T13:05:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T13:05:31","slug":"watch-dallas-zoologist-cleans-animal-habitats-in-texas-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/991052\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch: Dallas Zoologist cleans animal habitats in Texas heat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Senior Zoologist Jack Tilis, 27, is more at risk from the heat than the animals in his care. A New Jersey native, he\u2019s spent the past two years adjusting to North <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/news\/texas\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas<\/a> summers.<\/p>\n<p>His days are spent facing off against an unforgiving sun, preparing outdoor animal enclosures for the hippos, giraffes, okapi and other\u00a0hoofstock species, and moving critters to cooler spaces. The hottest day of his life, he said, came two weeks ago when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/news\/weather\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">temperatures neared 110 degrees.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I love what I do so I put up with it,\u201d he said with a shrug as he unloaded a cart of hay into the hippo habitat.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, Aug. 5, reporters and photographers from The Dallas Morning News followed more than a dozen people as they navigated a 100-degree day in North Texas. From a zookeeper and technician, to a toddler and retiree, their lives shared little in common. They were strangers, sweltering under the same relentless sun. Find their stories here.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senior Zoologist Jack Tilis, 27, is more at risk from the heat than the animals in his care.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":957021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,261947,358,290227,290169,326777,329440,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-991052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-america","tag-dallas","tag-news-weather","tag-texas","tag-tp-dallas-fortworth","tag-tp-dallas","tag-tp-dallas-county","tag-tp-parks","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117065700325954030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}