Blog: Disability and the Zoo Industry, are they compatible?

EJ Piner on their experiences and how necessary it is for zoos to listen to disabled people:

Last Wednesday I wore a black gown and hat and completed four years of hard work on my Zoo Science foundation degree, yet it still feels like it isn’t enough. I was the kid that dreamed of being a zookeeper and never outgrew that dream. From a young age I was told how competitive the industry is, how I will have to outcompete hundreds of other dedicated and passionate applicants to get in the industry. Despite that I focused up, flung myself headfirst into academia, after school activities and volunteering to make my CV as desirable as possible. In April of 2017 my life changed. I developed shingles which turned into chronic fatigue syndrome and I became bedbound.

In 2020 my life changed again when the global COVID pandemic began and suddenly the world opened up, prior my life existed only in my room and my house. Remote learning and more importantly the sudden application of remote learning and access in institutions meant that for the first time in 3 years I wasn’t denied access at the doorstep. In a fact that will baffle many employability coach, I began university intending to drop out after the first term. I asked as a reasonable adjustment to do my studies part time and that was declined by the university, so I intended to do one month of the passion I have always craved before crashing out. And, boy, I crashed out. And yet suddenly the university decided I could do the course part time.

I think that is one of the biggest difficulties of being disabled- just how much you have to fight to get in the door. Without COVID forcing companies to go remote, a move disabled advocates have been asking for for decades, I would not have a degree. Yet, when I look at employment in 2024 I am faced with the same conundrum. There are disabled people who can do excellent work. There are disabled people who have the ability to work. The issue is jobs and institutions not allowing disabled people to work in the way they can.

I am aware that it is likely, despite my accolades, that to get a job in my trained industry I will have to persuade people to my worth. That in order to get in the door I will have to provide extraordinary output. That at every turn I will have to prove myself to people who don’t believe they can trust my own judgement. Simply because I have physical limitations, I am in a wheelchair and because of their assumptions of what disability means for me. This never-ending onslaught of barriers is ingrained in every part of disabled existence, as of now I was unable to book a zoo experience due to the zoo having to run it by five separate people to report back to me and say I would need a carer to come in with me. It is not my disability that disables me. It is the environmental conditions and people’s assumptions of what I can and can’t do despite me telling them.

If the animal industry wants to be accessible, they need to employ a wide range of disabled people and listen to them. They can pay for disability audits (pay a disabled run company to assess and measure accessibility and suggest changes), they can take the pressure off individual disabled employees and instead pay for the knowledge they ask of individuals. Most importantly they can be honest. I cannot count the number of times I have been told the place is accessible only to find it isn’t. Providing full and thorough accessibility knowledge on websites and apps as well as job applications goes a long way and can save a lot of time and effort for disabled people. There is a whole lot more that the animal industry can be doing to support disabled visitors and employees.

I am disabled, I have one disabled experience. There are millions of disabled people all with different experiences, needs, requirements and intersections. Gathering a wide and diverse range of disabled voices is paramount to becoming accessible. Then most important applying the changes that disabled people require. The only way to be accessible is to listen to disabled people and adapt.

- by EJ Piner (they/them) Graduate

All blogs reflect the views of their author and are not necessarily a reflection of BIAZA's positions