You can say that Mr Abdul Halim works with creatures of the night, and the entertainment his guests get is always wild.
A deputy head animal keeper at the Night Safari, he helps to oversee the daily operations, ensuring that the animals are healthy and lively so that visitors are, in turn, happy when they watch the animals in action.
Don't bore the cats
Enriching the life of cats is part of Mr Halim's job.
"If we don't do it, they'll get bored. They'll start pacing up and down, or sleep a lot," he says.
Often, the solution involves a pile of dung scattered around the enclosure for the cats to investigate or a bone tied up the tree for them to pull out.
Of course, at the Night Safari, the cats in question are those that roar - not meow - like tigers and leopards.
And bored animals are a bad thing, says Mr Halim, "as the idea behind the Night Safari is to show the activity of wild animals at night".
He handles all kinds of animals from the tallest to the smallest and from the deadly to the meek, including giraffes, porcupines, clouded leopards and zebras.
Cleaning the enclosures, feeding animals and treating sick or injured critters are all part of the job, as is spreading the message of wildlife protection.
He feels that there is no other job in Singapore that allows him to work with animals and nature in this way.
Greedy grown-ups
Mr Halim heads the giraffe section, and he shares an interesting nugget about the giraffe:
It has the longest tongue, about 46cm, which it uses to reach around the thorns of the acacia tree to get to the leaves. The acacia tree is the giraffe's natural food in the wild.
It is just one of the many titbits that he feeds visitors during guided tours of the safari. It is also an opportunity for him to spread the conservation message by telling them about an animal's status in the wild.
However, it can be quite frustrating at times, especially when dealing with adults. "For example, I was talking about the flying fox - how its forest habitat was being destroyed - and one guest was telling another guest that 'the best way to cook a flying fox is to stew it. The meat will taste nice, like chicken'," he recounts wryly.
And to some, "the tiger is a walking pharmacy", he adds, referring to how tiger parts are used in many traditional cures.
"If you talk to the older generation about conservation, your words are mostly falling on deaf ears."
Children are the ones whose thinking can be more easily shaped, he says. "We can encourage them to appreciate wildlife, so when they see an animal, they don't only think, 'Oh, this is good to eat' or 'That can be eaten'."
Slithery stranger
Working with wild animals has its risks. Besides following operating procedures such as always working in pairs when handling the bigger and more dangerous animals, common sense helps a lot.
"Make sure the animal has space to move to avoid you," he says.
Even so, accidents happen. He recalls an encounter with an 'illegal immigrant' - a 2m-long python that was not one of the safari's exhibits.
"That one I cannot forget. The scar is forever," he says, showing the marks on his left arm.
It was around 11pm that night, and he was 'conditioning' some otters to get used to going inside a cage. The lighting around the cage was bad and when he was trying to put food on top of the cage, he felt a bite.
"Luckily for me, my left arm was covering my face. If I had been using my right hand, the fella would have gotten
me on the head."
While not poisonous, a python kills by wrapping itself around its prey and suffocating it.
"And luckily, the python did not have a good grip on my arm. Or else I won't be here today."
Mr Halim is still in the zoo today - and it has been 15 years since he joined the Night Safari.
"If you have a passion for animals, there's no difficulty in learning to handle them," says Mr Halim, 40, who did not have any experience in this field when he started his career at the zoo.
And it is probably easier to work with animals than people, he adds.
"With people, they'll talk back if you point out their mistakes."
