Couple devoted to SeaWorld’s avian breeds — and each other
“Please don’t attack,” Laura Dray thinks to herself as she enters the cage to snatch an egg from a pair of ornery birds with refined English names: Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, from “Pride and Prejudice.”
“Don’t drop the egg, either,” she worries as she grabs the pearly egg before the stocky Australian bird that resembles an owl snaps his beak. She hurries to put it in an incubator, safe from the birds notorious for accidentally breaking their eggs every nesting season at SeaWorld Orlando.
In another part of SeaWorld, her husband, T.J. Dray, talks about his penguins as if they were his children. “Fisher, my oldest boy, he’s 19 now.” “Today is Rex’s hatch date. I just realized.” It’s another typical day for the Drays, a husbandand-wife team who fell in love working at SeaWorld Orlando nearly 20 years ago. Caring for birds is a taxing job full of heavy lifting and heartbreak, but it
helps that the two senior aviculturists have each other.
“You won’t find two more passionate people for what they do," says their boss, Anita Schiavoni-Gibbons. “The work is hard. It’s not glamorous. You’re getting dirty every day.”
Many of the penguins T.J. handraised as chicks never forget him. One drops a rock from its beak at his feet during nesting season.
“It will never work out,” T.J. jokes but the gesture warms his heart and he takes the rock home as a keepsake.
On a recent day, T.J., 42, wears shorts under overalls in the 33-degree Antarctica exhibit as some of the 300 penguins chirp and trumpet to locate their mates while tourists watch in awe below. T.J. walks past a curious baby penguin that’s climbed on top of the rocks. He hopes the baby isn’t stuck — he may have to rescue it later.
There are the gentoo penguins that act like little football linebackers and launch themselves out of the pool to knock another penguin down. The rockhopper penguins — known for their blood-red eyes and spiky feathers — remind him of rockers so he names one Axl. And the king penguins — the tallest ones at SeaWorld — are christened with the names of kings — King Tut, King Arthur, Burger King.
Back among the cages of injured animals, Laura’s patient count on a recent day includes: a sandhill crane in serious condition after getting smacked in the head by a golf ball on a golf course; a wood duck somebody shot twice with a BB gun; and an aging toucan that has had cataract surgery. She takes care of the animals in rehab and monitors the egg incubators during nesting season.
With a job like this also comes the inevitable blow of losing one of the animals.
The birds hide their symptoms. Death can come unexpectedly, like for a brown pelican that was found weakened, unable to lift its head, after Hurricane Irma. A Good Samaritan who found the bird and brought it to SeaWorld named it Snapper, and the name stuck.
Laura, 41, couldn’t help feeling attached since she was always there, feeding Snapper and doling out medicine every few hours.
“We were doing everything we could to pull him through,” she says.
Snapper was rebounding marvelously, healthy enough to swim. All that was left was for the pelican to fly.
Laura found Snapper one November day, lifeless. She picked up the pelican and ran to the surgery room, but it was too late. Two months have passed since the bird’s death, but she still chokes up when she talks about the animal she thought she could save.
T.J. is the one who listens, who understands.
“It’s nice to come home and he knows exactly what I’ve gone through for the day,” Laura says. “You need to get your emotions out.”
“The highs are high and the lows are low,” T.J. says. “We put our hearts and souls into this.”
The couple met on the job through their co-workers in 1999.
In 2000, T.J. was away from the rest of the world on an expedition off the isolated Maine coast. He peered through binoculars, counting puffins in an effort to help the population grow. It gave him time to think.
“I realized how much she meant to me,” he says. “I’ve got to take a chance. I do. I just need too. I came back and asked her out.”
Laura declined. He reminded her too much of her brother.
T.J., feeling heartbroken, played it cool until Laura eventually changed her mind.
The pair, married for 16 years in April, are best friends whose paths rarely cross at work, except during lunch. He likes her laugh. She likes that he can make her laugh.
Their backgrounds are similar: A Philadelphia area boy who grew up fascinated by dinosaurs until he turned his attention to their descendants — birds. An Indiana girl who dreamed of becoming a dolphin trainer until she discovered birds’ feisty personalities during an internship at a zoo. They both studied science — her bachelor’s degree in biology and his in pre-vet.
As first-time parents, the Drays took copious notes on their baby’s habits as if they were observing another penguin chick. Now, the parents of two small girls, they occasionally take home baby birds to care for overnight. A penguin is the ultimate class show-and-tell at school, too.
“It’s not a job,” T.J. says. “It’s a way of life.”