Page 22 - Ratel 2023 Summer

Ratel volume 50, issue number 2

content because we have a business plan, but it’s about engagement having safety plans, isolation facilities and good biosecurity is the
with others. It used to be very few people were involved in the way forward. We have found that dividing up your collections into
collection plan. Now I’ll ask everyone with a pulse. Your view is definable areas with clear demarcations is the best way. Should you
hugely important, so we will engage that - and that will go on your have an issue you can isolate areas, zones, even working teams and
report to your line managers, that will go and eventually we will have animals.
loads of information. […] Should that opportunity arise or should
we need to, what is gonna happen in the future to our primates. We
hold the non-breeding male gorillas here as part of the breeding
programme, does that mean I don’t want breeding gorillas? No, I
would love breeding gorillas here. But until our non breeders are
rehomed that’s not gonna happen. We will hold on to them. A vital
part of a good breeding programme is not breeding. No restrictions? Oh that would be wonderful. Possibly Dugong or
maybe Manatee but not in a pool it would be in the largest man
made water feature, a bit like our sealions in half mile pond.

Crickey, I’m asked that a lot. My favourite animal is the latest animal
in the collection. I love learning about them. I love whatever the
animals joined, the more I can learn and I get engaged in. So the
Sometimes a job, certainly in the animal care industry, you receive latest animal in the collection. You know I love sloth, I love
outside pressure. All you want to do is check that your tortoises tortoises, I love parrots in all shapes and sizes. It would be unfair
have got the right food, heat, and everything is hunky dory. But to pick animals.[…] Every day should be a school day. So currently
actually you can’t do that because you’ve got to go and do another what’s our latest animals, sloth, I love them, I’m learning lots about
job. Or your covering for somebody else’s mistakes [..]. And for me, them.
the higher I’ve gone up, Head of Animal Operations is head of all
the animal teams here and 114 people, wages, HR, health and safety,
it can drain the living life out of you. It can be soul destroying. But
actually what you’ve gotta do is you’ve gotta say well here’s the good
bits. Here’s what I can do. I’ve got three days of grot now but I think my idols are the same as everybody’s. Absolutely
actually on day four I get to do that. And take time going shopping, Attenborough, Jane Goodall. I remember Desmond Morris, I
paying the bills. Those things you’ve gotta give time to yourself remember Johnny Morris. Those people are my idols because of the
otherwise the job just becomes to much. amazing impact they had on me, on my life growing up and what
they’ve left their mark and still carry on leaving their mark. But I
would say equally I mentioned earlier that Reg Bloom and his family
that gave me that chance, Keith Harris who was the head warden
here when I first came here, amazing people that are my idols
because they’ve given me opportunities to do the thing that I love
the most. And I’d be wrong if I said I left out Durrell’s and all those
people. And I hope this doesn’t sound too cheesy, but people that
I adore and I respect the most are people that come up to me, and
Having honest and open communication with the relevant authority its embarrassing because they come up to me and they say ‘oh when
and transparency of good practice is vital. As you know I am a firm I was a baby I used to watch animal park’, it’s those people that are
believer in immersive or interactive engagement. Doing, feeling, my idols because they’ve been engaged, inspired, and are going on
experiencing is the best learning. Challenges like Avian Flu or the to save a species, save the planet […]. They are my idols, those
countless number of identified zoonotic risks need to be people that love what we do and they are doing it for themselves.
taken very seriously. But

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