Douglas Richardson

I’m Douglas Richardson. I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on the 20th of May, 1957.

What was your childhood like?

Initially, very stable and then my family decided that the grass was greener and we did the worst researched immigration to North America.

Since the pilgrims, What did your parents do?

My mother was, she did a bit of office work. My dad was, and Scotland was a proof reader for various newspapers. When we eventually ended up in America and getting a job in the papers, it was a union closed shop and my dad ended up being the assistant gardener on the estate of the granddaughter of JP Morgan.

What are some of your loose memories of zoos Going to Edinburgh Zoo on Easter Sunday?

Most years before we immigrated to North America, some, I mean, I can remember very vividly my first trip to London Zoo was in the summer of 1966. We were down on a family holiday, beautiful hot day, which most Scottish people are not acclimated for. And my parents being exhausted and allowing a a 9-year-old child just to wander off around the zoo on his own, which I was, I was having no argument with that. And there was a couple of zoo programs on, on British television, on the segment of British TV that was aimed at children. So this kind of four o’clock to five o’clock window and one was called Zoo Time and it was hosted by Desmond Morris, who was used to be the curator of mammals here. And, and so when I visited the, what is now called the Cassen House, which was originally the Elephant Rhino Pavilion and the Snowed Avery, a large walkthrough, Avery had just been opened. So, and I’d seen them on tv. And so seeing one, seeing London Zoo in the flesh, the one thing that was disappointing is chichi, the giant panda was on breeding loan to Moscow that summer.

So I didn’t actually get to see a giant panda till till much, much later. So yeah, my first zoo was Edinburgh Zoo. My second zoo I visited was painting zoo again on a family holiday. And my third zoo was London Fourth Zoo, probably Riverdale Zoo in the old Toronto Zoo, which was really disconcerting because in Britain we don’t have free zoos. And I remember my dad we’re walking through and we realized we were actually already in the zoo and he actually had his wallet out looking for somewhere to pay. And the idea, we thought we’d snuck in ’cause the idea of of a free entry zoo didn’t exist. So that was, that was peculiar.

When you were young, did you have the idea of working in a zoo?

Absolutely no question. That the it, I just wanted to know every aspect of them, what went on behind the scenes. I mean, as I, I think I, I mentioned earlier or about Joe Davis at the Bronx taking me on a behind the scenes tour after my, my chat with him and, and then going, you know, down into the Old Lion House basement and all the mouse deer and rabbit hutches and, you know, all these animals off exhibit and how this worked. And, you know, meeting, he actually just came in to ask for some leave. Mickey Quinn, the the keeper that used to look after Oka the gorilla at the Bronx Zoo. And then Joe telling me a story about Mickey Quinn, who was apparently a big circus fan. And he all, when Ringling Brothers came to Madison Square Garden for two weeks, he had one week’s leave and then one week sick. And he was at the circus every day.

’cause he knew all the guys in the circus. So it was, it was that, it was that first look behind the curtain as to how worked, and I mean all that did was, you know, it just made me even more wildly interested to find out more to be, to be part of that community. So now your career, 1975 to 1980, you were a keeper at the Edinburgh, the Bronx and Loman Wildlife.

First of all, how did you get your first J Zoo job at Edinburgh Zoo?

I’d started out as most people do, by writing letter after letter and getting no result at all. And I’d actually been living in London. I’d come back from America to, I’d been half promised a job at London Zoo that never materialized. And so after doing a bit of pub work and a bit of work in parks, I was sharing a flat with my uncle and aunt and we ended up, my uncle’s job ended up moving back up to Edinburgh. He was in research.

And so we all moved back up there and I went into the zoo for a visit and I was chatting to one of the keepers and it was, I said, do you know, is there any vacancies?

He said, yeah, actually there is. And so I managed to get an interview off the cuff that day and called up a week later and I was like, I’ve not heard anything yet. He said, alright, right, yeah, you’ve got the job. And that’s how I landed my first zoo job. Plus thinking that they’re gonna have me looking after at the Children’s Zoo or working with Budgies or something. And I was, you know, put in the wine house on day one, you know, couldn’t get any cooler than that, you know, But you leave Edinburgh and you go to the Bronx suit.

Yeah. Why?

I went back to, my parents still lived on Long Island and I went back for a visit and, and of course I visited the Bronx Zoo. And again, you know, I was curious that, you know, any vacancies, I got an interview with the head of, I suppose what we passed for HR and said, right, you know, you show up in a couple months, you know, give you a job. And so went back to Scotland and went through, I had to go through the immigration process again, which in those days, getting a green card was not particularly difficult, particularly when your parents or lived in the States and, and got a job at the Bronx Zoo. ’cause it was, you know, it was the Bronx Zoo, you know, this was a serious Sue Edinburgh. I was still an important collection, but a fairly parochial one at that time. So getting offered a job at the Bronx Zoo and then sort of rocking up and it turned out it was me and one other guy that were the only recent, well actually we were the only keepers that had previous zoo experience. Everybody else had been Bronx Zoo man and boy. And who was the director at the Bronx Zoo when you were there, Bill Conway.

Did you ever, ever have an opportunity to interact with the director?

My first interaction with, with Bill Conway was amusing and unfortunate. They had not finished, opened Wild Asia and they had it a weird system, Astor, who had basically bankrolled the, the Wild Asia project. She’d given some money for a party, but they couldn’t have everybody there. So if you’d worked at, at in Wild Asia, 11 times or more, you got invite to the party. And as luck would have it, because the way the keeper system worked there on the mammals, you would get dodged about from section to section. And so I’d done 11 times at Wild Asia.

And so I got, and I was only there, I’d only been there a couple of months at the time and I’m in Wild Asia and, you know, being the, the zoo freak that I am, and you know, I’m looking at all things like, well, you know, why have they do, why have they done that way?

Why have they done it this way? Anyway, I’m stand, I’d had way too much beer and I’m standing on the loading dock and this guy in a suit comes up and he goes, well, so what do you think of Wild Asia?

And I was like, well, I’ll tell you.

And why have you got heated areas for the ammo tigers?

And you realize that the roofs in the Indian rhino stalls are too low, so you can’t put rhinos together. Otherwise, the male, when he mounts the female is gonna go through the ceiling and apparently you’ve only got two and a half tons pressure on the hydraulic doors on the elephant. So when a five ton bull steps in the way, you know, it’s basically gonna force the door open. And I looked over his shoulder and there was keepers behind him going, no, that’s Bill Conway like that. And I’m going, yeah, okay. And another thing. And then I stepped backwards and fell straight off the loading dock onto my back. Bill Conway did not ask how I was doing. He just turned and walked away.

So that was my first interaction with, with Dr. Conway. But you leave the Bronx Zoo and you go to La Loman Wildlife.

Why did you leave the Bronx? And where is La Loman Wildlife?

La Loman Wildlife Park no longer exists. It was originally called Cameron Bear Park. It was the Chipperfield organization who started all the safari parks. They looked at a different model. So instead of Africa, they’d do a bear park. They actually had a drive through polar bear enclosure, which didn’t last very long at all. I’d been promised to a job running the primate section at Glasgow Zoo, which also now no longer exists. And because I was being career minded, you know, I was looking for that promotion and I came over and again, it was like, when I came to London originally, the job wasn’t there when I arrived.

The director had made promises that he couldn’t keep. And so I was like, I was at a loose end that they were looking for a, a manager for the non drive-through area at the Bear Park or Cameron Wildlife Park. And, and so I opted for that for a few months. And so that was based, so I ended up as, as with many of the places I worked, it wasn’t necessarily the initial plan. But you’ve worked at three Zoos now. Did you start the form a philosophy regarding zoo management at that time or no, I suppose an, an embryonic approach looking to make it as professional as possible. This, I, you know, I was still, it was still an era when, you know, zookeepers were looked down upon where zoos as an institution were not held in particularly high regard unless you were a London Zoo, for example. So I suppose it was like, okay, right.

How, how, how do we raise the game, I think was what I was, was my philosophy.

How, how do we make it better?

How do we, how do we educate keepers?

How should we be keeping our animals?

So I suppose a lot of the things that the zookeepers of today would rather take for granted didn’t exist or, or were, were in a, they existed, but maybe in isolation. London Zoo had a keeper training course, but it was only for London and Waid staff. And it actually, it, it acted in part as a basis for the National Keeper’s course.

But yeah, it was how, it was a philosophy of, okay, right, how can, how can we improve this?

How can we turn this into a profession, which it wasn’t From 19 80, 19 84, you’re the head charter war keeper, how Howlet Zoo Park, how do you get to Howlet Zoo Park?

A guy I used to work with at the Bronx, Jim Cronin, he was working at Howlet managing the small primate section as a, and the, there was a vacancy for the head of the carnivore section ’cause the head keeper had been killed by Tiger. And so Jim had sung my praises to John Aspen, all the owner. And I came down for an interview, which we did on the hoof as we’re walking around the zoo, got the job back up to Glasgow, packed up all my stuff and, and came down to hers. Was there pressure, because John Aspenal was kind of bigger than life. Was there pressure on you to go in with the animals Every single Sunday when he did playtime with the tigers or some of the tigers Dougie coming in today. And it was, my answer was always, no, not least because 11 days into the job, the former head keeper’s second in charge, who was serving his notice got killed by the same tiger in front of me. And there was no way, you know, I was playing those games. That said, there was about three or four times where it all went wrong when Aspenal was in the tiger enclosure.

And basically I went in to chase the cat off to get him out. So there were a handful of occasions where I did go in with the tigers, but it was always to basically save his life. In 1984 and 1986, you’re now overseer of carnivores at Dudley Zoo. You leave Howlet because, and you go to Dudley. How come A very good friend, mark Akin, who cut his teeth as a keeper at Howlet, partially on the cats, but primarily on the elephants. And then he went down to work the elephants at Portland and he got killed by one of the bulls.

And for me that was, it was okay, right?

I’ve, I’ve, I’ve seen enough friends getting killed or, you know, been in the proximity when they have been. It was like, okay, right, I need to find another job. And that was the first sort of head of carnivores position, if you like, that had come up. And so I, you know, applied for the job and got it at Dudley. Now in 1986 to 91, you become head keeper of carnivores at the London Zoo.

What kind of zoo did you find and how do you get this job?

My opinion of London Zoo had changed. We’d always kind of, in the Scottish contingent, we’d always seen it. No, we had good friends down here. We’d always seen it as a wee bit too regimented. But Dudley Zoo was not, was, was not well funded. The senior management team, the, the chief executive in particular was a very un unpleasant individual. And so I knew that Ernie Swain, who was the head keeper of, of carnivores, the Winehouse here at London, I knew he was retiring and I applied for the job even though they’d never advertised it. And London had never advertised a head keeper position ever.

And anyway, couple weeks I’d gone on holiday, I’d come back and the chap who’s just recently retired as director, him and I were sharing a flat and Dudley and, and Derek said, oh, Brian Bertram, who was curator of mammals at London at the time, said, he’s Doug, Brian Bertrams coming up to the zoo tomorrow to have a chat with you about the head keeper job. And I was like, yeah, right. Pull the other one. And he’s going, no, really. And it wasn’t until I got into work the next day and the curator came up to me, said, Brian Bertrams coming to see you today, so you’ll be here about two. And I was like, oh, right, this is real. So we had a chat and it was, I was told, this is, you know, this is off the record, you know, you’re not allowed to tell anybody. ’cause London had never done this before. They then advertised the job and they asked me to apply formally and then went through the interview process and I, about three interviews for the position, it was hugely controversial.

London was Unionized Zoo. And you know, here’s me taking one of the few options for promotion and some outsider, some young outsider, I mean, I was 29 at the time, and most head keepers when they finally, you know, walked into the dead men’s shoes, that was their, their predecessor. They were usually in their, their forties, late forties by that stage. So it was unprecedented in a range of different ways. I remember my first day, I don’t think I’d received that much uniform from a zoo that I worked at.

And for, if we added all the uniform I’d ever received from every zoo I’d ever worked at, it wouldn’t have amounted to the double arm full of stuff that I was barely able to see over the top of being Charlie Kitchen side, a former o overseer taking me up to the stores, right?

You need two pairs of them and three pairs of those. And tr I even got socks.

I said, I said, where’s the underwear?

He said, that might come next year. So it was, it was a, I thought at that point that’s in my zoo career. I thought that I’d, I made it, this, this was, you know, no one had done this before and, and you’re at London’s, the Zoological Society of London with all the history behind it, you’re now a head keeper there. But in 1991 you become the collection manager at the London Zoo. There was a, this was the start of the financial, real financial troubles at the zoo. And so there was a huge, there was a major redundancy program of animals and people, about a third of the staff lost their jobs, including some of the curators. They created new positions that we all had to apply for. So I applied for one of the animal collection manager.

So I actually applied for the assistant curator, ’cause I thought that sounded better, but they wanted me for a collection manager position. So that was, I suppose the, my first foray into a curatorial position. But though I got promotion, a lot of my colleagues lost their job. So it was, one couldn’t, there was little cause for celebration at the time, if you know what I mean. But in 1995, you’re now curator of mammals at the London Zoo.

Yeah. How did that come about?

Basically a little bit of making an argument for it. The, one of the other collection managers wanting to step away from that side of things with the, with exotic animal sections. And it, it was my aspiration curator of mammals at London Zoo. Certainly in the UK scenario, and maybe to an extent internationally, certainly within the uk it held as much kudos as most other director positions. So it was one of the golden jobs. And so after watching Zoo Time as a kid with Desmond Morris, I now have his job. But yet in 1999, you leave London Zoo to become the director of the Rome Zoo.

And, but for a short period of time, how did that come about and why did you leave The where did I leave London or why did I leave Rome?

Why did you leave London to go to Rome, but such a short time and then leave Rome?

They, an ex-girlfriend was involved with, she was managing the Genoa Aquarium, which was, it was the same organization that had now had the contract to manage Rome Zoo. And they were basically looking to, they, nothing new had been built since the 1950s. And so basically they were looking for someone to basically rebuild the entire zoo. And so I, I’d been to Rome coincidentally the previous year on holiday and seeing the zoo and in all its flaws and, but you know, obviously, you know, Rome was one, it was at one time one of the great zoos of the world and, but had definitely fallen by the wayside. And so the opportunity to rebuild it was quite attractive. But, you know, not long bought a house in London, cur of mammals at London Zoo, had no particular desire to move. And they kept calling.

And I eventually when asked, okay, what will it take?

And I, I gave the, okay, I, I gave what I thought was a ridiculously large amount of money that they would have to pay me. And then they called me the next day and said, right, we’ll pay you that. And it was like, oh, Douglas, you pr So basically I’d, I’d argued myself into taking the job, but I jumped into it. It was interesting. I discovered that I had no particular foreign language skills after going to Italian lessons twice a week I can hold a conversation with a mentally defective three-year-old child, order a beer. That’s about the extent of it. I had a real problem with the lack of a Celtic work ethic in a Mediterranean culture. They’d also, when the, this private company had taken over a, a, the vast majority of the, the keepers who were or municipal employees left to take out, they were offered other jobs within the city.

So there was only a handful of experienced keepers. Then they hired all these university graduates who didn’t know the first thing about working in zoos, but all had very firm opinions of how it should be done. And it was, it was an incredibly frustrating experience. But, well, I got a few things done, got a few big projects, finished master plan for the zoo, hired my successor, and I was headhunted for a place in Canada. And you go to become the Chief Operations Officer, general Cur Mountain View Conservation Center, and you are there for a short period of time, but then you go to the Singapore Zoo. How did the Singapore Zoo come about In 2005, I had a parting of the ways with the owner of Mountain View who’d gone through quite a number of staff before me. Not a pleasant person, not a pleasant experience, and then just trying to get a zoo job. But try, obviously when you’re up to a certain level, it becomes less of a target rich environment.

And then I’d, I’d applied for various positions in the states without success, not even getting interviews, which I thought was strange.

I was curator of mammals at London Zoo. What do you mean?

I don’t have an interview and a curator position at Singapore came up. I applied, they got straight back in touch with me, flew myself, my wife out to have a lookie and an interview, obviously very interesting place, fantastic zoo, amazing animal collection. And so it was like, okay, right. There was nothing else on, on the card. So took the job there and had a, a three year contract and it was really useful to have had three years experience in a tropical zoo with all the unique problems that you have in the tropics in a zoo that you don’t have in a temperate zone zoo. So our idea of vermin wasn’t so much mice and rats and cockroaches, but spitting cobras, black scorpions, and very large reticulated pythons that were trying to kill your monkey collection. And, and then in 2008 you leave Singapore and you become head of Living collections at the Highland Wildlife Park and you win the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquarium First Trailblazer Award for a revolutionary polar bear exhibit.

What was the revolutionary?

Most old polar bear enclosures had basically been lots of concrete, lots of steel. I think the a ZA recommendations for polar bears is still a 16 foot high fence. And I went, I was asked to rehouse the single, so the, the last zoo polar bear in the uk it was an old female at Edinburgh Zoo or, or Sister Zoo. And, and they wanted to do something very different, large area, but there wasn’t much money available.

So I had to come, okay, right, how can, how can we do this cheaply?

And so it was devising a barrier technique that was inexpensive, which also enabled you to fence in a very large area. And that was, that was kind of the turning point in the change in how polar bears are kept, certainly in the uk.

What do you think made you a, a good manager?

A good zoological manager?

I think probably the most important aspect is having started from the shop floor as a baby zookeeper and working my way up. So I had a good understanding of, of what to expect from people, what they should expect from me. So having worked for a, a wide range of good, bad and indifferent bosses, then I, I, I would like to think I had a, a good idea on how to approach dealing with people and be a, a good manager from the animal side of things. Having worked with a wide range of species, primarily mammalian, I was able to get a very broad and deep understanding of how to manage primates or carnivores or elephants or ungulates and relate that to, to how I dealt with the staff and manage the animal collection. I mean, I remember being told one story, it was a curator who had never worked in the zoo before and immediately came in as a, a curator of mammals and asking the keepers and the story just went around the zoo and it was from some years back, so how many oranges do you feed the sea lions, you know, and it was that, and so what the keepers also knew about me was they couldn’t pull a snow job on me either because I’d done their job, I’d worked with their animals or at least, you know, similar species. So I suppose having, being able to generate that level of respect as well as respecting them for what they had to do, I think that’s what I, I would think, I think that’s what made me a good zoo manager, zoological manager. Now you’ve done many jobs in, in the zoo profession.

What skillset do you think a zoo director needs today as compared to when you started?

I mean, zoos have become much more complex organisms, and I mean, particularly when one is looking at it from a, not so much a UK perspective, but say a North American or a continental European perspective where your zoo is funded by local government, one doesn’t necessarily, you certainly didn’t used to have to have any kind of financial chops. Nowadays that’s very different. The the whole social media marketing, you know, in being in the public eye is a lot more intense than it ever was when I started in, in, in the zoo game. So the skills that are needed are varied. My concern would be that in many cases, the, the key understanding of having a zoo background of having, you know, worked on the animal side, the, to use a mark marketing parlance, the, the core product of the, of the industry that we’re in, many CEOs don’t have that. And so they sometimes, the only people they can understand are those in marketing, are those in finance, because that’s the language that they have learned to speak. They don’t speak zookeeper, they don’t speak zoo curator. So when, in this day and age, when there is a, a zoo director that ha has come from a zoo background, but has also developed all the other skills that require, they’re, they’re an individual that warrants a, a level of respect that I may not feel comfortable in giving to one who doesn’t come, who’s just come into the, the zoo community from the outside.

But at a very senior level. I’ve seen a couple of good ones. I’ve seen a lot of bad ones. There are many zoos. They’re small, medium.

What do you think a small or a medium size municipal zoo could do today to be involved in wildlife conservation, either on a national level or possibly internationally?

There? I mean this is a, this is a, a subject that comes up quite often and, you know, for, for smaller zoos being okay, how, you know, there’s no way I can be a zoological society of London or, you know, WCS or San Diego. They just don’t have the capacity staff, financial, whatever it might be to do that. But there’s a, there’s a tiny little zoo in the southwest of England called Sheldon. And I mean, it, it literally is a couple of acres, maybe five maximum. They punch way above their weight and they take on, and it’s not just local projects, it’s international projects.

And so, you know, being involved with you, something like, you know, pangolin conservation in Vietnam is okay, right?

You know, you need the commitment, you need to be able to raise the money to attend meetings or make a contribution to a center in Vietnam or wherever it might be. And being able to, and everybody’s gonna have access to, there’s gonna be local people with money that might be able to contribute towards something like that. I think the, the, the limitation is only down to the imagination of the individual. You don’t have to be a Bronx to make that, you know, you’re not funding an entire national park. You’re doing whatever you can do. And certainly in the UK there is a, there’s a lot more emphasis on looking at native species than say was the case when I came into the business where, excuse me, where paying attention to local species conservation was not on anybody’s agenda. And that was very much certainly in a, a UK zoo scenario is very much on, on people’s agenda. So there’s a good chance that just small zoo, right, you know, maybe you can’t make a contribution to tiger or rhino conservation, but you can probably do something for red squirrels or reintroducing pine martins or the in, you know, the numerous number of invertebrate species that are in that are critically endangered and in some cases extinct in the wild.

Everyone can afford to have say a commitment towards an invertebrate no matter what size your zoo.

Well you talked about finances and, and considering financial resources available to the small or the medium sized zoos, what do you think should be the focus of those kinds of collections?

Should it be regional endangered species, more typical collection of the endangered or non endangered species?

What kind of collection should those small and medium zoos try and achieve In this day and age with the state of the planet?

I don’t think any collection, no matter how big, medium or small it may be, I don’t think they really can afford not to have a collection whose major emphasis is on highly threatened species. Be they as part of insurance populations, be it as part breeding for reintroduction or basically as say in the case with tigers in this day and age, we’re not really looking at reintroduction at the moment. They are there as flagship animals for their, for their wild counterparts.

They, I mean, do we need another meercat exhibit?

Do we need another African plains exhibit with common African stock on it?

I don’t think we do. So the emphasis I think has to be on threatened species and you can still have a representative collection, but everything will have a, a conservation emphasis.

Can you talk a little, can you talk about animal welfare groups in Europe and their relationship with zoos?

Can you give us your thoughts on that?

I mean, if you’re, if you’re talking about groups that are and are in particular anti zoo, would that be correct?

Correct. Okay. Dealing with them is, for me is almost as much fun as having sex. Many years ago when I was working at London, there was a very important or very high profile anti zoo group who were launching a video and there was clips of London Zoo on there and we managed to get a look at it and they were having a press conference and I managed to convince my then director to finally let me off the lead. And I had to take someone from the press office with me. You know, there had to be a grownup in the room to make sure I didn’t do anything silly. And they presented the video and it came to the sort of question and answer period. And there was lots of press there. And to their credit, and the individuals who were high profile in this group knew me and I put my hand up and to their credit, they called on me.

They could have ignored me. They didn’t. And so I stood up and I immediately said, right, I’m Douglas Richardson, I’m curator of mammals at London Zoo and all the cameras just immediately sit drowned. And, and I just caught them off guard. And I said, look, there was, there’s, you know, there’s, there was images in your video that any good zoo person would be happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and, and agree that, you know, someone should be, should lose their job or be prosecuted over because of what, what you showed on the video. And you could see them going, that’s not what we expected. And then it was, but you, you had images there. You didn’t name any of the zoos, but there was a, there was a black manga bee monkey from, it was obviously an Antwerp zoo and it’s pacing up and down.

I said, did you bother to ask what was the history of that animal?

And, you know, ’cause there was lots of, of Belgians that lived in what was then Zaire. And under the new regime they came back, they came back with pets. And when the manga be trashed, the living room, they ended up at the zoo.

Did you find out if that was one of those animals?

And I used about three examples like this. And you know, I said basically, you know, don’t paint us all with the same brush.

Anyway, the BBC producer that was there came up to me, said, would you be interested in doing a debate with them live on BBC?

And it was like, oh yeah. And we did a very long, it was, I think it was a good two or three hours debate on Radio four, major UK radio State National Radio station. And I’m proud to say that I think that won the argument. But what was interesting was the zoo community, particularly in the UK when organizations like the Zoo Czech or which became the Born Free Foundation, when they came up, the, the policy of the, the British and Irish Zoo Association was ignore them, they’ll go away. And that never happened. And all they got was more column inches in the Sunday papers and whatnot. And, and what I’d been pushing for was a much more aggressive, let’s take these guys on, you know, when they, when they raise their head above the parapet to give them a proverbial slap and to take them on publicly. And so when my director was, at the time when he let me off the lead and I was able to do this, London Zoo was the main target.

You know, the, the, the National Zoo. The most important collection, most high profile collection in the uk. We were the big target. ’cause if we could, they could take us down. Everybody else was easy. But during that period, every time they raised their head above the parapet, I was there to give it a slap and then they stopped. So having this, and I’ve, I’ve spoken with a number of zoos about this one, I did some work for most recently who have serious problems with a, a local anti zoo group. And it was like, you have to take these people on.

I said, and you’ve got knowledgeable people. You have, you, you, you do the interviews, you do the debates, you use examples you make, you’re not just arguing with them. You’re informing everybody on the outside who only sees their argument, only hears their argument because you’re not saying anything. So I’ve always opted for a more, shall we say, aggressive stance. But it in a lot of ways it, it’s a protective stance. I’m proud of what I do. I have no problems with the word zoo or anything like that, which I know a lot of people in the, in the community know, oh, well, you know, it’s not zookeepers anymore, it’s animal caretakers. There’s a, there’s been a whole almost a, a, a hazard to say a woke approach to the terminology we use.

But then I’ve seen a lot of places where they’ve changed their names. They’ve gone from, we’re, we’re no longer a zoo, we’re a wildlife center. And then all of a sudden their visitor numbers go down because the public don’t know what they are anymore. And then they go back to calling themselves a zoo. And it’s like, oh yeah, that’s, yeah, I remember that’s what you are. We should be proud of what we are, where we’ve come from and where we’re going. And the place that we have within the international conservation community because the Good Zoo community is now one of the most important forces for good when it comes to conservation. Sorry, that was a very long answer.

Great zoo must compete with other cultural institutions.

What do you think there is their strong point and how do they sell it?

You go to, I mean, there seems to be a lot of zoos these days that have lost faith in their, in the, in what they do. And so they now have to have animatronic dinosaurs and Lego sculptures and various other non-animal aspects to their operation be that, as, you know, temporary exhibitions or in some cases permanent ones. And some places do them better than others. The last institution that, where I was running the animal department, the Highland Wildlife Park in Scotland, everything we did was animal focused. It was almost like an old school approach. The species selection was all cold weather adapted stuff. But I made sure that we had animals, that we had breeding recommendations for that, you know, we, we had lots of baby animals on the ground. We made sure that I used to do a, a column for a local newspaper and, and that was once a month.

We made sure we had a, a fluffy news story every month and a serious news story every month. And this was during the worst financial recession since the Great Depression. So basically from 2008 when I started and when I left, we had more than doubled the attendance level during that harsh period. But it was, it was an old school approach. Zoos are, the focus is animals. And, and yes, we had a lot of baby animals, but it was all always for good reasons and, you know, but it was the, we had that level of publicity. We ended up getting a huge local support. And because in the central Highlands of Scotland, it’s a huge tourist area.

We got to the point when people are staying at small hotels, right?

We have a spare day, what do you reckon we do?

Oh, you should go to the Highland Wildlife Park. It’s brilliant. You know, they’ve got tigers and polar bears and, you know, and huge enclosures. It looks fantastic. And so we were able to completely change the, the, the significance of the collection, both in the eyes of the, the local population and the, and the eyes of the general public and in the eyes of the, the professional community in the, within the zoo community. We, we raised our profile considerably, but it was all animal oriented. And I think that’s what a lot of zoos, they miss that one though. They think they have to do something else, and I don’t think they do.

Now you’ve been in this position many times, what would you include in a training program for curators?

I did a, I was asked to do a talk at, it was actually a keeper’s sort of three day workshop called Keeper Fest at a place called Jimmy’s Farm in Wildlife Park down in, in the south of England.

And they asked me, I said, look, can you do a talk about what it takes to be a, a good curator?

And it was like, okay, right, okay, this is, this is right up my street. And so I basically, I came up with a list of, I think it was 16 key points. What it starts with is you have to have been a zookeeper. You, you, you ha you know, you know, whether it’s, that’s the level you came in at or whether say in the German system where you might be a trainee curator, but you’re working on the animal sections as well. So you get that, that firsthand experience. There were things like, you know, I’ve, I’ve worked with people where we’re doing a new project. Here’s the, here’s the new exhibit that we’re building, here’s the plans. And they look at a plan and they, they don’t know how to read.

So they can’t make intelligent contribution to it. I mean, I did a job in Rome and we had a, a a, a zoo architect firm doing the new bear enclosure. And, and I wasn’t happy with, the exhibit was great, but the holding area was, I didn’t think it was particularly safe and it was clumsy.

And so, you know, I said, look, you know, can I need to change a few things?

And it turns out, because of planning permission, we had to stay within the footprint. And so over a lunchtime, I changed the interior design.

And the architect was like, how did you do that?

I said, well, I’ve, I’ve always been interested in zoo architecture, but I taught myself how to read a plan, how to alter it, how to use tracing paper to basically come up with something new, another be kind to the maintenance department. That’s absolutely crucial. When you want a nest box made for something, you, you, you want them on side. You know, you want them to be interested. You, you want them to know that you respect their skills, which rolls into never be too proud to learn from anyone. When I was working in Singapore, we had to catch up all of the false gals. I was having the area modified, so we had a better chance of breeding them. But we had to, you know, we were creating barriers.

We had to catch up and move them. And I’d never caught a big crocodile before. And so the, there was a number of keepers at Singapore that had a lot of crocodile experience. And I said, right, okay, today I’m working for you. You have to tell me what to do. ’cause I’ve never done this before. You’ve done it. I’ve not, and because of the Asian mentality, giving the boss instructions is a really hard thing. And there was a couple of times where the guys were like, no.

I said, come on. You know, I said, tell me what to do. And anyway, they, they taught me how to catch crocodiles. There was one guy who was getting a bit cocky by the end of the day and giving me lots of instructions of, okay, right, you’re pushing it now. But it was never be too proud to learn from anybody at whatever level. You know, they, the, everybody has a contribution to make. Having people, being able to give your staff the, the, the permission, the power to be able to contribute to a discussion, to come up with a new idea. You know, I would do the designs for new exhibits and Right, I’m leaving, here’s my drawings. I’ll leave it on the mushroom table. Right.

It’s time to you guys. So have a look at it, you know, have I, you know, have I missed something?

Is there something else that you’d want there?

I did a job recently for Dundee. They wanted a new gibbon enclosure.

And I said, right, what have you got?

And the keepers had done some drawings and I made sure that everything they wanted was incorporated in the plans I gave them. And it turns out everybody was really happy with it. ’cause I, I took what they had and made it easier because I’d been a zookeeper. I know what it’s like to have to go through doors that are half my height and catch your back on it as you’re going out or coming in. I’ve never understood why a lot of designers and architects thought that keepers were tiny people. So it’s, I think having a consideration for others, a trust in others, and are an in depth knowledge of the job, of what it entails and the animals that you’re responsible for. And never fake it. If you don’t know, say you don’t know.

What changes have you seen during your years in, in the zoo field regarding visitor attitudes?

Huh. I mean, certainly when I was first brought to zoos as a child visitor, which for me was the, the highlight of my year, certainly the uk the, the zoo visiting season opens on the Easter weekend. And so going to Edinburgh Zoo where I was as a young child was, for me that was like the best thing ever. And obviously in that, in the, those early, very early sixties, feeding animals and whatnot was very much accepted. It was part and parcel of a zoo visit, often to the detriment of the animals, A lack of respect for animals. But it has changed dramatically. And I think a lot of it is to do with the profile of zoos. There is a, a greater understanding that zoos have a, a, a serious role to play. I think it’s rather different in, say, in, in Germany for example, where zoos are seen as, as cultural institutions and have been for a very long time.

That’s not really been the case historically in, in the uk. But now we have a very discriminating zoo public. And as people now, they, they want and need permission to come to the zoo. So the zoo has to be a good place doing good things for people to be, feel comfortable bringing their kids to the zoo or indeed coming as you know, visiting as adults. So there, there’s been a real shift in how people behave in a zoo environment for the better.

What issues caused you the most concern during your career and how do you see the future regarding those same issues?

I think, I mean the, the one that I think initially caused me the most concern was that historically keepers were never listened to. You know, you were there to do the grunt work, you were not part of the decision making process or even able to make a contribution that has, in a large part changed in good zoos. It has changed. I’ve seen a lot of good people historically leave the profession because they couldn’t afford to be zookeepers anymore. You know, they were, you know, getting married, gonna have kids, and financially it just didn’t work anymore. That’s changed in many places, maybe not as much as it could. Certainly not in the uk, I don’t think on a bigger issue. I think there are, I mean, I remember the first conversation I had with a, a zoo director and one that I worked for about the potential use of euthanasia. There’s a number of topics that zoos won’t engage with, certainly not outside of a professional audience.

And, and I’ve always been a, a key advocate, both of, of honesty and transparency about what we do. And in particular, if we’re going to manage animal populations long term, there are tricky subjects that we need to grab hold of with both hands. And, and I think the, the, the discussion, the reasons for using euthanasia as a population management tool, I think has been key in, in my time. And I’ve certainly played a role in trying to open that discussion out. A new one I think is dealing with geriatric animals. Historically, you would’ve seen, okay, it’s mass, the gorilla at Philadelphia Zoo, it’s his 50th birthday. And there was a time when animal longevity was a, a a a measuring stick for how well you were, you were able to look after this species or that species. Then it became being able to breed the animal.

That was the, the real measuring stick.

Now we, you know, more recently where okay, right, is the welfare of the animals, is the environment they’re being kept in, is it challenging enough for the species concerned?

But now we have a situation where we are looking seriously at, okay, now, you know, the, I bought a book recently about dealing with geriatric zoo animals and it’s like we’re going backwards. Making every effort to keep old animals alive is actually contradictory to managing healthy populations of threatened species. They’re taken up space, they’re no longer breeding animals. And I think from a welfare point of view, I think it is entirely questionable to keep an animal alive way past its sell by date. And I think the geriatric animal issue, I think that’s, that’s one that hasn’t really been addressed even within the zoo community. So this idea of, of celebrating a, you know, the, you know, our, you know, our hippo is now, you know, 52 years old. I’m not sure that’s a cause for celebration because if that animal was to die tomorrow, I guarantee you’ll find all kinds of problems at the postmortem that we weren’t aware of. And so I think it’s, that’s, I think that’s a, that’s a major issue that has changed and, and how we perceive it.

And certainly the way I perceive old animals, I don’t see it as a good thing. I hope I’ve answered that question properly.

Are are, are there issues that elucidated some of them, are there other issues that you’d like to see zoos address in the future?

I think, I mean, I think the, the, probably the biggest one is that zoos, many zoos get, they talk up their, their contribution to conservation in, in whatever capacity, be it in, you know, breeding programs or, you know, funding research, field research or, you know, supporting a, a protected area in a range country. But most zoos pay not much more than lip service to it. We, the zoo community makes a much bigger contribution than they did historically, of course. But it’s, if you take out the few major contributors, the, there’s a logical society of Londons, the WCS, the San Diegos, the National Zoo in Washington. You take those out the equation Frankfurt Zoo, just to make sure there’s a continental example. You take those outta the equation, then the, the amount the contribution drops significantly, it’s less so in Europe. I think it’s a more of a problem in North America. I think, you know, this may be a question that you’ll come up with later on, but I think one of the issues is, you know, how much we’re paying for exhibits now.

I think the figures are obscene. I mean, and this is something that the, the anti zoo group have, have, have come up with that, you know, well you’re paying, you know, $10 million, which even these days is a, a minimal amount for a new gorilla exhibit.

You know, would, would that money not be better spent protecting gorilla in the wild?

And I used to rail against that line of logic, but now it’s like you, you can create a good gorilla exhibit that is not, that is great for the animals, but doesn’t cost a fortune to create some stage set of the wild. I think it’s, and, and and range countries who see these examples and they try and emulate them and they do it badly because they don’t have the resources, they don’t have necessarily the expertise. So I think that that’s, that, I think that’s a big problem is that to be a good zoo now, or be viewed as one of the top zoos that you have to spend millions and millions. I mean, I remember when, when the, the Bronx Zoo opened Congo and I think it was between 30 and 40 million US. And I remember at the time it was like, oh wow, you know, huge figure. And believe me it’s a great exhibit, don’t get me wrong. But nowadays that figure pales into insignificance with what people are spending on exhibits. And I, I think in the, in the bigger scheme of things, I think it’s a hard one to justify.

And let’s follow up. When a zoo spends multimillion dollars on a gorilla or elephant or a tiger exhibit and critics ask why this money is not used to help animals in the wild.

You say what?

I think that when, if you’re, I mean, and this is one thing that the American zoo community has been much better at say, than here in, in the us And that at that’s raising donor money for these facilities. I think they miss a trick in that you’ve, you’ve got your, your wealthy family who’s, who’s, you know, they’re interested in funding your, your new tropical house or your new grill exhibit or whatever it happens to be. And I think that there is the possibility to, to make them aware that there’s another way of going about this and we can take a, a good percentage of your generous donation and we can put that into a fund that’s, that’s going to support this wild population or is gonna help protect this, this poorly protected area of gorilla habitat. Or we’re going to, you know, provide conservation jobs for poachers who usually make the best park guards ’cause they know the business we’re gonna, we’re gonna fund that as well. And so I think you can do both and you don’t need to necessarily do this hugely elaborate, as I’ve already said, stage set, which is what a lot of these exhibits tend to be. You also have this unfortunate situation where the more natural it looks, then the more restricted the keepers are for providing enrichment. Because if you have this wonderful arctic diorama for your polar bears, you can’t give them a big blue plastic barrel to play within in the pool because it ruins the illusion. And I think that’s a mistake.

And I think it’s also something that where a lot of Z zoo management, they have a disconnect with their public ’cause the public do not give monkeys about having that big blue barrel and that polar bear enclosure. They do care about watching that polar bear trying to kill this big blue barrel in the pool and appearing to have a great time doing it. That’s what the general public want to see. Active animals, not necessarily stage sets.

What do you think about private breeders and, and can they be partners with zoos?

I mean obviously like, like zoos, there’s good zoos, there’s bad zoos, there’s good private breeders or private holders, there’s bad ones and it’s incredibly easy to differentiate between the, the good, the bad and the ugly. And I think for, I mean you, I mean I’m, you know, my background has primarily been with mammals. But you know, having an informed look at how the, you know, the Herpetological zoo community or the bird community works, that having private people involved with some of these programs is often they can actually do better with those species than we have done in the regular zoo community. So I think private breeders have a very significant role to play. There is an argument made that, well it’s all down to one individual and you know, what if that person dies or they lose interest or they go bankrupt or whatever it might be. Well that happens to zoos as well. I mean, you know, the place we were in, we are in now, I mean it came very close to closing in 19 91, 92. So, you know, even these traditional zoos, they, they don’t necessarily have a guarantee of, of longevity.

So you use the resources you have for the time that you have them and to the best of your ability. And good private people, I think are crucial because it allows us to actually expand the sizes of the populations we have as zoos lean more towards the a, b, c animals, the big charismatic stuff when it comes to the, the small and, and interesting but you know, maybe not a big hook for the public. I think that’s when, when private holders really come into their own ’cause you’re able to augment populations. When I was here in London Zoo had win an extensive small mammal collection and, and quite a number of rodent species. And we’d keep, you know, one exhibit colony and then say a mini downs river mouse for example, one exhibit colony, two off exhibit colonies. But then we’d also have relationships with private holders so that we were able to expand the population. ’cause to be frank, not many zoos were managing many downs river mice. So, you know, the private community for us managing a small mammal collection was crucial.

And, but I think it is even more pertinent when it comes to reptiles birds and probably increasingly in vector Brits Is the national park we talked about the wild is the, within Europe is the national park and helping national parks, part of what zoos think about being partners with them.

Can they be partners?

I, I think it depends on the situation. I think as, as we look more and more at returning animals to the wild where they may have disappeared wild cats in Scotland, or a good example, links reintroduction in parks on continental Europe. I think there’s a strong role to play. I think it, it’s, I I think it’s better described in the role that American zoos have played when you look at animals like the black-footed ferret or the California condor. Yes, these animals have, have, you know, extinct and become extinct in the wild bred in captivity. And then been returned to protected areas. So there, there is this, I think, a good, you know, mutually beneficial relationship between good zoos and protected areas within your own country or a neighboring country, or even further afield. I think there’s a, there’s a, that’s an important relationship to have.

Some zoos do it very well. Some zoos, many zoos don’t do it at all. But it’s a, it’s an important one, I think. And the ones that do it well are the ones that we should be looking at as an example. Okay. Right. You know, that’s a big zoo that’s got this relationship with this national park. We’re a small zoo. Right. There’s, there’s gonna be a role that we can play. There will always be a, a role that, that any zoo can play in, in making a contribution to gazed areas, either in their own country or, or further field.

What would you say is a difficult concept for zoos to understand and implement regarding their relationship to conservation?

Sorry, could you ask that again?

What was the most difficult concept for zoos to understand and implement regarding their relationship to conservation?

This is gonna sound a bit more like a hobby horse, but I think when it comes back to understanding how wild populations need to be managed, and as I said, you know, managing captive populations, one runs into the same problem we have. There’s an argument in many western countries about banning the import big game trophies. Now, you know, I’m not a hunter myself. I have no desire to be so, but if you speak to the serious field conservation community, well licensed, well managed big game hunting has a positive conservation role to play. If anybody is well placed to make that argument to the general public, to the politicians, to the decision makers. It’s the zoo community. But the idea of promoting an argument that involves killing animals, most zoos will run away from, nevermind, engage with. So I think that, I think that our, our ability, our, our position within society, the zoo’s position within society to be able to explain conservation, both the fluffy side and the, the side that is hard to get your head around.

It, it, you know, to, to the, the average person killing animals, particularly ones from threatened species seems completely contradictory to protecting them. But in actual fact, there may be a very positive role to play. And, you know, if we look at the disappearance of large mammals throughout the, particularly hoof animals throughout the, the us, a lot of it, the, these populations have come back and a lot of it has been supported by the issuance of hunting licenses and that regulation of hunting. You know, I remember there was a sign in at the Bronx Zoo, it was one of my favorites, that there’s, there’s more whitetailed deer in the Eastern US now than there was when the pilgrims landed. And I think a lot of that is down to the, well, part of, it’ll be down to the lack of carnivores, but a lot of it will be down to, okay, there’s a lot of people that are interested in hunting whitetailed deer. And so, you know, it makes sense to have a large population to support that. And it’s the, the issuance of licenses. There’s areas of, of Kenya, Northern Kenya in particular, people think, well, you know, people go to Kenya to look at national parks, Northern Kenya, the climate is rough in some aspects.

It’s bandit country, it’s high-end hunting that supports conservation in northern Kenya. It’s not a tourist industry. And I think zoos do themselves and conservation a disservice by not endeavoring to explain the, the, the, the difficult, the harder aspects of conservation, particularly conservation in the field that, you know, we, we are the ones that should be turning to the field community and going, it’s all right guys, we’ve got this, you know, we have an audience. We can explain this. And they don’t.

How do he inspires you then to be more active in conservation?

Oh, threats of physical violence. No, I think set the example. You know, there’s, and you know, the, we, you know, we’ve come back to this theme of, you know, the, okay, the big zoos can do this, the smaller zoos have a harder time doing it. So, but I think it’s making more of the examples of the different sizes and complexities of, of zoological institutions and making a big deal about the ones that really are punching above their weight. They’re making that, that conservation contribution, both in the nature of their animal collection and their, their activities beyond their, the zoo fences.

You know, what, what are they doing in range countries?

What are they doing in their own country?

You know, what are they doing for, you know, conservation of species with within the UK or the US or wherever they happen to be?

So I, I think it’s making more of the examples and celebrating those examples and having some kind of mentoring program where, you know, and you know, whether this is something that the regional zoo associations can play at is, right. You know, we, we looked at your, you’re one of our members. You’ve been a member a long time. We’re looking at your conservation contribution and we’re not really seeing something very tangible. You know, we can provide a mentor to maybe help you down that road. ’cause most places will want to do that, even if it’s just to make sure that they look good. They’ll, they’ll want to be seen to be institutions for good that are making a, a, a significant conservation contribution. But some places need to be shown the way.

Does space continue to be a problem for Zeus As alright?

I mean, I’ve been responsible for making polar bears a palatable species for zoos within the UK in particular. And, and a lot of it was to do with space. How we kept that species before in general was appalling. So now we’re looking at a, a very large scale enclosures, you know, measured in, in acres and not square feet or square meters. And I think there are species that where they do need the space, but I think a lot of it can be down to species selection. We have a lot more places that have large acreage and, and can manage species that need to be kept in large herds for all kinds of social reasons. When I was working here in London, with the exception of, of the giraffes, the oke section started to move towards managing forest species like pygmy hippos and the copies. Because managing a forest species in a, a smaller enclosure is simpler, you know, from welfare point of views is easier to meet their needs than say a herd of wildebeest who need large numbers in a large area.

So I think it, a lot of it’s down to species selection. And so go back to a previous question where it said, you know, like, you know, what’s the emphasis I think it should be on people keeping, you know, conservation, important species, threatened species, zoos, waste a lot of space by keeping quite a lot of animals, which are in no at no risk of extinction whatsoever.

So, alright, do we need another meca enclosure?

No, we don’t. Do we need another European enclosure?

Similar sort of social unit, similar sort of lifestyle to mere cats and to the general public. You know, Sue Lake could probably pass for a mere cat, you know, you one can make substitutes, but, so I think the space issue would not be one if we stopped devoting as much space to species that don’t really need our help.

Do you think animals need to earn their keep?

That’s a good one in as much as how things have changed with keeper experiences and whatnot and you know, right. You know, you’re allowed to feed the animals, then you’re not allowed to feed the animals and now we’re charging you extra to feed the giraffes. And so there is a, has been an element of not, so whether it’s the animals earning their keep or just the ability for zoos needing to extract more, to generate more income, I think there should be a reason for every species that is in a zoo. And that reason can be incredibly varied. But being, you know, it’s part of a, a breeding program where, or we’re trying to learn more about this species, we specialize in that particular group of animals. I think, I think every species has to have a, a reason for being in the collection. And, and most good collection plans will have a, a column for justification.

You know, why, why do we have the, you know, why is this species here?

And it may be a common one, but it’s used as an analog for a threatened one that either we’re trying to learn more about them or we’re using it as an example for, from an educational point of view for, for the public.

So yeah, to use your term, do they have to earn their keep?

Yeah, that, but yeah, there needs to be a justification would be the way I would, I would put it.

So what is your feelings about zoo feeding programs?

Well, I mean, I’ll be honest, when I was running the animal department at the Highland Wildlife Park, we we’re ahead of our, our sister and, and more senior partner, the Edinburgh Zoo in starting, you know, keep it for a day programs or meet the polar bear, you know, you know, hand feed the tigers, that sort of thing. So we were kind of ahead of it. We, we used it as a, a revenue generator for buying kit and supporting Scottish wildcat conservation. So I think that there are zoos, I know Chester Zoo, I think they still do it. They used to from all the keeper experiences or feeding the animals, you know, you know, meet the giraffe, meet the tigers, the all the money went into a fund that paid for keepers going to zoo conferences and things like that. I think as long, I think as long as there’s a good justification and it’s done in a, a sensible way, you’re not, you know, it’s not 10 groups of people a day feeding the giraffes, you know, it’s the, it’s the, it’s, it remains a, at best, a once a day, twice a week, whatever it is, activity for that group or that individual or that species.

I’m sure there are some zoos that probably oversubscribe to these activities, but I would like to think that most do it in a sensible way and do people get a lot out of it?

The polar bears at Highland Wildlife Park, we’ve seen people burst into tears, not because they were frightened or anything like that, but they were just so overwhelmed by being obviously with a fence in the way. But being that close to a live polar bear and the, and for us, it, it, it, you know, for anybody that works in the zoo business, you know, you sometimes you have to be brought back to reality that, that what we do is pretty special and the, the exposure we have is pretty special. And if we can, I think, I think we have a, a responsibility to share that novel experience with the general public obvi, albeit in a, a limited way. But it’s also one of the things, you know, good publicity when that family that met the polar bears and burst into tears. And if, you know, they’re at some family dinner or down at the pub or whatever.

And what did you do last weekend?

Oh, we met the polar bear at Highland Wildlife Park and it was absolutely amazing. And they’re doing a great job and the bears are really well looked after.

What better publicity could you want?

What, what better way to get the message across about, about polar bears or the roles that zoos play or whatever, you know, the, the general public had our best advertising tool.

Is there a wild out there or have the majority of wild spaces been turned into managed wild zoos?

I generally use the term mega zoo. I think, you know, people have this illusion still of say, you know, eastern or southern Africa being, you know, this big wild place. And you know, more and more of these parks are privately run, they’re fenced areas, they’re highly protected. There is a need for active exchange of animals from, you know, one protected area to another or one private reserve to another. The few wild places that exist are disappearing rapidly or, or becoming more managed. Obviously, you know, things like climate change is gonna have a, an impact on some of these places will disappear because of of, of what’s happening in our climate.

Will we be able to recreate them, you know, if the the Great Barrier Reef gets bleached over, are we gonna be able to create a, a new bar, great barrier reef somewhere further north or further south?

The, I think one of the most, there was, we had a, when I started here at London, there was an American vet who was on the team Barkley Hastings. And I, I think I’m correct in saying that Barkley was the first vet zoo experience that went out to provide vet support for the wild populations of mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park because of, you know, tourism and, you know, not just snare injuries, but you know, running into respiratory problems because of the proximity of visitors and whatnot. And, and I think more and more the, the skills base that we have developed in the, in zoos is more and more applicable to how we need to protect animals in the wild.

So to go back to my definition of mega zoos, you know, that, that our ability to manage small populations, to transfer animals, the, the drugs that we have developed for dealing with animals up close and personal, just our whole approach to, you know, how do you, if you have to fence an area off, what kind of fence do you need?

So there’s all these skills that we have that we take to a degree we take for granted in the zoo community are increasingly applicable from managing what passes for wild places.

Now How difficult do you think the future for Asian and African elephants in the wild is?

I think that for the African bush elephant, I think there are, because of the, the national parks, I think they’ll, they’ll be need to, they’ll need to be more manipulation of the animals. But I they will continue to exist in what passes for a wild state. I think the likes of forest elephants and Asian elephants, because they’re basically a forest species, I think they’re the ones that are, they’re more likely to be in a lot more trouble. I think there needs to be a great deal more imagination, particularly in an Asian scenario. There’s been a lot of time, a lot of effort spent on finding ways of dealing with elephant human conflict in, in eastern and southern Africa. I think, and and to an extent in India, I think there needs to be a lot more in Asia to, to deal with the problems of stopping elephants going through farms or, you know, creating, you know, ways that elephants can go to traditional feeding grounds without running into problems with people. I think it’s a difficult one, worst case scenario for the Asian elephant, I think you’re gonna be looking again at, at zo areas where, okay, yeah, we have a, a population of elephants and basically it’s contained. I think that will be the sorry, state of affairs with, with, with some exceptions.

That said, and now because I do quite a bit of work in India, I, I was sitting in an airport, I think it, it might have been Mumbai and waiting on a flight. I’m just looking out the window. And here we are in one of the most populous cities, certainly the most populous country in the world. And, and there’s all these birds of prey flying overhead in the middle of Mumbai and a country of 1.4 billion people. And they still have elephants and they still have tigers. More of a problem with leopards coming into urban areas, but they still are able to protect wildlife.

I think, I think India isn’t, is is a really interesting example for other Asian countries and, and maybe, you know, west central African countries to look at and how have they squared the circle of people living in close proximity to big dangerous mammals?

And I think part of it’s cultural, but I think part of it has been, there’s been a real concerted effort to make sure that that is possible. Will it continue to be so, remains to be seen. But I think, I think India’s a really interesting example.

How’s this, would you say zoos or requirements have been in achieving the reintroduction of species back into the wild?

What are the issues? Some examples?

I think the issue is that the list is very short or certainly a lot shorter than it should be. I remember, you know, we, if we were, if we were into an argument with a an anti zoo person, there would, it was the classic, and this would be in the, in the seventies and eighties, and you’d roll off, you know, Arabian orx, European bison, schulsky horses, maybe golden lion tamarinds. And there’s, those would be the classic examples of, you know, here’s where zoos have made a, a very significant contribution and the species have been reintroduced. Or in the case of golden lion Tamarinds, the ca captive population has augmented a shrinking wild population. I think there needs to be more reintroduction. I know that Howlet Zoo or the Aspen Oil Foundation in the UK was criticized initially for sending gorillas back to Central Africa. And I, and I’ll be honest, I was one of those critics, I have very much changed my mind and they are now held up as an example of, of a good protocol for reintroducing gorillas or great apes back into the wild. I think we need to do more experimental reintroduction.

What, you know, the, the classic problems with the golden lion tamarind reintroduction where they were kept initially in enclosures where all the perching was bolted down and when they were released in, in Brazil and they touched a branch that moved, it’s like, whoa, what’s that?

Or they had no fear of snakes. So the researchers following the radio collar of a tamarind that’s already inside a red-tailed boa, we need to, with every reintroduction there’s species specific issues. So reintroducing animals that may not need to be reintroduced, but at least if we can learn how to do it. I think there’s two sorts of reintroduction. There’s ones for good conservation reasons. The, the, the wild population no longer exists or it needs to be augmented.

But the latter is, is more normally the example or once where, okay, let’s find out how do we do this?

How, how, how do you reintroduce a polar bear?

If we get into that situation where, you know, we’re having to return the, the polar bears to a, a reconstituted a arctic, how do we do that?

What’s, you know, big dangerous animal like that.

How, how do we approach that?

I think the Russians have been doing some really interesting stuff with tigers that I don’t think has received the, the focus that it should, you know, reintroducing elephants or big carnivores or big primates, you know, the, the, the, the really complex ones. The ones that are more likely to cause an issue for the local population.

I think those are the ones where, you know, we, we don’t have enough information, but even reintroducing small stuff, you know, can we do it?

Is it easy to do some species?

You open up the books, you let them go job done others soft releases, training, training them to avoid predators. You know, the, I was involved to a degree with the Vancouver Island Marmite reintroduction breeding for reintroduction project when I was working in, in British Columbia. And, and the first animals that we could breed them in captivity, no problem. You know, the first ones that got released, they’d come out of their hibernation chambers and look up and there was a golden eagle overhead and they’d just sit there and watch the eagle as it came down and got them, or the wolf or the mountain lion. And so having to come up with a method for teaching them to avoid predators involve the 12 volt car battery and the taxidermy specimen so that they were negatively reinforced. And that changed the survival rate in the wild black rhinos. Rob Brett, who was affiliated to some degree with Theological Society of London, he was involved with black rhino transfers in Laikipia in Kenya, and they had major problems when they released the rhino and, you know, they would run into conflict with maybe some resident rhinos or they didn’t stay put. And I said, and I was chatting with ’em or I think a beer in the pub, and I said, well, I said, when we get a rhino in a zoo, before you let out the crate, you take a load of the feces out of the enclosure and you put it near the gate so you don’t have as far to walk with a wheelbarrow.

And, and the rhino will continue to defecate on that location. I said, you know, you’ve got these rhinos you’ve soft releasing them from, from Bomas. Yes. And he went, yeah. I said, right, well then, you know, collect up all the shit and then redistribute it out. So when the rhino gets released, it’s got a familiar smell and that chain both the interaction between the resident wild population and these transferred animals and the, the ability for the animal to stay put and not just go wandering off. So, so yeah, that, that crossover of technique.

What do you think are the major differences between zoos in North America and those in Europe?

How we feed our animals for the kickoff and specifically carnivores. I look at North American carnivore diets and it just makes me want to cry. I have seen an adult tiger virtually inhale, its minced meat diet. Whereas, you know, we, and you know, we’ve always fed them actual meat on the bone joints, more increasingly whole animals. And it still tickles me that, oh yeah, another research project into how, you know, feeding carcass, carcass feeding for large carnivores. And it’s like, what really we, we have to go through that exercise one more time. And again it’s, you know, marketing types going, oh, well you can’t do that in front of visitors. I mean, I remember here in London, I I hung a, a big white rabbit.

It was dead off a bungee cord for the servs. And, and the visitors were about 10 deep at the windows watching this rabbit getting torn into pieces by the cerebrals when they used to, when they once a week feeding in the reptile house here at London Zoo, I think it was every Friday afternoon they used to do it. And you know, you had to get to the reptile house an hour or two beforehand, otherwise you would never get into the building. It was such a popular activity. So this idea that that zoo visitors will be repulsed by feeding carnivores actual animals is a bit bizarre and actually unfounded. I think if they, if television stations brought back live gladiatorial combat to the death, it would probably be the most popular program on television. The fact that unfortunately, and this is a, a problem that we don’t seem to be learning in Europe, is that a number of of breeding programs have collapsed in America because of the widespread and in judicious use of contraception and breeding control. And then when they want to breed from the animals again, they’re not able to.

And so, you know, the, the program gets augmented from, from Europe where we have been less inclined to do that. But, you know, I see issues with, I’ve been helping a couple of zoos with, with breeding and, and introduction of lions for breeding. And I’m thinking having to help zoos show them how to breed lions or how to do a lion introduction. It’s this is, this is cat keeping 1 0 1 breeding moratoriums, which again, have been more prevalent historically in America than in Europe. And the staff changes, the older keepers leave, the new ones come up and then they have no experience of how to breed this species or that species. And so the wheel gets constantly reinvented. There’s always a situation where the people say that, you know, whatever’s happening in America eventually gets over here. And un unfortunately with the, the zoo, I think some of the negative aspects or or what I perceive as, as, as negative aspects of how animals are managed in North American zoos coming over here and causing the same problems have, have we not learned from these mistakes.

So I think there’s that, I think there’s, again, there’s the, if it, if the enclosure looks natural, then it must be good for the animal when in actual fact, going back to something I’ve said previously, it’s basically a glorified stage set and not necessarily good for the animal. I think there’s more attention to appearances than purposes. That’s, this is an incredibly broad stroke criticism of North American zoos and, and certainly not all are guilty of it and most do some things really, really well and better than anything in Europe. Other thing, other stuff maybe not so much and vice versa. And so I don’t want to appear too critical of, of my American colleagues who I in in general have a reasonable amount of respect. For Recently there have been some zoos requesting donations of pets to feed their animals your comments. I I I love the Danes for their boldness. I really do. In, in Denmark where this has happened, no one blinks.

It’s not an issue. I actually recently my wife and I made the decision to euthanize our dog. Obviously the body did not end up being used as food for a zoo animal. But I think a lot of it comes down to making that, being able to make that decision and what’s actually gonna happen to the animal. Extending on that is that I did a, a paper for a zoo journal and it was entitled Tigers Don’t eat meat and they eat animals.

And this is something that certainly in the west, we, for the many people that that disconnect now, you know, where does milk come from?

It comes from a, a carton or a bottle. It doesn’t come from a cow anymore in many people’s minds eyes. So the fact that that animals eat other animals is something, again, is another discussion point that zoos have failed to explain to the, to the general public. And so, so a story like that, when it breaks the reaction from outside of Denmark is short quarter, but then no one’s getting their, as we say over here, their knickers in a twist over some no named cow that goes from a farm to an abattoir, gets chopped up and then gets shipped to a zoo for feeding the lions and tigers.

I speak to zoo people about, well why, why are you controlling breeding in your, your deer and antelope?

Oh well we don’t want to have a surplus. I said, yeah, but that surplus is ideal material for feeding your big cats. You’ll actually cut your meat budget. And what carnivores respond in a very different way to game to wild food than they do to domestic livestock food. So you feed a, a tiger, a bit of cow or a bit of horse, they’ll eat it. They go through all the motion, you feed them half a side of venison, their behavior completely changes. Their, their senses become attuned. They, they become alive. And so, you know, you know, dealing with your, your surplus of male deer of whatever species or male ORs or whatever, you know, that is an ideal source of food for your animals.

And, and you’re, and you’re being incredibly hypocritical of going, oh no, and this is comes down to keepers as well. Oh no, we can’t do that. We can’t, we can’t euthanize Robert the Arabian ORs. But we’re quite, quite happy to have that, that no name cow come in. ’cause we didn’t have a relationship with that. Are you a professional or are you a pet keeper? Which is it. So I know we digress from the, your your question, but I personally don’t see a problem with it. I admire the honesty of it.

I admire the transparency of it. Could it happen in the uk? Don’t, no. Could it happen in in the us No, it would be a brave zoo that that did that, but it’d be one that would have my respect.

What would you say has been the greatest area of development in the way a zoos have interpreted their collections to visitors?

I think, oh god, I mean almost every zoo you go to, you see a different style of, of interpretation be it, I mean obviously, you know, exhibit design has had a role to play an interpretation, but even if we just talk about, you know, the signage, the, the material that explains to people what they’re looking at historically, zoos like London Zoo, you know, had a wealth of biological information. Either it was like, it was a simple sign with a common name, scientific name, range map, usually in red, whatever bit that where the animal came from. And that would be about it. And then they would have other signs with a wealth of biological and behavioral information that no one ever read or hardly anybody ever read. And so I think when, when people use an imaginative approach, I mean when they, when they opened the world of birds at the Bronx Zoo and they talked about bird behavior and they used this, this cartoon bird to explain nest building or egg laying or chick rearing or whatever it might be. And I think it, it that that cartoon image wa I think was enough to, to get people’s attention a more clinical academic approach would not with, with most of, of the zoo visitors. I had an approach here when I was running the, the lion house and we, we needed to redo the labels and I kind of overrode the education department who would normally do this. And I said, okay, right, we’re going for a new approach and ’cause I, you know, I want, as a zookeeper you want the zoo visitors to read the labels, you want them to go away better informed.

But I think the mistake has always been is that this heavy reliance on biology. And so of the seven cat enclosures in the lion terraces, we split each sign into two. And for the on, on the lions or the tigers, the jaguars or the leopard, it was like, okay, here’s our African lions, this is Dax, this is Annika. Dax was born at this zoo on this date. It was all biographical information, just a few lines on each individual and a mugshot. And then on the other half of the label was a job that keepers do.

Because as far as the general public, a real question, particularly in somewhere like a big cat facility, how do you clean the tigers out without getting your head ripped off?

’cause the idea of, of locking cats away and working in a safe environment is not something that would generally occur to them. And so the other half of the label was all about a keeper’s job. So keeping records, food preparation, enrichment, cleaning the enclosure. And then we did our own survey. People read the labels. Now the way I looked at it, that was the hook. If they were interested in Dax the lion and where he was born, then maybe they would, particularly now that everybody has a computer in their pocket and internet access, maybe they alright, wanna know a little bit more about lions. So we don’t necessarily have to tell them about it, everything about this species or that species in the zoo, but we need to provide a hook. And I think some zoos have done it in very, very clever ways.

Emmens, the old Emmen zoo had an elephant museum attached to their elephant facility and it was fantastic. And it was all manner of elephant memorabilia and stuff about the history and the, the cultural links with Asian elephants and with different Asian countries. And it was fascinating and, and really attractive. It was done really well. I mean, and if you, at the time in the, in the nineties, if you wanted a good, a zoo that did education really well and interpretation really well in a European scenario, Emin was the example. But I think, you know, there’s a a number of zoos that have done things very cleverly.

And I think that’s also one of the, the interesting aspects of, for people like us who are interested in zoos, really interested in zoos is everywhere you go, right?

You can see one elephant house here, an elephant house here, an elephant house here, they’re all different. The same is true of, of all their interpretation, which is why, going back to your question, but what makes a good curator visiting other zoos, seeing what they do and how they do it. And then, you know, interpretation may not be your responsibility, but you can take some pictures and you go back to your education department, whoever it is that does your signage and go, I went to Antwerp Zoo and they had this really cool label about the sea lions, here’s a picture of it. You know. So I think there are places that have done it well, places that have done it in a very pedestrian manner, but there’s a lot of wonderful interpretation out there. The side of it that I, that does make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up with fear is going down the museum route or what seems to be the modern museum route where it’s all push buttons and electrics and and whatnot. And almost getting away from the, the point, the point of the visit is to look at the animals, is to see a lion in the flesh, to see a chimpanzee in the flesh. And and I think it’s a, it’s a huge mistake to distract from that, that basic visitor experience. And by introducing for want of a better term, modern technology, I think it detracts from that.

I might be wrong. I mean I’m no, I’m no expert on, on the human species by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s how I see it Regarding conservation, what worries you?

But what gives you hope?

What worries me is something we’ve already touched upon is zoo’s not devoting enough space, effort, resources towards conservation.

What gives me hope?

When people think of conservation, they think of, of, you know, rhinos and elephants and tigers, and I think it’s for a zoo that wants to make a contribution, there’s, is there any point in dev in, you know, giving your, devoting your resources on top of what everybody else is doing for tiger conservation, for example. And there was the, there’s a, a curator here, pul Pierce Kelly, and he, him and his team basically raised the profile of invertebrate conservation virtually single-handedly, certainly within a UK arena. And I remember watching Paul on it was a a, a talk show, the Terry Wogan show. It was like the, the, the the Tonight Show of the UK, if you like. And, and they had Paul on there with a, with a ulous snail. And, and Paul, and he won’t mind me saying this, he is a zoological Mr. Bean, you know, he’s, he’s, he’s hugely informative, incredibly funny, and with wonderfully eccentric mannerisms. And Paul is in front of this audience with a, a tiny wee snail the size of your thumbnail. And he’s waxing lyric.

And he had the audience in stitches about talking about port of snail conservation, the story of, of saving the port of snail. And so in vertebrates are, are definitely not my area of expertise, but I look at what Paul and his team and, and what other places now have done, some of which had quite a bit of exposure or one of Paul’s team went on to, you know, manage inverts at Bristol Zoo or wherever. And that those talents, those skills that that emphasis on the, the, the tiny and obscure became as important as the focus on the big and the fluffy. And I think that’s that I think it, it demonstrated to me that one, everything is important, all species, no matter how insignificant one might think they are. But it was also the ability that for want of a better term, you can sell that to the public. You can sell that to the, to the government, you know, partial a snail or, you know, field cricket conservation is as important and as interesting a story to tell As Gorilla conservationists, You’ve talked about architecture and your knowledge.

How do you try and achieve a wow impact in exhibit design?

I think, I mean a lot of it can be if you’re working in a rural facility, you know, I’ve referred back to the, the Highland Wildlife Park in, in Scotland on, on a number of, for a number of these questions. And it’s a rugged highland landscape. And so the way I would approach, okay, where are we going to put the polar bear enclosure or the snow leopard enclosure, whatever it might be, is looking for the most appropriate bit of terrain in an urban zoo. That generally isn’t an option. So you want to, you know, you want to make a bit of a statement in, in general, space is obviously an issue. You can do interesting things when in the small mammal house here that what used to be called the Clore Pavilion, we had a, an exhibit of mere cats. And the enclosure was, you know, for maybe two and a half by two and a half meters by two meters high, basically a cube. And the meca did okay.

And I thought it was like, okay, we want to expand the group. And I thought, right, we’re gonna put them in the giraffe enclosure. Now the giraffe enclosure at London Zoo, though the giraffes did really well. Our breeding record was second to none. It was not exactly the biggest giraffe enclosure in the world. Sure as hell was the biggest at the time, the biggest mere cat enclosure in the world. And so we released the meca into the enclosure and it looked great and obviously it gave the giraffes an element of entertainment as it did the meerkats, but the meerkats ended up with this huge space. So even in a, a more restrictive environment of an urban zoo like London, it’s taking a space and then possibly putting it towards a very different use than it was originally anticipated.

So again, when it was here, the, the seal line pool had was long since passed its cell by date. There was no, no filtration, no water management. It was a, a salt water pin AED in a fresh water pond. And it was no, you know, we couldn’t do them justice anymore. But what I did it become is a really good pygmy hippo pool. So it was using an existing facility, which goes back to my argument about having a, an issue with spending mega amounts of money to create an exhibit that has a wow factor. And, and you know, and many of these multimillion dollar exhibits in, in, in major zoos do indeed have a wow factor. But it comes at a cost.

I think you can achieve it without spending a fortune to do so. But it involves a little bit of imagination or, or rethinking the use of an existing space. So as I said, you know, what was a fairly mediocre giraffe enclosure, albeit the animals did really well, it was a great mere cat enclosure without really doing very much other than creating a couple of spaces that the meercat could get into that the giraffes could not.

How important do you think it is for a zoo curator or director to make rounds?

Crucially important. I have been forced to go on two or three management courses in my career and I’ve always approached them cynically, tongue in cheek and you know, but I think probably the most important lesson and, and, and it was one that was common to the, the various management courses I was on and that’s Walk the Job and it, it serves a number of purposes and we know that, you know, traditionally zoo directors would particularly, I don’t know, I I imagine, I would hope anyway, still do in some of the continental zoos, particularly in Germany, that the morning doing the morning rounds was still, it’s still part of the job being seen by your staff, being out there, seeing what’s going on, noting what needs being not, what needs to be dealt with. Chatting with everybody. Bernard Harrison, the former director of of Singapore Zoo, I never worked, Bernard had already left Singapore when I was working there, but I, I got to know him when, you know, we became, you know, very good drinking pals from talking to the guys who were my friends at the zoo who worked under Bernard. He knew everybody’s name. The, from the guys that were, you know, sweeping up litter to, you know, some of the girls that were working in the catering outlets. He knew everybody’s name. I must admit that’s a skill I would love to have.

’cause I’m rubbish with names. But I think that being out there, being seen, knowing what your zoo’s up to, you know, what, what needs dealing with what’s being done really well, congratulating pe people on site about doing a good job, asking their opinion.

Well, looking at the komo dragon enclosure, right?

Do you think what, is there something else we can do here to, you know, make it better for the animals or to make them more active or, you know, increase breeding?

What do you think, you know, having that conversation with the keepers as the director or as the collection manager or whatever you, whatever position you have to be in, walking the job is vital. If you don’t do it, you’re not doing your job. You don’t know the place you’re, you’re working at and you’re just removing yourself from your workforce, which is a fatal error.

Do you feel that zoos have enough sister city relationships with other zoos?

It seems to be something that has kind of fallen by the wayside. The the zoo community went through a, a phase of doing that and it, it certainly, it’s, there has been, you know, mutually beneficial relationships in that way, often through exchanges of animals. You know, the, the sister relationship that Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands had with Shanghai Zoo in, in China allowed Rotterdam to get species that no one else had in Europe. Really interesting stuff. I think that in this day and age, I think, I think it’s, it’s become more important because we talk, we talk about areas of important areas of biodiversity and range country zoos, particularly in places like the Neotropics or Southeast Asia Zoo collections in these places are centers of biodiversity. And that’s just the, nevermind the, the wild animals that are living on site, but the, the actual captive population, the zoo population. And, but a lot of these places don’t necessarily have the skills to do their animal collection justice or to make the contribution that they could make. They’re just, they, they’re just not able for it.

So I think in a modern context, instead of, okay, right, we’ll have a relationship with this zoo because we want, we’d love to have, you know, zebra dyker or you know, some other obscure species and we want a sister relationship so we can help our sister zoo raise their game.

Are there traits that you would say an animal keeper needs to work in a zoo?

Absolutely. A love of animals is not one of them. People who are effusive in their love of animals usually make really bad zookeepers. They usually make really bad pet keepers as well. Actually having an interest in animals, having a real interest in zoos, you know, like me having, you know, knowing that when you were a kid, you know, the visit to the zoo was, was the highlight. You know, that was like the best thing you could do there. There’s this, this is kind of going off at a wee bit of a tangent, but I remember when, when, and I, I was one of them, you know, the, the, the kid that was regularly at the zoo and harassing the keepers with a million questions. And you know, when I was at London there was, there was certainly two or three that where of that elk, they were identifiable, you often knew their name, you know, they always had interesting questions. And some of them ended up, you know, breaking into the zoo business when I was working at Highland Wildlife Park.

And I appreciate that, you know, we were not exactly in a major metropolis, but I wasn’t seeing those kids anymore. There’s been a shift and I, I, I can’t explain it and I’ve, I’ve spoken to, to long-term colleagues about it, you know, are you seeing these people and they’re not, they don’t seem to be out there or certainly, you know, and mine and many of my colleagues experience we’re not seeing them anymore. So I don’t know what’s changed and it, but that, that that intensive interest in zoos, that that desire to, to know what’s behind the door that says staff only or keepers only an understanding of, of, of zoo history is absolutely crucial.

I mean, you know, it goes for any walk of life, you know, how do you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been that understanding of, of how, how did we learn how to look after this species properly?

There is a, with a, a lot of zookeepers today, there’s a disregard for, you know, historical husbandry techniques, but in many cases they might be actually the best approach for dealing with this animal or that animal. And a good example is, okay, the training of animals seems to be, and I have seen it actually written, the most important role a zookeeper can play is training their animals. And, you know, training animals to walk into boxes and walk onto the, the scales is, is a very useful thing. Being able to net an animal or grab one with your bare hands is also really important. ’cause sometimes it’s the quickest, least stressful way to catch them. And in an emergency situation, you don’t have time to train something and the animal’s gonna be in an alien environment. So having those practical skills is important. And that is an aspect of, of zoos that is, is seems to be disappearing.

There’s a few places that are still managing to train their staff, but it’s increasingly few. So I think zoos used to hire people from farms. You had guys working on hoofstock collections who maybe grew up on a farm and, you know, knew their way around dealing with big mammals that disappears now that almost no longer exists. Everybody has a, comes in with a, a university college qualification. Some of the best keepers I know came in at 16 years old. I, I don’t have a degree. I came in at, you know, I started m job at 18 and, and, and I remember having, when I was a, I went to high school in America and I, I was living on Long Island and my guidance counselor at high school was, you know, right.

You know, we had the, the, the first career interview and it was Right, what do you want to do?

And it was, I want to work in zoos. And he was just like, oh, wow. I said, yeah, I’m sure that’s unusual. He said, no, what’s really unusual is you know what you want to do. He said, all of us never hear that. But I said, he said, I can’t help you, but I will, I will help you if you, if you, if you need me to do something. I said, well, you know, I’m gonna write to the Bronx Zoo and try and speak to a professional there. And I wrote to Bill Conway.

Naturally, bill didn’t respond to a 16 or 15, 16-year-old, whatever it was. And Joe Davis, who was former curator of mammals there, and at that time he was scientific assistant to the director. And Joe wrote to me, he said, look, come on in. And my guidance counselor at high school gave me the day off.

And I went in and a lot of the conversation that I had with Joe was, do I go to university or to go straight into the job?

And Joe and I, and Joe had a degree, Joe and I were arguing the toss for a good two hours. I was pleased with myself being able to hold a conversation with the zoo professional for that long. And the fact that he was willing to appeared, willing to listen to me, he did end up taking me on the best behind the scenes tour I’d ever had. But it was, and neither of us could answer the question, but at the time there was no zoo biology zookeeper credential you could get at a college or a university. There is now, but it didn’t exist then. So I opted to go into the job and learn from the ground up. And I don’t think it did me any harm, but that doesn’t happen anymore. Certainly almost, you know, if I had a keeper vacancy at Highland Wildlife Park, I’d get 80, a hundred applications.

All of them had some sort of biological qualification in one way, shape, or form, which does not prepare you a jot for being a zookeeper. Let’s, let’s continue on zookeeper. You can.

Number one, can you tell us who Heine Heger was?

And two, why do you say Heine Heger is an idol of yours?

I mean, one of my great regrets in life is I never actually met the man. Heine Heger is basically the individual who defined zoo biology. The, the science of managing a zoo and managing the animals in a zoo. I’ve his, you know, his seminal text man and animal in the zoo, you know, more than once I have advised people, right, if you do have books at home and I hope you do and your house catches fire and you only have time to grab one book, man, an animal in the zoo is the book you save and run out the door.

What pains me?

I mean, Haney, I mean, he was director of Burn Basel and Zurich in that order in Switzerland, hugely influential. I read his original work, wild Animals in Captivity, I think when I was 16 or 17 I think. And Man and Animal in the Zoo not long after. And it was just, it was, I still refer to them, I still refer people to them. I believe there was a study done and I, I, I really must try and get hold of it. I think Ken Kta may probably know about the study, but it was, this guy looked at all of of header’s work and, and his reputation and the, the one sentence summary was Heger was never wrong. And I, and you know, you know, people nowadays they talk about, okay, we’re, yes, we’re training animals and we’re doing enrichment and we’re trying to feed a natural diet. And Heger was talking about this in the fifties and sixties and in the forties, you know, when, I mean I’m talking about when this work was the first English translations, I mean wild animals in captivity, I think it was 44 or 45 I think it was published.

So, so important. And again, that we talked about wheels being reinvented, you know, a lot of those wheels were initially invented by Heger.

So he is vitally important and it pains me when it was one of the questions that I always had on my, when I was doing keeper interviews, right?

You know, we get to question 12 or whatever and it was like, who was heine?

Heger? And I invariably would get a rabbit in the headlights look from the interviewee who would start to sweat profusely ’cause they had no idea. And so then I started to expand the question and it was like, okay, let’s let, maybe that’s, maybe I’m being a bit unfair. And it was like, okay, tell me who one of these three individuals were, or four individuals. And I’d go, you know, Heine, Heger, Carl Hagenbeck, bill Conway, Gerald Dole, I’d maybe get a Gerald Dole. I almost never got a Conway. Certainly in a UK scenario in America that might be different, but Hagenbeck, no, Heger, certainly not. And it’s like, you know, know your history, know the literature, you know, stuff just ’cause you know, people quote it ad nauseum, but you know, Conway’s paper on how to exhibit a bull frog, it’s, it’s crucial stuff in the same way that he digger’s man an animal is still a crucial bit of the publications that you need to absorb. And you know, and again, it’s, you know, one of the projects that myself and, and, and and Christian Schmidt have been looking to do, he did, Christian did his, his PhD under Heger and he knows the family.

So we’ve got the funding to produce, basically what we want to do is scan in man and animal in the zoo and have it online free access. ’cause I, I’ve looked at buying copies now secondhand and it’s, you know, it’s a hundred pounds, 150 pounds, you know, so, you know, 175, $180 and zookeepers still don’t make a lot of money. So having that crucial, maybe more people will become familiar with heger if we make it more readily available. Let’s go back to education. You say Azo entrepreneur degree is worthless and experience is needed.

Yeah. Can you expand upon that?

Your standard three or four year zoology degree will prepare you not a jot for working in a zoo other than maybe you know how to do a bit of research. Maybe you know, how to more el lucidly put a paper together.

Will it teach you how to look after animals in captivity?

No. Will you learn anything about the likely species you’ll be working with?

Absolutely not. So I did a, a career day here at London Zoo a couple years ago and was asked to come down and the, it was, and it was all about, okay, right, if you want to break into the, into the zoo business, you know how to go about it.

What qualifications do you need?

And I actually made a point of saying, you know, if your kid wants to go into the zoo business and they’re planning to do a zoology degree, mom, dad, don’t waste your money. That that is not the qualification they need. If they’re gonna go for a, a college qualification, you go to Oak College in the UK to do the, you know, where the zookeeper focused or zoo focused and programs or Santa Fe College in Florida to do their zookeeper course there. And at the end of it, having coffee or something. And that’s, this mother came up to me, she goes, thanks very much for clearing that one up. ’cause you know, they were about to waste what in these days would be probably in the region of about, you know, 30 to 40,000 pounds to get the kid a zoology degree to go into the zoo business that might get them a job, wouldn’t make them any better. A zookeeper. What what with education of animal keepers.

You mentioned a time factor. What do you mean This is alright to use, to use extreme examples, there are people that come into the zoo business with a qualification and they expect to do maybe three, four years as a zookeeper. And then they expect to be promoted rather rapidly within the structure of the zoo they’re working in or being hired, hired by another zoo in a more senior position. And if you’re in a senior position that when, when things go pear shaped, when things go wrong, an animal escape or someone jumps into an animal enclosure or any number of, of unforeseen events, if you’ve only been in the game a few years, you’ve not been in it long enough to see things go wrong enough times. So the longer you’re in, you see things, you’re, you’re either part of an escape team or you know, you’re, you’re playing a role in, in managing that you, you see stuff go wrong, but there’s a time factor. ’cause things don’t, they don’t go wrong that frequently. So you have to be in the business long enough to have seen those things. So the way I I generally try to explain it is ideally your, your learning curve is, is on an upward route all the time, but, and the longer you’re in the game, the shallower that, that, that curve becomes, but then an emergency comes along and your learning curve goes almost vertical. And then you deal with the emergency good, bad, or and differently.

And then your learning curve levels off again until the next emergency, and it goes up. So when you’ve seen it go wrong enough times, when something goes wrong on your watch, small child falling into a gorilla moat, for example, you will be better prepared for managing that emergency. If you’ve only been in the game a few years, you’ll have no idea what to do. And I, I use that example, the gorilla one in particular in a training that I’ve done for, for Keepers. It’s like, you know, everybody’s familiar with the story.

How would you deal with it?

You’re, you’re duty manager that day. You’ve been in the job 10 years, you’re now your weekend duty manager. The kid falls into the gorilla moat on your watch. How do you deal with it? And then, you know, and then people come up with what you, the answers you expect, and then you throw them out. All the variables that no one took into account.

Do you shoot the gorilla? Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah. Really?

Did you do your zoo history?

Because here’s two other examples where a kid fell into gorilla enclosures, the kid didn’t get harmed, the gorillas never got harmed. They dealt with it a different way. Maybe you do need to shoot the gorilla, but you got concrete all over there.

What if the ricochet kills the kid?

What if the gorilla goes down on top of the kid and you can see no one in the class?

And I’ve done this with a, with a numer, numerous zookeeper classes, part of the Spar College zookeeper course. None of them hadn’t occurred to them. They all knew the story, but they didn’t understand the variables. And it’s been in the game long enough that you’ve seen enough stuff go weird that you can think, okay.

Right. What’s the decision making process?

Also, your decision making, your ability to decide stuff in extreme circumstances accelerates because you’ve done stuff like this before. This is gonna sound warped. I love emergencies. For whatever reason or the way my brain works, I’m able to just roll straight into taking charge of the situation and making snap decisions that are sometimes life and death decisions. Be it from the animal’s perspective or indeed, indeed from a human perspective. Because I’ve seen enough stuff go wrong and some stuff horribly wrong.

You, now, this may be the same, but you talk about professionals being on a constant, somewhat learning curve. What does that mean?

Ba basically, you know, the, the one thing that I used to hate, and I used to constantly pull staff up on it, is the, the car park at Highland Wildlife Park was in the middle of the zoo, weirdly. And, and so I, I’d see keepers going from their section going to the, the cafe, the restaurant, to get something to eat back from the lunch. And they’re walking through the car park and there’s animal enclosures along one side, and they’re looking at their phone and they’re looking straight ahead and they’re not looking at the animals. And it’s like, and I, I, I don’t understand that because you’ll see weird stuff. You, you, that you’ll see new stuff all the time. The more experience you become, it’s less frequently that you see something novel or you learn something new about, about animals. But I’ve seen stuff that, that isn’t in any textbook because, you know, I’m, I’m genuinely interested and I keep my eyes open and I’m, you know, and I want to look at the animals as I’m, as I’m walking through the zoo.

And I might be going from A to B, but I want to look at, you know, I’m, I’m looking at whatever I’m walking past because one, you know, has there someone climb that safety barrier and do I see them putting themselves in danger or the animals doing something that I’ve never seen before?

Or am like, oh, right, noted that the wolverine had been m I’ll make sure the keepers are aware of that. So it’s this constant looking, this constant keeping your eyes open, this constant listening to your colleagues at whatever level.

Oh yeah, I was, I was, you know, I was working the bison the other day and, and you know, that dominant female was doing something weird, you know?

I said, oh, really? Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah. It’s, it’s that constant sponge of absorbing as much information as you can and being prepared to absorb it every day. The amounts will, will diminish in time, but it will never disappear. So it’s maintaining that open mind being, maintaining that ability to absorb information by going about your routine work, keeping your eyes open and your ears open. You say another thing you’ve mentioned, you say you don’t need a senior position to make change. Why? And how You, you don’t necessarily need a, a senior position, but to use a a slightly course term, you do need a set of brass balls. There have been times when I’ve seen bad decisions being made, and even as a keeper, generally as a, as a head of section, but certainly not necessarily in a middle management curatorial position or anything like that. And I’ve taken the management to task on something and, and, you know, potentially put my job on the line because of it.

The, the, the UK Zoo Association was threatening to create a UK keeper training course for many years. Nothing ever happened. And so myself and three other colleagues from Scotland, Graham Law, Billy Matheson and and Mike Clark, we decided, right, we’re gonna do it. You know, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll make the change. And we did it initially through the, the UK and Irish Keepers Association. And we basically embarrassed the, the British Zoo Association, the, the Federation, as it was known then now called baa. We embarrassed them into actually being part of this process. And now, you know, we ended up with this correspondence course that is used internationally on a more extreme level. When I referred to it earlier, the, when the decision was made by the great and the good, many of which would sit and make the decision in this room about closing London Zoo.

And when I heard about it, it was like not on my watch. I’d only just been promoted to collection manager here at the zoo. And basically myself and a few other key colleagues, in particular, a woman called Sarah Christie. And in partnership with a select group of the fellows of the society, members of the Zoological Society, we went up against the great and the good, and we got the decision reversed. Had we not fought it like there is no Bristol Zoo today, there would’ve been no London Zoo. We wouldn’t have been having this interview in this room. So you just need to be able to have the backbone to stand up and for what you think is right, just make sure you’re bloody right, but, you know, have the nerve to stand up for your convictions. Switching subjects.

You’ve used the farmer expression, you work with livestock, you work with dead stock, certainly.

Explain that. And second part of that is what’s your philosophy for dealing with the death of an animal in a zoo?

Oh God. This is where I come across as some out of touch older individual who doesn’t really understand modern society. You work with livestock, you work with dead stock is basically is, you’re right, is a farmer’s expression. But you know, you work with animals, they will die on you. That’s, or, or you will have them killed for whatever reason. And you know, in a farming situation, you know, you might know the names of all your milk cows, but they’re gonna come a point where they’re not producing enough milk. And the, you know, abattoirs, Laurie will come along and you’ll load your cows on there that you know by name, and they’ll go off to get slaughtered in a zoo scenario. More often than not, you’ll come in and you’ll find animals dead. Or, or more importantly, in my view, you should be part of the decision making process that aims to end that animal’s life, to avoid suffering, to ensure continued good welfare.

And I don’t understand how these days, this is gonna sound horrible, alright, we ha we have, we, we are offering counseling to the animal staff because this animal or that animal has died, or we’ve needed to make the decision to put it down because it became so debilitated. And they’re all worried about welfare, but they we’re happy to let the animal be knocking on death’s door before they make the decision.

But this idea that, oh, you know, in tears about the death of an animal and whatnot, and this sounds horribly harsh, but it’s like, are you a profession?

I mean, I’ve said this previ, are you a professional animal keeper or are you a pet keeper?

You’re either one or the other. And you should be, you should be the former.

And the this is part of it. Is it a nice part of it?

No, it’s not. But I don’t, I I’m not understanding this fall into bit, so I need to take a couple of days off or whatever. ’cause it’s, you know, this is, this is, then I think you’re in the wrong job, you know, because dealing with animal death is part of it. When I was, when I was asked to the, when I was a curator at, at Singapore, all the curators had their own departments, but then we also had overarching responsibilities. And one of mine was to review their in-house keeper training program. So I reviewed it all and removed a couple of modules, created a couple of others. The ones that I created was a module called Death. And I quickly became aware that in no zookeeper training course, anywhere in any way, shape or form had anybody taught about death.

And so the idea was to cover the, the subject in, in all its forms. You know, you come in in the morning and you find an animal dead in the enclosure.

What do you do? You know, how, how should you approach it?

You know, should you touch it? Should you bag it up?

Should you leave it? Should you call the vet?

Should you call the boss?

Whatever, if an animal is getting old or getting sick, you know, how do you, how do you be part of that, that decision making process as to whether the animal should be euthanized on, on health grounds or welfare grants. And so it was actually to get people to understand that death is part of the job and part of your responsibility to, to, to make those decisions or to, or to at least assist in making those decisions. And I started getting emails from people who are either, you know, managing keeper courses or writing material.

Doug, you know, we’ve heard about this death course, so can you provide the information?

And ’cause to my, I mean, I should have realized this, but you know, I was just really surprised that no one was talking about it. But then when I thought about it, well, you know, if zoos aren’t prepared, they’re barely able prepared to talk about, you know, euthanasia as a management tool amongst themselves, nevermind with the general public.

Should, should I be this surprised that no one has ever taught about death?

In, in, we’ve talked about training a bit, and you’ve indicated that it was very important that you felt there was a loss of practical skills.

Why do you feel there was this loss of practical skills for zookeepers?

I mean, we’ve, we’ve, you know, touched on the fact that, you know, a keeper’s ability or lack of ability to use manual restraint, you know, either with a net or, you know, even just hand grabbing, you know, certain animals, you know, I’m certainly not advocating physically restraining adult lions and tigers, but, well, a lot of smaller species. It, you know, it is a, an important skill to have. But it’s one that there’s been this, and I’ve actually approached this with and with key people within the, the zoo community who are superb trainers of animals and have, have instilled those training skills in many zoos. And I said, you, you’ve, you’ve, you’re actually creating a false idea of that animal that animals can’t deal with stress. And when we’re dealing with animals that, most of which have evolved to deal with incredibly high levels of short term stress, which being manually restrained or being caught up would fall into that category. So you, you’ve done this, and now it’s the, if someone says, right, get the net, grab that animal and you end up, now you go to a zoo, the younger staff can’t do it, or, or often won’t do it. And so it’ll be, you know, the last of the older keepers who will come along and they’ll do that activity. ’cause the, the younger staff cannot, and in some cases will not, because they have this bizarre perception that the animal will melt if we do anything that’s gonna scare it.

When an actual fact to those of us who have grown up in that climate where manual restraint, where, where in the days where you might not have trusted the vet to knock it out, because, you know, there wasn’t a lot of zoo vets around with real experience. And so sometimes grabbing the animal was in the animal’s best interests. But now it’s like, oh no, we’ll get the vet to do it to so that somehow injecting them with a load of powerful drugs is less stressful when an actual fact, from a physiological point of view, it’s even more stressful. So there’s been this whole disconnect between the, the practical skills, being able to work in with animals, being able to read behavior. Oh, well, you know, we can’t work in without, we need to shut them away. I mean, Edinburg Zoo, we were going out, one of us at a time, bringing all the baboons in, you know, to walk them in of an evening during the winter. And one of us went out in enclosure with an entire trooper of baboons. And when you went out, the dominant male was sitting on this rock that you had to walk underneath and you learn not to make eye contact.

You know, always look at them sideways. And we got them all into the routine. The idea of working in with baboons these days would probably, you know, keepers would, would, you know, fall down in fear, the idea. ’cause they, they, they’re, they don’t know how to do it. So when it does go wrong, when they find themselves in with something, when the door gets torn open or someone makes a mistake, they don’t know how to behave. They’re, they’re, they’re not willing to show that level of aggression to back the tiger off. I mean, all of my staff, I have always taught them, this is how you survive these situations. These are the skills you need.

And that dealing with a lot of animals, you know, you can look at the zoo profession and the range of species that keepers routinely work in with now compared to what we used to work in with. And it varied from zoo to zoo. I remember when I was working, starting a Dudley Zoo and running the carnivore section, and I was there a week or so, came out in my little office next to the meat room and came out and the spotted hyena enclosure was right there. And one of my keeper, Steve, was I saw hyena and then saw Steve’s in there cleaning up. And I walked up, said, Steve, hang onto your rake. Walk to the door now. Don’t run. Don’t ask any questions, just do it. And followed my instructions.

Got to the door, came out, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?

He said, you idiot, you were in there with one of the hyenas. He said, no, I wasn’t. I said, yeah, I saw it. He said, no, I was in there with all three of them at Dudley Zoo. It was routine to work in with a spot at hyenas. Now, I’m not sure, I’m not sure I trust keepers these days to working with something like spotted hyenas. But you, because of that, we had to catch one up and we had to get it in the house. And we went in and we actually pushed the hyena in. But there was a confidence, there was a, an ability to know when to push it and when to back off.

There’s a, a classic bit of video on YouTube of a keeper being attacked by a bull reindeer. And it’s an, it’s an ideal video for how not to deal with this situation. You know? And those videos are my favorite. ’cause I think they’re the most important learning tools. You know, here’s an example of how not to, and that those are the lessons that will get home in the minds of the people who you’re trying to instill. This is how you should be dealing with this. So a level of familiarity with animals, an ability to read situations because there’s now a removal that the, the, the partition between keeper and animal isn’t just the mesh anymore. Whereas both you and I were from a generation where, you know, if the animal came up to the mesh, given it scratch through the wire and whatnot, be it a tiger or a chimp or whatever, there was also days you knew that you didn’t take liberties with that chimp that day.

You just were able to read it.

If someone asked you like, why, why not today?

You might not be able to articulate it, but you’ll be able to know when’s a good day and when’s a bad day?

Just ’cause you’re working with the animals. Just that bit more up close. We, we talked a little about educational messages.

Do you have any secret, if you do, of getting people to read educational messages?

Are we talking about, are we talking about staff or the general public or general public. General public. I, I, I mean, I think as we, as we mentioned before about, you know, the, when people have come up with creative approaches, you know, be it the, you know, the, the biographical and the keeper duty labels that, that I did here, or the, the bird cartoon about bird behavior at the world of birds at the Bronx. I think it, it’s, it’s coming up with an interesting hook or something that’s going to grab their attention. There was a, there was a great image to talk about how rare amor tigers were when they, it was at a time when they used to be called Siberian tigers. And it was a, a picture, an image, and there was a we silhouette of a tiger, and each silhouette represented one tiger.

So you had one lot, right?

Here’s the wild population, and they were like colored in red. And then there was a larger subset, which was the captive population, but here was the global population. And it was for, I remember when I saw it the first time, I thought, that explains rarity in a winner.

That, that, okay, how rare are tigers?

They that rare, that really, that really describes it. So I think being able to, when dealing with the general public is to, to get a message and put it into an analogy that they can get their head round. You know, there’s, there’s 10 times more people can sit down and watch a baseball game at Yankee Stadium than actually the numbers of, of that species that exists. So I, I think it’s, it’s making the information relatable. If I was, if if I’m, if I’m trying to explain something to a general audience, that’s generally how I would do it, is put it into terms that I know they can get their head around.

Did you have mentors in the profession? Who were they?

I mean, you know, I never met the man, but, or communicated with ’em in any way, shape, or form. But I mean, heger I suppose would be a medic, a mentor, stroke, hero, stroke, you know, just someone that I would want to, at the end of the profession, I, you know, I’d want to try and make as or leave make as big an impact on the profession as he has. There was an individual, he’s no longer with us, he was actually a peer, but he was also a mentor. There was a guy called Graham Law and he worked at Glasgow Zoo, and Graham was at the cutting edge of carnivore enrichment before anybody else was. And we started working together on stuff, dealing with, we were both managing polar bears and horrible concrete pits and you know, we’d b bouncing ideas off each other. But one, one of Graham’s mantras was, and was publish Douglas, you don’t publish enough. And, and he was absolutely right. And you know, I’m as guilty of it as, as most people in the profession are that we’ve never, we may have published, but we never published enough.

And Graham was, if anything prolific, if, if Conway has a, a keeper opposite number. It was Graham because of, of, of his approach to, to managing animals and making their lives as dynamic and as interesting and demanding as possible. He did some really interesting stuff, really interesting stuff. So he, he was a mate and a mentor and a colleague and a drinking partner and a pal. You’ve had to deal with the press in your career.

Any advice for a young zoo manager?

Honesty is the best policy. If you try and obscure a fact or a disaster or a mistake, it will come back to bite you. Invariably the truth will out. So being completely honest with the press is crucial. The difficulty arises when you’re trying to talk about a complex issue. And I come back to my apologies for this, but I come back once again to something like management euthanasia. It’s a complex subject. It’s not a sound bite explanation, it’s a, it’s 20 minutes to get the point across to someone to, to really explain it.

So if you are speaking to the press and it is a complex topic that they’re, they, they want the one or two sentence response, be completely honest with ’em. Look, I’m more than happy to talk about this, but this is a complex situation, you know, you know, if you, if you were asking someone to explain nuclear physics, you’re not gonna get it in two sentences. And the, the subject that we’re talking about today, whatever that might be, it may not, it may be one of those complex issues. And so, you know, I’m happy to make the time to talk about it, but it’s not a quick response and I’m not gonna give you one because it won’t explain the subject in enough detail for you to comprehend it, nevermind, write about it and get it across to your readership. When, how do you feel about when you started your job and aspects of, of the job that you had and have had approached, they’ve changed.

What, what changed in your opinion?

The realtor?

The job became sexy when I, I remember when I started got my first zoo job at Edinburgh and, you know, I’d I’d as every young zoo person that you’d, you’d r I’d written letters off to huge numbers of zoos to try and get a job, try and get an interview, whatever. Anyway, I landed a job at Edinburgh Zoo as a keeper and I was hugely excited. And I was at the day before the Sunday, before the Monday I was gonna start work. I was at a dutiful afternoon tea with my paternal grandmother who, who was not the warmest individual on the planet. And, and I’m like, I’m buzzing ’cause I’m, I’m, I’m about to become a zookeeper for real. And, and I’m, I’m, yeah, I start tomorrow. It’s great. And she’s like, yeah, you do know that there are vacancies for prison wardens at ton prison and the uniforms almost exactly the same and the money’s more. And I’m going, no, no grand. You don’t understand.

This is what I want to do. You know?

And for, you know, from a working class Scottish background, the idea of having a choice of two jobs, and it took me a long time to, to realize this, that why would you take the job that paid less money?

’cause a job that wasn’t there to enjoy a job, was there to put food on the table and pay the rent. So, and it took me a long, it took, absolutely, it was an interview almost like this where the penny dropped and it was like, that’s what, that’s what she couldn’t get. Anyway, there was people, the majority of the keeper force at Edinburgh Zoo, they were doing a job. There was a, a wee tiny handful of us that were serious zookeepers really interested. Now certainly in a UK scenario where it seems that every major zoo has had some kind of documentary series made about them. The job has become sexy, the job has become popular. Oh, you know, you work at a zoo. I mean, I’ve been to parties where I’ve lied about what I do.

’cause if I run into someone who’s anti zoo, right, I’m, I’m just not in the mood for the argument anymore. So I’ve been a gynecologist, an architect, a plumber to avoid the, on the rare occasion, usually I do like a row to avoid the, that conversation, but, but most people know, it’s like, oh, you work at the zoo, how cool, you know, I’m never gonna be rich. But yeah, you know, it’s a cool job. So I think that’s probably the biggest change is the, the job has become something that people look at. You’re no longer just a a as the, you know, to use a course term that you’re no longer just a shit shoveler. Oh, you’re a zookeeper. Wow. You know, that’s something to be, you know, you, you’ll be asked to come in and, you know, talk to school groups and whatnot. ’cause it’s interesting, the job that’s been the biggest change is how zoos and more specifically zoo keepers ha, are now perceived in western society.

I work out in Asia. I mean, I, when I was in Singapore, I had to keeper her vacancy. I did the interviews and there was this, this, this one woman, and she had a, she was Chinese Singaporean, she had a biology degree from Cambridge University in the uk. And, and she was the best candidate. She gave a great interview and right, I’m offering her the job. A day or so later, her parents came in to see me and it was like, well, we think she’s just going through a phase and at some point she’ll get a real job.

And, you know, and it, it was almost, can you dissuade her?

Can you pick someone else?

And I said, no, she’s, you know, the, she’s made for this job. I think she’s still at Singapore Zoo now. And she’ll, and she’ll be very, she’ll be great at it. And it was like, so in Singapore as, as affluent and as westernized as Singapore is, there was still this attitude, oh, you work at the Zoo. Zoo, okay, that’s, they loved the zoo. But the idea of, of your kid, particularly from a Chinese Singaporean background, to go into a non-academic or non-office job was hugely frowned upon. You still have the case for people from say, you know, Afro-Caribbean backgrounds. That has changed for the better.

But when I was a keeper, you never saw other, other than when I went to the states and I went either out west or down south, you never saw non-Caucasian zookeepers. ’cause culturally it was still okay. That’s, that’s not like a, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a, a low cast job in India. Most of the keeper, a lot of them are illiterate, you know, and you know, and, and they’re being led by curatorial staff who may be literate, may be qualified. They’re not experienced. It, it’s hard. So when I’m working in Asia and I’m looking, okay, this is how the, the profession has changed. The, the public view of the profession has changed in the west, this is what we need to aim towards in range countries, in areas in Asia and South America where they have still have populations of what key wild animals, their zoo populations are usually the species selection or what most western zoos would give their high teeth for. But they’re just not managed as well as they might be.

And so enabling them to do that, but but also changing that whole attitude of being a zookeeper is a cool job. It’s not something to be looked down upon, even though it may not pay very well. You know, it’s, it’s a, it’s coming from an atheist. You’re doing god’s work. You know.

Do you have any suggestions for those aspiring to make a difference in the zoo world?

Again, I mean, it’s going back to understand where you’ve come from, understand your industry, be well read, be well traveled so that when it comes time to come up with a new approach, being able to think outside the box. I mean the polar bear enclosures that are built at Highland Wildlife Park, we were keeping bears behind basically deer fence and hot wire. Whereas everybody else had been keeping them behind concrete and steel and big moats and whatnot. And, you know, I’ve got mine behind eight, eight foot high wire fences, white wire fences, no problem whatsoever. Being able to think outside the box, looking at being able to take ideas from outside of the zoo game. My, my wife solved a very simple, not simple, and in some respects it’d be viewed as a minor husbandry problem. She worked in the, in the small mammal here at London and we had a, one of the smaller species of elephant shrew, and they were breed regularly, but we, we lost many of the youngsters due to hair compaction. And, and so she, I show up in one day and thought this’ll do the trick.

And she brought in a domestic kitchen strainer, handheld strainer, so find mesh and the enclosure floors, they were quite small exhibits and just a, a a little layer of sand. And so every day it was possible just to sweep up all the sand and then cve it through the handheld strainer and it caught all the hair. And by applying this tool that was never designed to be used in the zoo community, the, our infant survival rate went from 10% to 90%. So it’s, it’s, it’s having an ability to operate in the world around you and see, see stuff that, oh, that’d be a good idea that that’s applicable. So that’s the, so looking at things from a, from the, the macroscopic point of view, you can make a difference from the, you know, looking at, at, at the other end of the scale, you know, stopping a zoo from closure or whatever. It comes back to basically having the courage of your convictions and your, your ability to, to make your argument in a coherent and forceful way to get the point across and get people behind you. You have said that good welfare equals good conservation.

What do you mean?

People talk about, alright, we’re managing zoo populations for conservation reasons and you know, and it’s important to have as genetically as, as as broad a genetic base as possible. Yes, we are conserving genes, but for many species, particularly the more complex ones, we should also be conserving behavior. So it’s not just enough to be able to breed our animals. Lions and tigers would breed and rear offspring. In 19th century circus beast wagons isn’t appropriate, appropriate way to keep a big cat. No it’s not. So you want to have animals in an environment that, I mean, as, as they used to say about enrichment, the point is to enable your animals to express as weighed a range of their behavior as is possible. So if you’re creating an environment that allows for that, you’re creating animals that are in a, a very positive welfare situation, but also makes them much and they’re offspring, much better candidates, for example, for reintroduction or to go on to be, to be good breeders when they mature, you know, if they have the right social upbringing. We know, for example, with bears that bear cubs should stay with our moms for at least two years.

We’re not entirely sure exactly why, but we know that they are much more socially adept individuals when it comes to them being part of the breeding population. Once they mature, you remove bears as was routine in zoos. Bear cubs from their mum prematurely, sometimes at like six months old, they may not be good breeders or they, they may, it may take them three or four attempts before they actually succeed in rearing their own offspring. There is, in the, the zoo literature, the older zoo literature, you will often read that, oh yeah, carnivores in particular, yeah, their first litter. That’s, that’s kind of like a trial run. And they’ll, they’ll often use their lose their, their first offspring. Rubbish, absolute bullshit. The number of species that I’ve had, carnivore species across the carnivore spectrum where I’ve had individuals rear their first litter is in the majority not the minority.

And it’s because I anticipated that they were gonna give birth. I think one of the reasons why carnivores and zoos lose their first litters is the keepers aren’t prepared or they don’t expect them to be pregnant or they haven’t, there is no nest box. They haven’t put things in train to allow the animal to, to rear its offspring. The circumstances aren’t appropriate. So good welfare means ensuring that all those behaviors, that the environment is set up at a moment’s notice that they can, alright, females ready to give birth, everything is already there. The, for the animal to be socially adept, the, the social structure is appropriate for that species. You know, you’re not just managing a pair of zebras, you’re managing a herd of 15 to 20 zebras. You know that that’s what it’s supposed to be.

That when you see a pair of European bison in a zoo, and even if they breed, is it, are you really looking at European bison?

If you see a herd of, of 20 in a big safari park running across a, you know, 30, 40 acres, that’s European bison, they’re socially adept, they’re in a good welfare situation. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not stressful or anything like that. ’cause stress is all part of the equation. And you know, being able to, if you’re a young male coming up in the hair, being able to avoid your dad when he takes the hate with you, that’s all part of the learning process as well. And it isn’t necessarily a non-stressful one. So it’s, it’s a whole, the good welfare bit, there’s positive aspects for the animal that fun and there’s stuff that makes them equipped for dealing with the real world. So from a human perspective, you’re a lot more confident about your kid going out in the world if they’ve got street smarts, if they don’t and they’re walking, you know, through the Bronx with their wallet out, you know, that’s probably not very clever though. The Bronx is a very different place than when I worked there, you know.

Can you talk about the bigger conservation stories from zoos, the converters, snails, black-footed ferrets, golden Lion, tamarinds, or some others?

No, I mean I’ve touched on, I mean there’s the classic ones and which I, I actually think that if you were to grab hold of a couple of baby zookeepers and say, okay, write pop quiz, you know, tell me about the story of European bison. I don’t think they’d be able to, they might be able, in America they’d probably be able to tell you about the California condor story. I think what’s important is that particularly those classic stories, I mean, going right back to, you know, when Hornaday at the Bronx was sending bison back to the west, that that was the first zoo reintroduction.

And how many people are aware of that?

How many people tell if they’ve got American bison in their collection?

How many people tell that story?

They might talk about how well there used to be 60 million in America and now we’re, you know, the population’s increasing. There’s a few thousand. But the zoo community, specifically the Bronx Zoo, had a role to play in establishing one of the herds that exists to this day. I think these classic examples of the bison, the shaky horse, the Arabian orx, the golden line, Tamara and the newer ones of the ferret, the condor, the, the modern de, the partial snail. Now I think it’s important to, you know, talk about examples of, of species that aren’t as charismatic. I think if people are going to understand about the job that they do in zoos and as importantly get the conservation message across to their visitor base or their, the media or politicians or fundraisers, whatever it might be, is knowing those, those classic captive conservation success stories. And I think we’re, we’re in an era now where there are some new ones and I would, I would be interested to, to go out into the zoo and grab a couple of keepers and write, you know, gimme a couple of the classic examples of, of of, of zoo conservation success stories. And I think it would be interesting to see which examples they rolled out and, and knowing things like, I mean, until very recently I’ve just handed it over to colleagues at Zoo Berlin. I manage the European bison, EEP and you know, and for me it was a real buzz because here we’re dealing with a species that was the first subject of a zoo based studbook.

You know, the, the concept of studbook had, studbooks had been used for many years with domestic piece of dog racehorses, a Arabian horses, et cetera. But to have stud books for a zoo and a wild animal, you know, the bison was the first. And I mean, and I feel, I feel terrific about being a wee part of that, that history of the conservation of the, of the European bison and, and enabling reintroduction and keeping the, helping to keep the, the captive population going and healthy and whatnot. But I think it’s some those classic examples, I I’m not sure anybody’s teaching them anymore. They don’t turn up in the literature, but then a lot of the literature isn’t being looked at anymore and that’s another problem. Have you learned any lessons from animals? I, Good question, I suppose. Yeah, I do remember walking down Princess Street in Edinburgh, which is the big thoroughfare through the center of Edinburgh. And, and I was walking with my aunt and, but, and it was quite a crowded day of Saturday or something.

It was big. There was a big shopping all the one side of it was a big shopping area and walking down and I grabbed her gently by the arm and just pulled her to one side and, and there was a, a handicapped person and their parent, I assume coming towards us and I just kind of pulled my aunt out the way and she goes, oh, I didn’t even see that.

I said, yeah, I said, and she goes, how, how did you see it?

I said, well, you know, I said, working with animals, you, you’ve gotta be prepared to be able to pick up on, on incredibly subtle signals, some of which might save your life and other of others of which might give you an indication that there’s maybe a beginning of a health problem. So it’s that, that ability to observe the world around you, even in fleeting glimpses and picking up on different things that are going on around you. I think that’s probably been the, the most important lesson, lesson is to, to my observational skills have become very, very finely tuned.

Would you say that zoos have been ahead of the curve in conservation, breeding of endangered species?

What is their biggest challenge?

I think ahead of the curve in as much as what they could do, I absolutely not. No, I think there’s, there’s odd places. Jersey under Mallinson and Darl, they were ahead of the curve because they, they went after species that no one else had even considered the majority of zoos, their, their animal collection. I did a presentation at a by ASA conference and it was about your, you know, just looking at your collection from the IUC and red list perspective. And most zoos would be lucky if 15 to 20% of the tax that they had fell into a high threat category, vulnerable or worse. And, and so it was one of the things where, you know, this is how I’m approaching the issue from the highland wildlife parts perspective, and I think I got us up to like 67%, something like that. They, they, it’s back to they’re just not realizing their potential. They’re just not doing it.

And it’s the fad element of it. I mean, in this country, maybe elsewhere, CAPY bars are now the big thing, interesting animals, largest rodent cool to look at, aquatic terrestrial, but everybody is desperate to get capi butter.

And it’s like, is is that really the best use of your resources?

Is that really what you need to have to bring visitors in?

I just think it shows a very lackluster approach to developing an animal collection. Even, even from the, the point of view of, as we say over here, getting bums on seats, getting people through the gate. I think it’s a lackluster way of approaching it when they could use a lot more ingenuity. And we’re back to, you know, Paul Pierce Kelly on the talk show with a park of snail.

He sold that, When should animals be taken from the wild Why On as regular basis as possible?

And this goes completely against the grain of how most young people within the business are looking at it. And you mentioned, you know, you the, you know, if they know who Gerald Dole was, but, and you suggest cynically that oh yeah, he was an animal dealer and they’ll, you know, sit back and shock and oh no, if they know about him, they know about him because of his, you know, conservation zoo perspective. But he started out as an animal dealer and somehow they are now all the spawn of Satan when an actual, but yeah, there were bad animal dealers and scrupulous ones and there was scrupulous animal dealers as well. And there was a bunch in between. I was, you know, citing an example the other day that the king penguin population in, in Europe could desperately do with fresh blood and to go somewhere like the Falklands get permission, all the permits, but to bring back 30 or 40 king penguins, be it eggs, chicks, or even adults would make no impact on the wild population whatsoever. But it would rejuvenate the captive population. Now if you relate that to threatened species, and there are a large number that come from very small founder bases, the mish me takin population in Europe that I used to run, they all stem from two males and one female. The golden token population in Europe all stem from one pair to say that, oh, well we don’t need to bring in animals from the wild or at the very least other regions zoos is is ludicrous.

But I was in a workshop or hovering around the edge of these workshops, they had a, a keeper conference and one of them was about, you know, bringing animals in from the wild. And I’m standing there on the edge and I’m listening to all these self-righteous individuals talking about how horrible that was.

He said, how many you work with apes?

And about a third of them put their hand up.

I said, you the animals you work with, you do realize where either they or their parents or indeed their grandparents, how they came into captivity and by what means?

’cause I’ve seen stuff now. Well, you know, the gorillas that came into this zoo or that zoo. ’cause they were, they were poached from the wild. No, they weren’t. It was completely legal.

Was it an appropriate way to collect baby apes?

No, it wasn’t. But there’s this, there’s a complete lack of understanding or perspective of why the wild is still an important resource and why for many of the species that we allude to managing on conservation grounds, if the population isn’t gene on a sound genetic founder base, then we need to bring in more individuals from whatever source. And many times that will be the wild zoos have never been a drain on wild populations. Never. Some of the numbers of things like orangs that have come into captivity might seem large, that when you actually look at the pet trade or the animals that get slaughtered, you know, because of forestry concessions, it pa the zoo imports pale into insignificance. I, I it’s there have people, a lot of people in the zoo business have no idea of the actual real numbers and the, and the relation to the actual populations, be it historical or even current. So this idea of bringing in a few animals from the wild, and we get back to this, oh well it would be a stressful experience for the animals. Yes, it will be. And they’ll get over it. And, and your captive population, which you talk about all the time to anybody who will listen about the wonderful conservation work that you’re doing, that’s what supports it. That’s the basis it is built on.

So they need to get over themselves and have a sensible review of, okay, right, how are we gonna do this?

Now some zoos used to do their own expeditions. Bronx Zoo was a good one. London did it to a limited extent, but there were dealers that you could rely on. And most of the, the populations we we are managing now, it was dealers that provided the animals. So there’s a, there’s a high level of, of hypocrisy when it comes to should we get from the wild or not.

I think Do Zeus and Aquariums need to be more involved with animal welfare?

There is a, a huge movement at the moment where everything needs to be welfare assessed on a regular basis, be it daily, monthly, weekly, whatever. And there are various assessment tools have been created. It’s probably something that, that these tools that I need to become a wee bit more familiar with. But I was talking with a, a very reputable nutritionist. He’s actually a, a, a vet by trade and he does a lot of nutrition research for zoos Swiss chap. And we were both talking at a conference that was the Danish Zookeeper’s conference and we’re chatting beforehand, just the two of us.

And, and I made the comment, I said, when when did, when did Zookeepers go blind?

And he was going, what you talking about?

I said, well, you know, particularly from your point of view, it seems that for them to be able to judge whether their animal is emaciated, obese or all right, they need to have a chart that right, you know, from one to six, you know, emaciated to obese so they can compare, they need to have to weigh their animals weekly, it would appear in some cases we used to just look at our animals and go, oh, we need to cut him back a little bit. It’s, they, it’s, I’m not sure how they, they’re not able to judge by just looking.

And welfare is a bit like that you by, right?

You should know a good bit about that species behavior, you know, how they should cope, how they’re interacting with their enclosure. If you’re working with an animal every day, you should be able to make a fairly accurate welfare assessment just from your own casual observations. But now it all has to be tabulated and on a form and ideally done by someone who doesn’t work with the animal. So they’re making a an objective opinion about, you know, what’s going on with the animal. So is welfare important? Yes, of course it is.

Are the tools that are being created useful?

I would imagine they are, but I think they be, they will become a crutch and alright, you haven’t filled out the form, so therefore you don’t know of whether that, of whether that animal has good welfare or not. Well, I can, from working with the animal for the week and watching it, I think I could make a pretty accurate impression and I, I don’t understand how they seem not to have faith in their own abilities and observations.

So is welfare important?

Yes, it is, but I think it’s being skewed away from being able to interpret from experience whether an animal’s in a good place or a bad place.

Is indication zoos doing any good, particularly in boosting the image of zoos among the public in the face of anti zoo groups?

I, I think the threat of anti zoo groups has been over-inflated zoo attendance levels in places that are well run seem to be, they don’t seem to be decreasing. If anything they stay level or increasing zoos that make the, the investments in their facilities and you know, have good PR and whatnot. They seem to do very well. I’m not sure the general public, the majority of the general public pays too much attention to it. You’ll get the occasional story, the, you know, Marius, the giraffe who was euthanized at Copenhagen. That was, that was blown up as a welfare story.

It wasn’t, did it affect attendance levels at Copenhagen?

Yes, it did. They went up. It was also an example of a story that was so badly interpreted by reputable news organizations. I mean the, the, the rubbish that was spoken about what did or did not happen at Copenhagen Zoo on that day, you know, if it, if it was any other, if it, if it was a story about the economy and they skewed it as much as they did, there’d be outrage.

How important would you say reacher research in zoos is today and why?

I think, I mean, certainly for, from my own, my personal perspective, the research that I’ve always been interested in is when trying to crack the husbandry of a species that doesn’t have a captive history. So that, that from a research point of view, that would be my particular area of interest. Flying lemurs when I was at, at Singapore, a little bit of the pango and stuff, I think it’s, I think there’s stuff to be learned. I always had a list of research projects or, or more importantly, questions that I wanted answered so that when somebody rocked up from this or that university and they wanted to do a project and most of the time they’d come up with their own project, which had either been done a thousand times or was of no particular consequence. And I’d go, right here’s my list of questions. Here’s here’s the research areas that I would like looked at.

Pick one of those. So I think it can be important, but I think it’s research needs to be guided by the professionals within the zoo so that we’re getting key questions answered that we need answered that we, that we don’t know the answers to or, or we’re not clear on the repercussions, you know, pacing in polar bears, is that triggered by visitors greater numbers or is it seasonal?

Is it to do with the breeding cycle of the animals and the visitors have, have, are not connected to it whatsoever. You know, that’s something that you want someone actually collecting data on and it’s not something that a a, an employee of a zoo is necessarily capable of doing or have the ti has the time to do so. So yeah, research is important, but having that list of, of questions I think is key to making sure that the research that you have done in your zoo is stuff that you’re actually, that is gonna benefit the animals that are being looked at.

Do you have any advice for the neophyte zoo manager about the importance of marketing the zoo?

Get back to basics. The, the anti zula will always claim, or it used to be a claim anyway that, well you only produce baby animals to, to bring people in. And it’s certainly an excellent way of bringing people in. Obviously there are many more reasons for producing baby animals, not least of which are either, you know, expanding populations of threatened species or indeed catering to the welfare of the animals you’ll look after by allowing them to express as wide a range of their behavior as possible, which includes reproductive behavior. So having faith in your core product, you don’t need plastic dinosaurs, you don’t need Lego sculptures. Have faith in your animal collection and manage it properly. That’s what I would do. And don’t allow the marketing people who are invariably in zoos for a couple of years before they go and get a real job marketing for some major corporation and where they think they know what the attitude of the public is, when in actual fact they don’t, they have their own perception of what the public thinks when in actual fact you wanna know what the public thinks.

You go and ask the zookeepers that are out there that are dealing with the public’s questions and how they behave and you know, watching them watch zookeepers as well as watching your animals. You’re watching, watching visitors, what works, what doesn’t, what they’re doing, what they should, what shouldn’t they be doing. That I think will give you a better idea of what is marketable for a zoo. Have faith in your animal collection. That’s the key.

How do you feel zoos can improve their connection with kids and teenagers to heighten their zeal and awareness about the natural world?

I was, I think a lot, some of it is, is very basic and almost mechanical in as much as I was at a, I was asked to do a job at a zoo India and lovely big enclosures, substantial safety barriers and a bloody great hedge behind each safety barrier. And if you were under six years old, unless you had a pituitary problem, you wouldn’t be able to see the animals at all. So, so there’s a, there’s a design aspect, you know, can kids see in, I mean i, I go to, you know, some reptile houses or invertebrate houses and they have animal exhibits like on different levels. So there’s one here and there’s one above it, maybe another one above that. The kids might be able to see the bottom one, they can’t see the top two.

And so it’s bearing in mind, you know, can a small person see the exhibit?

And that, that’s kind of a, of a starting point. There’s a great picture from Knowsley Safari Park in the UK when they opened their tiger enclosure and one of their PR shots and it was, they had this covered sort of boardwalk area, huge big window, and the boardwalk kind of extends into the tiger enclosure and they got this picture of adult amor tiger walking past the glass and this little kid, maybe three or four years old, standing at the window. And you know, for a kid to get that proximity, to get that experience, I think stimulating little kids is easy when they become teenagers. There’s a whole bunch of other priorities in their head before they maybe fall, unless they’re zoo groupies, you know, like kinda we were when we were kids that it’ll be take a bit of time before they fall back in. So stimulating teenagers, I think that’s, that’s the hard work little kids, I don’t think that that’s so difficult that, that proximity, that wow factor.

What would you want families and their kids to feel about the zoo?

That, that they’re in a place that does good work, that is important, that has the welfare of their animals and the survival of species at the core of what they do. That they will sacrifice good viewing for good animal welfare when necessary. You know, not locking animals out on exhibit, for example. So I think it’s, I think it’s all fairly straightforward, but again, a lot of this stuff falls down to actually understanding what zoos are, where they’ve come from, how they’ve evolved. You know, if you’ve worked on the shop floor, you’ve been dealing with visitors. If you come in as the, as the CEO from some other walk of life, you may never have dealt with the general public. I mean, I think everybody on the planet should work in a bar, should work in a pub at some point in their life. If you wanna learn about people, that’s a great place to do it, you know, in, in, in all their forms and shapes and sizes.

I think under understanding animals and understanding visitors and if you understand animals, it does give you a, a, a, a, a novel perspective and understanding people.

Are there issues that you’d like to see the International Zoo Associations addressing now?

I think we’re back to topics that we’ve covered and that’s, you know, euthanasia is a management tool for the for, for population, for species survival. And the, I think what is an, an issue that hasn’t quite surfaced yet, and that’s dealing with geriatric animals and being able to make the decision to, to terminate an animal’s life before it becomes so debilitated. It was, and when I was working in Rome, it was a really hard one to get across just because of the culture. But in sort of UK zoos I worked at, you know, once you’ve had the conversations, I mean this is, you know, this is one of my golden rules of being a good curator, is that you need to have all of the hard con conversations in advance. So you know, the, the euthanasia as a management tool conversation, you need to have it over coffee and in the pub talking about hypothetical situations so that when the real situation arises, you’ve already had the discussion. People already have the mental ammunition to be able to intelligently participate in that decision making process. But you have to have the, the, the conversations, well beforehand, the mistake that almost every zoo makes is they don’t have the conversation with their staff until the actual event is upon them. And then it’s actually too late.

’cause then you’re getting into dealing with emotions over facts. Your premise is that we can maintain anything.

Why do you say this?

There’s a, a quote which I’m, I might not get exactly right, but, and I think it was in the early 1920s and, and Hornaday the, the first director of the, of the Bronx suit, he said, you know, given our experience, we will never see an adult gorilla in captivity. And nowadays, I mean, you go to, you know, Jersey or Hollet or Lincoln Park or the Bronx, and you’ll see big healthy breeding groups of gorillas. So obviously we did eventually crack that problem. Were there casualties along the way? Yes, there was. But then that is true of almost every species whose husbandry we now take for granted. There was a learning process at the beginning of that species captive history.

So to use the extreme example, could we possibly house a blue whale?

And my answer is yes. Is it a huge complex of pools? Yes.

Is that, you know, are you gonna have to have some kind of backup industry, you know, growing food for these animals?

Almost definitely. Yes. Will it cost a fortune to do?

Of course it would. Is it doable? Yes, it is. I sent some pictures recently to a friend and it was ones I, I’d come across online and, but I remember the story and it was that gray whale that they had, that they rescued at, at San Diego SeaWorld. And yeah. And they had it in captivity for a while and they eventually, you know, released it. And I think towards the end of its of its captive life. It was the largest animal that’s suburban, been kept in captivity, bigger than any, you know, adult male elephant. And then they, they released it. And I think that was an indicator of, ’cause the idea of maintaining a baling whale in captivity, most people, oh, you can’t, you, you’ve, from a purely, from a practical point of view, you can’t do it. Well they did, albeit for a limited period of time.

But it, for all intents and purposes, it was successful. So we have species today. I mean, I mentioned the flying lemurs earlier. That was one of the projects that I wanted to explore at Singapore. ’cause we had a wild population there. They, you know, their, their captive lifespan is basically as long as it takes them to starve to death. The same is true for most places that try to keep three toads slow. Anywhere that’s tried to maintain koala without feeding them eucalyptus and looking at these issues.

And people will say, oh no, you can’t keep this or you can’t keep that. And my response is, no, we just don’t know how to keep that or how to keep this. It doesn’t mean we can’t, it just means we don’t know at the moment. At the moment.

So if you could go back in time, what, if anything, would you have done differently?

Probably pissed off, fewer directors. That might have been a start. Maybe. I think I learned not to burn bridges the hard way, be more of a, a political animal than I was slightly less blunt, probably just rolling out all my character flows. I think that would be the key one as far as my experience.

You know, should I have gone to university?

Would I have get gotten promotion faster?

Maybe. But would I have been as useful a curator?

No, I wouldn’t have. So for as far as how my, had my working record progressed in all the different institutions, I think that’s what made me a useful zoo employee. Because not only have I worked with a whole range of different species, I’ve worked with the same species in a range of different circumstances. So I know, I know multiple ways how to skin particular cats.

Are there programs or exhibits that you would’ve implemented during your time in the profession that just didn’t happen?

Yeah, I mean, there was one at Highland Wildlife Park, we only in recent years started to get European cranes coming back to the uk. We’re kind of partially on the, on the Flyway for birds migrating from Scandinavia. And my, we had a, the large drive through exhibit where all the, the bison and the horses and the red deer has many marshy areas that the roofstock don’t really use, but would be ideal crane areas. And one of the things I wanted to do was actually collect up in particular opinioned, historically opinioned female European cranes, install them and then hopefully attract wild, fully winged males going overhead. Oh, there’s a potential lady friend. So they come down. And so actually, and because the female can’t fly, the nest is in the location, the chicks are reared there, but then we just allow the chicks when they become fully winged to fly off. So we’d almost be like the softest of soft releases, if you like. And because we were within historic crane habitat, it would be a way of reestablishing cranes within that area of the Scottish highlands.

But then I left the zoo and nobody carried on with the idea. In Singapore, you know, touched on the flying lemurs. We had a wild population of cool logo in the, in the zoo.

And it seemed to me that right, we’re in the ideal situation to be able to experiment with how do we keep these things in captivity?

How, how do we feed them?

Which seems to have historically been the problem. And if we started to run into a, a difficulties or a particular individual and stop feeding, we could just re-release it again within the zoo. And so, you know, that for me was the doing zoo firsts.

You would talk to young keepers today and it’s like, you know, you know what, what do you want to achieve?

Or I want to get, you know, this animal or that animal to, to train it for manual injection, which is a really cool thing.

And you know, it’s the side of training that impresses the hell outta me When I was a keeper, what did you want to achieve?

You wanted a world first breeding that that was the tick that was, that you wanted. And you know, I managed one or two over the years, either global or national first breedings. And for me that was, that was the buzz to have been able to have a crack at more of those. That would be interesting.

What would you say is your proudest accomplishment?

I think, I think there’s, I think there’s two from an impactful point of view, being part of the small group that saved London Zoo from closure and being part of the small group that got the UK National Zookeeper course started. So saving a zoological icon and zookeeper education, proper zookeeper education. I think those would, that would be the one or the other.

Are there zoos in the world that you particularly admire?

Why do you admire them and where are they?

I mean, all right. You know, I can be a little bit old school when it come. I mean, I love old urban zoos. Usually they have very large animal collections, which is obviously fascinating. They also have really interesting architecture, which is went well. I was at the, the, the Bronx Zoo last June. And yeah, and I’d worked in the buildings in the seventies and, but you know, the, the number of photographs that I took of the, of the interior and the exterior, more specifically of the Elephant House at the Bronx Zoo, absolutely gorgeous. So those zoos, Budapest is another one that has really maintained its history as well as advancing its animal collection in a, a modern context, I was, I was asked to attend a, a polar bear workshop in, at, in Berlin Tear Park, the Old East Berlin Zoo.

And I hadn’t been to Berlin for a long time. And so I, I arrived a couple of days early and I did both Zoo Berlin and Berlin Tear Park, the two Berlin Zoos over the couple of days. And it was just, it’s like zoological mecca, you know, just the, the beauty of both places, the size, extent, and interest of the, their animal collection. It’s just everything that a zoo should be in, in my opinion. Big varied, historic, current, all in the same breath. You used the words coming into the game.

What does that mean?

The game into the zoo game, the zoo profession breaking in, which has always been hard for everybody, you know, landing that first zoo job. So yeah, coming into the game is what we do.

Do we still need zoos?

Do we still need zoos? Oh God, yes. If, if anything, they are more important and primarily because of their conservation role and in general, usually their potential conservation role rather than their actual conservation role in most many cases. But yeah, more important than ever. And you, you’ve had relations with and, and know many zoo directors.

What observations have you made about today’s zoo directors?

Their style, their job responsibilities?

Many of them are transient. They come from out with the zoo community. They do a few years, one or two do good work, quite a few cause problems, and then leave and go back to the real world for want of a better term. So the ones that impress me are the ones that approach it from a, from an old school point of view. And they’ve usually, they’ve been in zoos all their lives. They’ve, they’ve evolved up through the system, they’ve evolved with the zoo industry and, and just, you know, you can spend five minutes with a, with a, a zoo CEO or zoo director that you’d never met before. And it, in that first couple minutes, you know, whether they’re worth their salt or not.

You have used the word the zoological woke is what does that mean?

It’s, it’s okay from a, from a, from an animal keeper’s perspective, it’s this desire to wrap their creatures. That they’re responsible for up in cotton wool to protect ’em from any possible distress. Not understanding how animals tick, being overly emotional when things go terribly wrong. What, what the, in the I’m, I’m, I’m not, I, I, I hope, I hope to God they still issue it. But the, there was a little green manual that was issued at London Zoo, and it was all about safety and emergency procedures. And there was a whole bit on it about animal escapes. And there was one really important line that I’ve always included. Whenever I’ve had to write an escape protocol for a zoo, I was, I was working in, and it was, don’t expect your colleagues to be polite in an emergency situation.

And you know, this is one of the things I tell you know, when, when, when it gets serious, someone may be barking instructions. It’s not a time for discussion. It’s not a time for, well, let’s have a think about this. Do as I’ve, I’ve told my staff in an emergency situation, you respond to my instructions as you would the word of God. We can argue the toss after the event, but during it, you pay attention to what I say. And, and it is that saying, you know, when I say jump, don’t even ask how high, just jump as high as you can because it’s serious after the fact. We’ll say sorry for shouting at you, but you know, it was a real situation. Potentially somebody’s life was on the line with a big dangerous thing out.

You know, we had to deal with it, we dealt with it. You all done great, brilliant. We’re going down the pub, I’m buying. But during the event, but nowadays you’ve got people who you didn’t raise your voice at them because you’ll have HR on your back because they, they they, they, they don’t accept another sweeping statement. Many of them don’t accept responsibilities for their own actions. So, you know, I’m very much of the old school of right. I need to have a word with you around the back of the barn. And I don’t mean being violent, but I mean, I don’t want to embarrass the individual who screwed up in front of all their peers, but I want them to understand clear as crystal, I’m not best pleased.

And you will never make that mistake again. Right?

Come on, I’ll make you a cup of coffee, let’s go. So dealing with problems as they come up. But nowadays you’ve got a tip toe around it and let’s have a sit down and have a wee chat and make sure you’re okay. And how do you feel about this? I don’t care. You’re there to do a job. You’re there to learn from people who you work with. Pay attention, use this less, use these more. You said you don’t like zoo bio parks.

It’s the term. It’s the term. I think it is. It is another one of these cop out names. You know, you know, we’re a, we’re a wildlife conservation center. You’re a zoo, own up. Be proud of the fact you’re a zoo. Stop trying to come up with some more politically correct sensitive term. And anyway, as far as the general public is concerned, they don’t know what the hell a bio park is anyway. They know what a zoo is. A zoo does exactly what it says on the tin.

If you’re a bio park, the general public can’t even find the 10, nevermind, read it.

What’s your approach to zoo design?

I’ve always thought we should really be putting every effort into developing a, a genetic test that will identify zoo architects at birth. So we can kill them before they actually do some real damage. But that probably won’t be possible, at least not in my lifetime. So my approach to zoo design is basically, one, learn some basic skills. So not only how to read a plan, how to alter one, how to draw a plan, be aware of materials, be willing to listen to guys from the maintenance department who will have a better understanding than I ever will about how certain materials may or may not last or react or, you know, their relative strengths or whatever you design animal facilities as if you are going to be working in them every day. So if you’ve been a zookeeper and if you’ve been a good curator, and if you’ve been a better director, you’ve been a zookeeper and chances are you’ve worked in animal facilities that were a nightmare. The classic one of, you know, zookeepers being able to push water uphill to reach the drain or as we mentioned earlier, but walking through doors that are designed for humans of half size. Designing in an intelligent way. What, what works.

I hate guillotine doors. The number of animals that have been injured by them. The times that, you know, the cable will snap at the most inconvenient point. Always have horizontal slides. You can, you can always alter a design to enable that to happen. I, I’m, I’m always interested in good zoo design and you know, the number of good ideas that I, I have stolen from zoo architects, good, bad and indifferent. Where there’ve been, there’s been an actual feature of a design of a particular animal facility about, oh, that’s quite clever, that solved that problem. And so it’s being able to cannibalize the good stuff and translate that into a useful design for a building that, you know, you’re getting down on paper before it actually gets constructed.

So you want, and, and while it’s being built, you go and visit the building site at least every day, if not every other day. Because there will be things where once it starts going up for real, it’d be like, actually you’re about to put that door in. It would actually, now that I can see it, it would actually be better if it was just two meters over to the left.

And you can do that when you’re visiting the site to agree the plans, the building goes up and then you go back on, you know, just before opening day, it’s like, where’s the window?

How does that work? You know, I can’t see the operating slide from this position. It’s stuff like that, you know, so, so being part draftsman, part architect, experienced zookeeper, that’s kind of the three elements that you need to for approaching zoo design. And keeping it simple, I’m not a big fan of hydraulic doors or electric motor doors. ’cause they will fail and guaranteed they’ll fail at the most inopportune moment.

So I, I want, I keep it simple. Low tech, Is that what you mean by the bio Functional School of design?

Not In part, yes, but not necessarily the original Howlet Gorilla Cage or Gorilla Go Rium, I think they called it, which is basically an enormous big cage with all kinds of playground style equipment in it and a big deep straw floor before people started using substrate. That’s about as far removed from a habitat, gorilla habitat display as you could possibly get. But from a bio functional approach, the, the gorillas were able to use every single surface of that enclosure because it was a big mesh cage. They could climb up, you know, up the sides across the roof the whole bit. Whereas I’ve seen gorilla exhibits that were, you know, pruned lawns with a couple of dead trees in the middle or some, you know, wooden climbing frame and that was it. And so not a very interesting environment for gorillas, whereas this completely artificial environment for gorilla was absolutely superb. And the, the, the breeding success at, at Howlet and then in the, you know, at their sisters in Portland are, you know, a testament to how that worked and why, why it was a good thing. You said that one of the best parts of the zoo is like-minded individuals and that you can see something you’ve never seen before.

Can you tell us what you meant?

I mean, as far as you know, there, there, there is, there’s always a percentage of people in the zoo business who see the job the way you do. They, they have a similar intensive interest in zoos and everything about them. It’s almost like carved into their DNA, you usually, you usually hit it off with ’em right away because it’s, you know, you’ve learned how to interpret behavior. So you, you can learn pretty much quickly usually by the questions that they ask or whatever as to, you know, whether they’re a serious zoo person or not. Whether they, they have that same intensive interest in the subject seeing stuff you’d never seen before. I remember we got two brown hyenas came in from Namibia into Hollet and, and the old, there was an old squash court at the back of the, the mansion house that we modified as a quarantine area. And so I got the boxes in place and I went to open up the, the first box and let this brown hyena come out and it came out the box and all its hair just stood on end like a giant brown porcupine. I’ve never seen this in any of the literature and it was just like, holy shit.

And then the next one did it as well. And, and I’ve since, you know, spoken to the handful of people who, some of ’em who’ve worked with Brian Hyenas and relayed this story, so yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve seen that every now and again as well. It’s really weird, you know, but I certainly not in the literature that I’m familiar with, I’ve never come across that on a more spectacular level. When I introduced two male polar bears at Highland Wildlife Park and I was told by peers, oh, this will never last, you know, that you won’t be able to keep them together. And I’d worked on the principle that as long as there’s no competition for food or a mate male polar bears, their most important need is a wrestling partner. And so putting these two boys together, we watched their behavior through the mesh. They start, you know, originally one of the resident bear was making all kinds of aggressive noises, but by day two, that had all changed this chuffing noise that bull bears make.

And we put them together and it was three hours nonstop super heavyweight wrestling championship. No blood was drawn, no damage was done. They were basically having a great time. And from that point, they were literally inseparable. And I mean, again, going back to my, my friend and mentor Graham law about publishing, I’ve been meaning to publish my paper on this is how I think polar bear should be managed, which is a very different approach to traditional polar bear housing or social management. But, you know, two male polar bears together is actually the ideal combination. They keep each other entertained.

How important do you think community support is and do you think a zoo can survive without it?

Oh no, absolutely not. If a, if a zoo does not have the support of its community, then they, the, the, they may not be doomed to failure, but they’ll have way more problems than they actually need to, to cope with the, being sensitive to the local community, having some kind of preferential entry fee system for the local people. You know, keeping them on site, keeping them informed.

A lot of zoos are really bad at letting their, the local population around them know about something that that’s happening that might, you know, be okay, right?

We’re, we’re, we’re doing this thing, we’re gonna have to have this road closed off. But if you come from this particular, you know, zip code or postcode area, you know, you can get in for, you know, half price on this day or whatever, you know, a a pretty qui pro quo approach. And just being sensitive to, to your neighbors, a good neighbor approach, I think would be a, a better way of putting it.

In your professional opinion, what’s your view regarding zoo’s, maintaining elephants and how it should be done?

Correct. I think, I mean, one of these species where space is of vital importance, but there was a, there was a paper that was published in an old issue of international Zulus. And it was the, the most important enrichment item for elephants is other elephants. So keeping them in socially appropriate herds, which is usually is a, a matriarch structure. I’ve never understood these zoos that, you know, they, the, the ma the male, the breeding male is kept in solitary at best. He might have contact with the girls through a partition fence. He’s never allowed in when they have calves. And I’ve never, I’ve never understood this ’cause you know, most bull elephants are as good as gold with, you know, their offspring and whatnot.

They’re just, they’re just not a problem. Obviously when they’re a must, you know, that’s a, a different situation. But they need space, they need other elephants. They need to be able to breed from a, a physical health point of view. Females that, you know, have not calfed by the time they’re 25 will probably never breed. And they will develop a manner of reproductive tract issues, which may well negatively impact their quality of life. Elephants can be done well, but there is a, a, a space and cost factor should they be kept in the northern hemisphere unless you have a really monstrous aircraft hangar or size of house. Maybe not.

What was the most important piece of advice you received that stayed with you throughout the years?

I’m a, I mean, you know, one that I’ve already touched on and that’s, you know, publish, publish, publish. You know, just get, you know, when you achieve something or even more importantly when you, when you screw up, when it goes wrong, publish that too. I remember standing at a retirement de in at London Zoo when not long started, and Michael Burer, who used to be in charge of education and were so both drink in hand and the retirement speeches I think had just finished. And I dunno how we got onto it, but Michael turned to me and he said, yeah, if, if, if more zoos published their mistakes, there’d be less of them. So I suppose having a willingness to talk about your screw ups and to encourage other people to, so you hopefully can learn from them and, and not repeat them. I think that’s, that was one of the more important lessons, I think.

Would you recommend Zoo Aquarium feel to a young person with sincere interest in wildlife today?

Why Not necessarily in as much as, right, what, what is your interest in wildlife?

And you know, there are, are, you know, people that I’ve met working in zoos and you ask them about, okay, right, you know, what do you see yourself in five years?

Oh, well, you know, hopefully I’ll be working in the field, you know, I, you know, in the wild. And it’s like, well then bugger off out to the wild and work out there. You know, if you’re not interested in zoos, if you’re not, if, if, if they are not your focus of making them the best types, the best organization that they can possibly be, then away and do something else. So having an interest in wildlife is important, but as important there should running parallel with it should be this genuine interest in zoos and this, this, this fascination by how zoo, wanting to know how zoos work and how you can make them better. So, you know, as certainly in a, a western scenario, you know, most people will hopefully have been exposed to zoos in one way, shape, or form. And, you know, if that interest is going to take, it will happen very early on.

Do you think that the safari park model is viable for zoo in the future?

That’s, that’s a really interesting one. In as much as when safari parks were first established and the, the UK was kind of the one, one of the original centers of the whole idea, primarily through via the Chipperfield Circus family. Even the, the Auntie Z lot said, okay, this is the way forward. All these, these huge big spaces, which just kind of showed their ignorance ’cause they never really looked at the model that was created early on. And usually if you went there on a sunny day, big open spaces for the animals. But then if you looked at how they were kept in winter, it was very much substandard. It was also, you know, there was a real formula into, you know, what species you saw. And it was all fairly straightforward stuff I’d avoid, I stopped going to safari parks and I was on holiday with my wife and we were going to a wedding party down in the west country in the southwest of England.

And we were driving past, or we’d saw the signs for West Midland Safari Park and it was a lovely day. We were, we had plenty of time on our hands.

I thought, tell you what, shall we go and have a look?

So rocked up at the gate, explained who I was, they were brilliant. Oh, right, yeah, of course. Come on in, free of charge, on you go. And came in, and to my surprise, I saw, I, I saw a number of standard safari park species, you know, plain zebra, you know, giraffe, white rhino. But I saw a bunch of other species that were not standard safari park animals. Philippine spotted deer, African wild dogs to use their current name greater one horned Asian rhino. They were not safari park species. And it was a real bit of a minor eureka moment for me in that this is how safari parks are supposed to work.

This, this is the, the, the change in species emphasis that there should be. So having managed, albeit a non-African a a northern hemisphere cold weather climate Safari Park and the Highland Wildlife Park, it was, you know, looking at, okay, this you can do, you don’t need to follow this model. You can do some really quite interesting things. You can make a, a conservation impact. So I think when managed properly, when the, the collection plan is appropriate, I think they are not so much the way forward, if you like, but they certainly have an important role to play. But rather than safari parks, I think it’s more like these, you know, these large acreage facilities. I mean, in America you have the, the C two s two group and you know, it is these, these large acreage facilities that can do stuff that the urban zoos cannot do. ’cause with very few exceptions, they just don’t have the space.

They can’t manage the size of herds that you can in somewhere like the Wilds or San Diego Safari Park, whatever it’s called these days that you know, that a an urban zoo cannot. But an urban zoo can also do stuff that a large acreage park is usually not terribly adept at like a good reptile house or an invertebrate collection or a small mammal collection. Yeah.

Are you concerned about the zoos and aquarium staying viable and pertinent in the next 25 years?

What direction do you think will help ’em stay relevant?

I mean, we’re, I, I mean, I think they will, as I’ve said, you know, they will become even more and more important and if they really, if they start to really buy into their, the conservation role that they can play, you know, both in what they do on their site and what they support outside of their site, I think that they will, they will become potentially the most important supporter of conservation, both from a, a practical point of view and a financial point of view. I, I, I’ve, I’ve kind of developed this idea about how I th I think zoos should approach their external conservation support and that you, what you do is you, you have a lot of zoos that, and particularly medium sized smaller ones where, you know, they’ll donate, okay, you know, $5,000 to save the rhino this year, and we’ll identify another project next year. And that’s basically their contribution to, but it all dodges about, and from getting to know people who are working on conservation projects within range countries, they spend so much of their time and effort raising the next tranche of money. So if every zoo, and if they’re smaller zoos, maybe it’s a, a consortium of three or four of them, they focus their intention on a part of the world. And ideally what you want is a, a, a protected area that maybe needs more support or an area that maybe isn’t gazed yet, but should be. And ideally coupled with a, a regional zoo or rescue center or something of a captive facility of, of, of some description. But you go at it for the long term, you have a member of staff out there permanently that, that individual may rotate, but you have someone out there permanently. You build those relationships with the local population, with the local politicians, you know, you get to know how the country works.

So you, you, you own an inverted commas that little bit of the wild world, that’s what you, you focus on. And we talk about establishing, you know, breeding programs for this species or that species in, in western zoos in Europe or in North America or Australasia. It’s a lot cheaper and easier to do it within the range countries. There’s also, there’s usually a lot less of a permit process to go through, or a quarantine hurdles to get by or a marine mammal act to try and circumvent. You’re, you’re establishing your program in country, at least in the first instance, if there are other zoos in that country, you also have a, a, a, a permanent professional presence. So you might be able to start to positively impact on the other zoos within that geopolitical region. So going at conservation for the long term and, and some of the big zoos have done that sometimes in multiple locations. I think ZSL still has a, they still have a presence in southern Nepal.

There are Bronx in Amba, I believe. So there, there are these examples where the zoo or the zoological society has developed a long-term presence and relationship, and I think more and more zoos need to do this.

What are your thoughts about private zoos owned by people of means?

Will they survive the length of time municipal zoos have?

I think, I think the probable answer is in the grand scheme of things, maybe not the number of occasions where the, the children of the founder no longer have an interest in maintaining the collection. Has it, you know, if it’s maybe developed into some form of a trust, but you know, even then we’ve seen that get sidelined. I think it’s, it’s, it’s a’s crap shoot, whichever way you look at it. Be it a private institution or an established zoological society. You know, we, we lost Bristol Zoo in this country who would’ve predicted that, what was it, fifth oldest zoo in the world, I think. And now it no longer exists, or certainly not as a zoo, it’s gonna be developed as housing. It’s culturally, it’s a shame. I think it’s negatively impacted on conservation and the conservation role that the Bristol and west of England zoological society can play.

Hopefully their country site that they’re focusing on will be able to take up the slack. But every, everything is temporary. You know, sometimes it might last 200 years, sometimes it might last 30. You just take advantage of whatever resources you have at the time.

Why do you say that you could not do another type of job?

This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. I mean, since I was the, as as far back as I can remember before I even went to primary school zoos, what held a, a unique fascination for me. What, what one thing that, that was really cool is that a wee bit of a tangent. When we were, we we’re building up to producing the, the first polar bear cub in the UK in 25 years at Island Wildlife Park, there was a lot of media interest films being made and documentaries being put together. And I was sitting in a environment not dissimilar to this, and they were asking me about polar bears in my history with polar bears. And again, it was, you know, to go with the, the Peter Ov quote about, you know, loving talk, loving interviews because it’s the first time you often you learn what you thought about something.

And it was like, you know, so what’s your history with polar bears?

And the it penny dropped, the first polar bears I ever saw was a kid, as a kid, as a would’ve been, well from memory, a 4-year-old were the first polar bears I worked with as a zookeeper, obviously quite a long lived species. And so yeah, Jim and Queenie, who were actually both female, they, it was like that, that link with my, my childhood and I mean, it took me best part of 30 odd years for that realization came to the forefront of my brain. But now I just, I could not envisage working in any other field at all. It’s, this is, this is what I do. I’ve been, I was in a, doing a zoo inspection with my, my former boss, Simon Tong, when we were both here at London and we inspecting a zoo on the isle of white and we’re sitting outside after it was a lovely summer day, having lunch, that picnic table. And the owner was asking us about our backgrounds. And the difference between Simon and me was that Simon would go to great lengths to see something in the wild for me. I’d much rather go to a zoo that I’d never been to before.

To what extent do you continue to be active in the, the zoo?

The zoo field?

I mean, since November, 2018 when I left the Highland Wildlife Park made the rather dubious move into zoo consultancy, I’d been advised that, you know, this wouldn’t be, that this is something that I could excel at. Other people obviously had more faith in myself than I did, but circumstances dictated that this was a good thing to do. And it’s, it’s been one, it’s been hugely successful. It keeps me wildly entertained doing jobs in zoos. I’ve, I’ve never visited, I get a lot of polar bear work, a lot of people asking me about designing or expanding or modifying their polar bear facilities, I don’t advertise, which is interesting in itself. It all seems to be word of mouth. So I helped a lot of zoos and a lot of zoo people on the way. If anybody asked advice when I was working for whatever zoo, I always seen it as, well, it’s in the job description, you’re supposed to help each other.

I remember sitting with a, with a group of very high-end marketing execs from here in London, a friend of mine who was in that community. And I think I got invited out for entertainment value. And so, you know, we’re at some restaurant that I couldn’t conceivably have afforded to eat at. And, and I, I mentioned about when you, you know, you go to, you visit a zoo and you see one of your ideas duplicated and it’s like, you know, feather in your cap, you know, this is, this is really cool, you know, and if they’ve improved on your idea even better. And they’re look and they’re all looking at me like, but they stole your idea.

You know, don’t you get the lawyers involved?

And it’s, I said, no, that’s not how the zoo community works. So I’ve always, you know, if I got an email from someone or a call from someone, we’re building a tiger enclosure. We’re not really sure how the fence should be. What do you think, Doug? And you know, I’ve, and I’ve always been very forthcoming and maybe that because of my willingness to share information, I’ve never been one of these ones where I’m, you know, I’m holding some information back and taking it to my deathbed. You know, I’ve never been of that ilk that when I did go self-employed, well, you know, I think there’s maybe a part of it. Well, Doug helped us out over the years. Let’s give Doug a call and this time we’re gonna pay him, you know, so, so yeah, doing zoo consultancy all over the place from, you know, China to West Loath in Scotland.

You Following up on that, about this profession, what do you know about this profession that you obviously devoted so many of your, so many years of your life here?

What do I know about it?

Yeah, I know that as frustrating as it can often be, we, if we are in the, in in the game, we are fully paid up members of the or, or should I say, we are not fully paid up members of the, thank God it’s Friday Club, we all look forward to our weekends off and whatnot. No argument there. But you’re not dreading going back to work. You know, you might have had a heavy night the night before and you’re dragging your ass in to work, but you know, it, it’s not, it’s not just okay, the weekly toil and you know, god, you know, hoping for the next, wishing your life away, waiting for the, hoping for the next weekend off. We’re in a job that, that are huge pluses, often minuses as well. But what you hope is the pluses outweigh the, the minuses when you get a result. You know, as I said, you know, breeding something for the first time or you know, pulling an animal back from the brink that goes on to breed, you know, very few people on the planet get that kind of buzz. So I think as poorly paid as, as many of us are, we are incredibly lucky to be within the community that we, we work within. It’s international in scope. It’s a big family.

We, if you, if you’re doing the job properly, you have an international network, you’ve got mates all over the world. I mean, you and I haven’t seen each other for God knows how long. I think it might have been the conference at Painting Zoo, I think it was the last time. That was a long time ago. But when we met this morning, we just took up from where we left off. And I think that that’s it. It’s the, this, this weird, occasionally dysfunctional family that we find ourselves within, but working in jobs that are absolutely fascinating and hopefully sources for positive change in our planet.

How’s it like to be remembered? Your legacy?

In my wildest dreams be be being in Rem remembered in the same breath as Hegar. That’d be quite nice. Don’t think that’s gonna happen though. Being remembered as someone who, who made a difference, achieving some things. Maybe a couple of big things that affecting, you know, doing my bit to create at least some of the next generation of, of zoo managers, of, of curators that have a similar approach and understanding to the job as I do. There’s one of, one or two of them floating around having, yeah, just basically having, having made a mark on the community I suppose. But you know, like I say, it’s the ultimate would be being remembered in the same, same breath as Heger, which is a wee bit bigheaded. There you go.

Thank you. You’re welcome. I.