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Your Life-Saving Gift Will Be Matched

Found with his flippers tucked tightly against his body, California sea lion Pockets looked like a sick child with a bellyache.

Pockets was battling a potentially fatal bacterial disease, leptospirosis. We've rescued nearly 500 sea lions affected by this year's intense outbreak.

With your matched gift, you’ll not only help provide the meals and advanced medical care needed to help a sea lion like Pockets recover, but also support our researchers in learning more about this disease.

Match my life-saving gift
California sea lion
Natasha Tworoski

Natasha Tworoski, M.S., RVT

Relief Veterinary Technician

Natasha Tworoski first joined the Center in 2015 as an animal care volunteer and completed a veterinary technician internship in 2019. She joined the staff as a Veterinary Technician in 2022, working as-needed on weekends to support clinical and animal care needs when one of our full-time staff members are away. She’ll also provide additional support during times of high animal counts, serving as an extra set of skilled hands out in the pens caring for our patients.

Natasha grew up in rural Minnesota and was fortunate to have parents who reluctantly let her have many pets, which fostered an early love of animals. After working as a field assistant on various research projects during her undergraduate career, Natasha planned to pursue a Ph.D. in primate behavior. However, after finishing her master's degree, she realized that her true passion was caring for animals. 

Natasha moved to the Bay Area in 2013 to become a zookeeper, initially at Oakland Zoo and then starting at San Francisco Zoo in 2016. Since 2018, Natasha has been the primary gorilla zookeeper there and gets to work with Oscar, Bawang, Monifa and Kimani as her full-time job. Shortly after moving to the Bay Area, she also took a part-time job as a vet assistant at a dog and cat emergency clinic, which lead to her to become a registered veterinary technician in 2018. 

A few of Natasha’s favorite things are volunteering at African primate sanctuaries, taking ballet classes, running, snuggling her six pet rats and listening to the gorillas "grumble" happily when they eat.

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