Page 19 - Ratel 2023 Summer

Ratel volume 50, issue number 2

An Interview With…

Darren Beasley .

Interviewed by Roxy Newton

For those who do not yet know who Darren Beasley is, here is an
introduction. Darren is not only the Co-Chair of ABWAK, but he
is also the Head of Animal Operations at Longleat Safari Park.
However, many of you may know him from watching episodes of
Animal Park over the years. For this issue, I sat down with Darren
and asked him about his career journey and advice for future
keepers. In the words of Darren himself, this must be ‘read with a
strong coffee’.

I’m Darren. I’m Head of Animal Operations at Longleat, based in
Wiltshire. I’m one of the lucky guys, I still love my job. I’ve been at
Longleat now for 35 years and most days are still pretty good.

had called me into his office at the end of my work experience […]
I didn’t come to Longleat fresh from school, I wish I was that young, and he said don’t go and work in a zoo straight away. Go away, get
there was a bit of before Longleat life. But I think that thing that more experience, learn stuff, and doesn’t matter what you do he said
most of us have as animal keepers, you’ve got to have that bit of if you manage you career as a ladder don’t come in on rung one,
desire and you mix that with a lot of patience and persistence. rung two, rung three, because everybody’s gonna start at rung one
Obviously from a very young age I’ve loved wildlife, I’ve loved and you’ve got to stand out. And of course I was lucky because I
nature, I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be a zoo keeper. My did the work experience that was obviously rung one already done
earliest memories, 4/5 years old, we used to have the Christmas and I took that. So because I couldn’t get a job in the zoo world I
turkey and you’d pull the wishbone and you’d make a wish and my went to college for a year, the Berkshire College of Agriculture, a
wish was always to be a zoo keeper. Then really I suppose it’s being mixed course of agriculture and estate maintenance would you
in the right place at the right time, showing the right commitment, believe. But it was everything from sheep, pigs, cattle, tractor driving
and I think I was very lucky with my career path because I had a to cutting hedges or using machinery tools. If I’m being very honest
few opportunities that came along that I just seized. I was one of I didn’t like it. Not because it was farm life, it was a difference
the first people to ever do work experience, it wasn’t a thing when culture. But I did knuckle down, I did it and my placement was on
I was younger. We lived fairly close to Windsor Safari Park and my a local farm and that’s where the lessons really start. And I say this
mum was working at a school and they did what we now call to everybody that’s ever asked me, the experiences, both good and
outreach. The education at Windsor rocked up at the school and of bad, are what give you the skills. You have to experience some
course my dear old mum, bless her, said ‘my son loves animals and dreadful things to know when the good things are. Towards the end
he wants to do work experience’. I got an invite up to Windsor and of that I was contacted by Windsor, and I was coming up to my
I got an interview with the then curator and I got a work experience 17 th, and Francis said if you get your 17 th birthday out the way, come
placement. And talk about luck, […] I went in there as a little 12/13 for an interview, and we might be able to find you a job. So I left
year old and they thought I was a jockey most of them because I the farm, went to Windsor, had the interview. I remember Francis
was a tiny fella. But cut my teeth there, had a couple of mind blowing sitting there, and I thought I’d gone for a job for a baboon gate or
weeks and it cemented it for me that this was definitely the career I something, one of the starter jobs. He said ‘Darren can you swim?’,
wanted. They were very kind to me and there were people there I said ‘Yes, I could swim’. I swum like a brick and wasn’t very good
back then that are still in the industry now. I suppose that was the at it, and he said ‘good we’ve got a vacancy in the Seaworld at the
first step. If I’d been a complete fool on my two weeks work top of the hill, with the killer whales, dolphins’. I nearly popped, I
experience from school when I went knocking on the door a couple was so happy and so excited and it’s only when I got out and got
years later they might have said ‘oh no not him again, clear off’, so back in my mum and dad’s car I thought crikey, I can’t swim, what
I hope that I did myself proud and even though I was a kid I listened, have I just done? I’m gonna drown in the first week of my job. I
I followed rules and I showed them passion and desire and a hard started August bank holiday that year, the week before that I was at
work ethic and interest to learn. When I did leave school I did apply my uncles, he happened to have a house with a swimming pool in
to lots of zoos, I would have only been about 15 and I did what I it. I learned to swim, which is ridiculous to think, 17 learning to
think lots of people do I wrote to lots of animal collections, it was swim because I’d already lied to my future boss. Thankfully, that
pen and paper and stamps, I sent letters. Rather disappointingly, I went well. So I joined Windsor and the journey really got underway
only had two replies from about 18 letters. There’s my first lesson there. It’s difficult looking back now, it was an exciting time. I should
in life actually, since I’ve been in a position to respond to and answer say things were very different back then. It was August 1985, I joined
letters, if they do land on my desk, over the years I do try my best. SeaWorld and they had two killer whales there and the original
I absolutely try because little me there applying back all those years Nemo. We had the dolphins, they were breeding. We had the
ago - look what he got for his money. I had a couple of answers Patagonian sealions, Californian sealions. I accepted it completely
back and the one disappointingly from Windsor was ‘you’re not old and utterly openly because it was the right thing then. I look back
enough come back in a year.’. I should say the curator at the time now and I feel a bit of a traitor because I think so many years on it

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