by Benjamin Mee
But by now it didn’t matter. I was used to opposition. It was the natural state. Robin turned out to have, among other things, draftsmanship skills, which have so far saved us thousands of pounds, as well as a knowledge of the park and certain animals within it, which is irreplaceable. He is now comfortably employed in a site of his own choosing, a loft adjacent to the maintenance room called Robin’s Nest, where he fabricates small items like signs and cages for small animals, draws up architectural standard plans for new enclosures, and answers several otherwise unanswerable queries a day through the two-way radio system. He seems happy. And we are happy with him.
This sort of holding on to the past while acknowledging the future is the balancing act we must play. Our little ecosystem is now part of a global network of conservation facilities and programs, and it is up to us in the longer term how much of a part we play in it. Starting almost from scratch as we have done, with an amateur-enthusiast eye, we are in a good position to innovate. And on the ground, the rewards of sharing this environment with tens of thousands of people a year are uplifting.
Many of my friends from London are unrepentant urbanites, buying designer woollies to visit and only putting them on again to go to a WOMAD or Glastonbury festival. But all are uplifted by their visit in a way that transcends simple excitement at seeing such a big project moving forward. It’s the animals and the trees that reach into a part of them that cannot be stimulated in Soho.
Woody Allen said, “Nature and I are two.” Funny, but wrong. A surprising amount of this archetypal urbanite’s dialogue is delivered in walks through Central Park, which has, unconsciously or not, been designed to simulate our evolutionary species-typical environment. I felt, and continue to feel, a missionary zeal about exposing as much of the population as is feasible to this experience.
7
The Animals Are Taking Over the Zoo
When an angry lion roars at you from less than a foot away, it is impossible to remain impassive. Late one night I was making notes and sketches for the new jaguar house—which is situated near the lion enclosure—nonchalantly sitting against a post and working by flashlight. After twenty minutes I’d finished, and stood up to find all three lions—two females and a magnificent maned male called Solomon—right up against the fence next to where I’d been sitting. The fact that three such large and dangerous animals can get so close without your noticing is impressive but chilling. Watching their intent faces so close to mine I realized that Solomon was about to roar at me, something I’d witnessed from afar, and the impact of which I’d seen on other people (usually total involuntary full-body spasming and retreat) but never experienced directly. Okay, I thought, I know he’s going to roar, but there is a lion-proof fence in between me and him. I’ll hold my ground, stay calm, and stare him down by the light of my head-lamp. My plan worked well for the next few seconds of eye-balling, until suddenly he roared and lunged at the wire, and I instantly leaped backward three feet into darkness and unseen brambles. It’s impossible to remain impassive in the face of a charging lion. There’s something in your primitive midbrain that tells you it’s just not right to be that close to something that can eat you, and the amount of adrenaline dumped into your system at such times is truly primeval.
As a new zoo director I am privileged to be exposed to such experiences fairly regularly. This also helps explain why zoos, with their captive breeding programs, mandatory conservation measures, and outreach educational programs, have such a vital part to play in the promotion of biodiversity in the twenty-first century. David Attenborough (may his name be praised) can educate and promote on a bigger canvas, but even he cannot replicate that visceral, direct experience of physical proximity to these magnificent creatures.
I’m not saying that all visitors will get roared at—though a few might, if Solomon is showing off (stumbling on the path in his line of sight sometimes triggers him). But having now shown many people around, from surveyors, lawyers, and bankers to friends and neighbors, the euphoria engendered convinces me that the direct viewing of exotic endangered animals is one of the best motivators for future involvement in conservation.
As I am discovering, there are many complicated arguments for and against zoos, from those extremists who think that all captive animals should either be released back into the wild or killed, to those who see no harm in any kind of containment for entertainment. The conservation argument to me seems unassailable, with a long history of important species saved from extinction by zoos over the years (the South African white rhino, the Mauritius kestrel, the golden lion tamarin, the Père David’s deer, the condor; the list is long, though shorter than it should be).
But high standards in zoos are needed, which is where conservationists should concentrate their efforts, ensuring that each animal is held for a good reason, as close to its species-typical conditions as possible, and that its educational potential is maximized. Then if you’re lucky, you can feel that moment of sheer physical terror in a safe environment, which can’t be synthesized. Toilet facilities are available nearby should they be required.
I had had a dream. Dartmoor Zoological Park was going to be a massive, thriving success, with the potential to become world class, and contribute in some small but tangible way to the effort to reverse, or slow down, or at least in some way mitigate, humankind’s inexorable, self-destructive onslaught against our planet. There was now enormous reason for hope—for the park at least. We had money in the bank, a definite plan, and all that stood between us and achieving it was a lot of hard work. Which is a happy position to be in. Throwing yourself into worthwhile, fruitful hard work that you believe in, as much as you can handle and more, is a kind of luxury not everyone gets to experience. It is also exhausting.
My days were incredibly varied. They always started with getting the children ready for school between 8 and 9 AM, which often saw me in pajamas and dressing gown also having a quick simultaneous kitchen meeting with Tourette Tony (always on his best behavior in front of the children), or Steve, Adam, or a combination of the above, while brushing hair (not my own) and dishing out shredded wheat and orange juice.
A scrawled note from that time reads:
Reallocate office space to Robin, Rob, Sarah and Steve. Clear own desk and set up computer. Speak to Katy, education officer working as keeper until facilities arrive to reassure. Let down by absentee, re-organize rota to cover. Council representative arrives for preliminary health and safety audit. Pull necessary people off jobs to accompany, spend two and a half hours on [more than mildly irritating and demoralizing] walk around. Conduct three media interviews, ambivalent, relying on extremist animal rights activists’ views for “balance.” Research and then fax absolutely final, last piece of paper to lawyers regarding company setup. Speak to BT again about delay in providing more lines. Resend request to two-way radio company for new frequencies. Fetch children, get them changed, pass to grandma. Resolve argument about new stand-off barriers for tapir. Help install fence posts. Listen to keeper concerns at end of shift. Chop wood for fire. Do school admin and homework. Eat. Answer phones. Kids to bed. Answer more phones. Bed.
Some days were more exciting, some less. But it was always nice to get a call from an urban friend when I’d just done something decidedly unusual. A phone call from someone in magazines once went like this: “What are you up to?” “Well, we’ve just darted the jaguar and he’s gone down okay, so I’m about to go into his enclosure and stretcher him out.” Short pause. “So your day’s turning out much the same as mine then.”
Whenever possible I took the opportunity to go inside the enclosures, to see what it’s like from the other side of the wire and wonder what can be improved. One of the first enclosures I worked in that spring was the lion den. My mission: to deliver a collection of gruesome severed heads while perched on the end of a branch fifteen feet off the ground. The heads, from farmers culling young bullocks, are regularly hung from the trees, or wedged into branches to give the lions a pu
zzle to solve to get a treat: crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle. The lion enclosure is a disturbing place to be: one keeper error or lock malfunction could release three hungry cats expecting food and finding us as a live bonus. And I knew the lions would not mess about. At Christmas we had made a full-size cardboard zebra for them, filled it with bits of meat and left it in the enclosure. Four seconds after they were let out, one of the lionesses was onto its back, dragging it down, while the other closed in from the front. Captive bred, but instincts undiminished.
While Kelly and Hannah cleared out the old bones and uneaten bits of skin from the lions’ last meal, I looked around trying to find imaginative places that would challenge the lions and give them something to think about. The girls, being busy—and being girls—didn’t have quite the same enthusiasm for climbing trees as I did, so I set about showing off a bit and placing the heads a bit higher than they usually had time for. I shinned up a suitable tree, and edged out along a branch about fifteen feet off the ground. One of the lionesses had apparently taken a heron in flight at a similar height, so I knew it was possible for them to reach this branch. When I was in a good position by a solid fork, I called down to Kelly, who stretched up as I stretched down to receive my first head. This really was my first-ever head. Kelly handled them nonchalantly, as tools of her trade, and I knew I mustn’t appear squeamish or I’d never live it down. She held it by the neck, its glazed eyes askew and its slippery purple tongue uppermost. I could only just reach it but I didn’t want to grip the tongue in case it slipped (not through squeamishness, you understand), so I asked her to pass it ear first. I just managed to reach the blood-soaked ear, like wet leather, hauled the head up onto my perch, and wedged it in the crook of the fork. Jumping down I sited several more heads, one from a rope, which involved piercing the ear with a knife to thread it through, then helped gather the last remnants of scraps into the barrow.
Looked upon by my wide-eyed children, I’d braved the lions’ den and managed to hide my fear. But the best bit was that it took the lioness three days to get that head down. Through-out that time, she never relaxed or stopped thinking about it. She paced underneath the tree, climbed up it a bit and then jumped down, and prowled around irritably, trying to solve the problem. This was real enrichment, giving her the sort of tricky issue she might have to solve in the wild—stumbling on a leopard’s kill stored up a tree, for instance. Whenever I went up to the enclosure, she was there, fretting about it. How she got it down in the end I don’t know, but I bet that bullock head was one of the best she’d ever tasted.
Despite these intense distractions, I was frequently snapped back into vivid memories of Katherine, often from the most unlikely or mundane sources. During a meeting in the house I popped into the downstairs toilet, and realized that this was the first time I’d visited this room since I used to prop Katherine up in there, its wobbly unsecured base an extra hazard for someone who couldn’t keep her balance unaided. It hit me like a train, but I had to leave that room and go straight back into the meeting looking like I was concentrating and on top of things.
Other triggers from the mundane world included things like opening a cupboard and finding a half-full box of her favorite herbal tea. A trip to Tesco was also fraught with peril. After walking past the wheelchairs that she had so enjoyed being spun around in, there was aisle upon aisle of reminders from our years together, when I used to hunt her out a treat while doing the shopping. Côte d’Or chocolate; chocolate truffles; sushi; navel oranges; magazines like Elle, Vogue, Red, or the one she had begun writing for, Eve; the makeup aisle, easily avoided now but once a surefire way to brownie points via the latest wonder cure antiwrinkle cream; Bombay mix; cashew nuts; herbal teas—the list was endless. And it didn’t stop in the supermarket. Being in any part of London; black cabs; Converse All Stars, Jimmy Choos, Prada shoes and bags, coveted and unaffordable; people wearing old Birkenstock sandals; costume jewelry shops where she could pick out a gem and make it look like the real thing; Muji; John Lewis; kitchen and bathroom showrooms; tile showrooms; drapers’ shops stacked with bolts of shot silk; haberdashers; Apple Macs; yoga mats; Ian McEwan novels; flower stalls; health-food shops; passports; any sad music; good graphic design; stationery shops; book-making suppliers; speaking French; seeing the children, our bed, and the chair where she died.
Against this backdrop, very little out in the zoo itself reminded me of Katherine, because she was hardly there. The new information signs going up about the animals, though informative and capably drawn up by our education officer, were a mish mash by Katherine’s standards, and a vivid illustration of her absence. But I didn’t know what to do to put it right, and each time I contemplated tackling it left me feeling like I was running across the Sahara in lead shoes with a plastic bag over my head. But putting heads in trees, driving the dumper truck, breaking up concrete with a road drill, dealing with keepers’ needs and seeing sales reps had no such connotations, and I knew I was lucky to be able to lose myself in these nonassociative tasks.
Having the camera crew around also helped a lot. Getting them on board, in the early days of negotiations for the park, had been the final persuader for me, because this was one of the few other things I knew a bit about and could see the enormous benefit of. Careful readers will have noticed that there were several final persuaders for me: the Nick Lindsay/ZSL endorsement of the park; talking to the thirty or so other big attractions in Devon who raved about the site and offered their support; Tesco persuading me that we were within the reaches of civilization—all were mini-tipping points in the final cascade. But this development, I could see as a journalist, was not just a chance to air a great story about animals, but, cynically, it was also going to have a positive impact on the business plan.
Frustratingly, though a huge coup for us, none of the early potential lenders even registered it. The backroom boys barely looked up from their calculators: after all, there was no tangible money coming in as a result, no change in front of them to our wonky bottom line. It needed a tiny leap of imagination to comprehend it, and leaps of imagination were not how they got to be backroom boys. The TV series was one of those things that were dependent on us getting the park in the first place, so no benefit would be felt unless we had already succeeded. Therefore, by their strange but immutable logic, there was no benefit.
I put all this to one side and concentrated on the positive, and suddenly here we were, in the middle of myriad (resolvable) crises, a great breaking story, all being filmed for BBC2. The crew, from Tigress Productions, natural-history specialists I had worked with before, were inspiring. One camera operator/director, Aidan, who had shadowed Mum and me since before the purchase, had just returned from seven months in the jungles of Cameroon, filming gorillas orphaned by the bushmeat trade, and was quite unfazed by anything about our predicament. Max, a charismatic, clear-blue-eyed reprobate, had a host of natural-history filming experiences and countless stories to go with them.
Another tremendously knowledgeable person at Tigress Productions was Jeremy Bradshaw, M.D., whom I had worked with briefly in the past. When I’d lived in France, I’d once spent a few days making a pilot with Tigress, and during my one ten-minute meeting with Jeremy, had thrust my book of DIY columns from the Guardian at him, with a short pitch about how it would make a wonderful series. He had taken the book politely, and even read it, and every few months we exchanged e-mails about ideas of how to develop it—basically, whenever I was desperate or disheartened by some obstacle to my work. To a freelancer pitching is routine, as is having the pitch rejected or simply being completely ignored. But Jeremy was impeccably courteous, and would always return an e-mail after three weeks or so. For someone in his position to someone in mine, this was outright encouragement, even though they were almost always one-liners saying he was very sorry but he hadn’t managed to think of an angle yet, and if I ever had any other ideas to let him know. A reply of any kind other than an outright negative is gold dust to a freelanc
er, and this tenuous direct line to Jeremy had felt like an enormous asset—though I’d known it could evaporate fairly quickly if I failed to come up with anything of interest over the next couple of years.
But I had been happy writing my book and doing my columns, until the zoo came up. I happened to mention this development to Jeremy in an e-mail fairly early on in the negotiations, and was amazed by his response. He came back the same day with an effusive reply about how he had heard of this zoo (he is a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London and had read about it, whereas I’d just received the real-estate agent’s details from my sister), wished me luck, said it was an enviable way to spend one’s life, and urged me to keep him informed.