Blog: They’re all champions!

Rounding off our series of Animal Champions blogs for Love Your Zoo week, Laura Botelho, Golders Hill Park Zoo Manager, on making wildlife accessible to hundreds of thousands:

Golders Hill Park Zoo (GHPZ) is managed by the City of London Corporation and is home to a mix of native and exotic species, and from our Chickens to our Red-necked Wallabies each and every animal in our collection is a champion.

At a time when the cost of living is so high and people are having to cut back on days out, GHPZ is uniquely placed as the only free zoo in London to offer an opportunity for everyone to experience these wonderful creatures up close 365 days a year.

We are met daily by visitors who tell us that they have been visiting the Zoo for years and are now bringing their children, or even grandchildren, with them to share the same experience that they had as a child. I myself used to visit GHPZ as a child and I remember thinking how great it was! And now I am manager of this great small collection, striving to continue to inspire the next generation.

When people find out I’m a zookeeper they always want to know what my favourite animal is and although we’re not supposed to have favourites, let’s face it, we do. For me the arrival of our Scottish Wildcats, Fearn and Ruthven was very special, and it has been great working with and caring for them. For us they came at a pivotal time, and after a time of uncertainty their arrival gave us a big push toward realising our vision to represent Wildlife in Britain. Whilst we still have a way to go in the project welcoming the Scottish Wildcats was a massive step in the right direction and their arrival made the local papers. They have even formed part of our new brand identity and it has given us the opportunity to showcase this endangered species, raising awareness of the threats they’re facing and highlighting all the great work that the Zoo community are doing to conserve them. We have had so many comments from visitors telling us they had no idea they were so endangered or others that have never even heard of them. We are lucky that both Fearn and Ruthven seem to enjoy the limelight and are quite often out for visitors to see.

Our mission is to ‘inspire engagement with our living world’ and we aim to inspire a love of wildlife in our visitors, and our animals help us do that. For some of our visitors this will be their first exposure to zoo animals and for others it may be their only exposure to animals of this kind. Some people find us by accident and others visit us daily. No matter how often they visit, we hope that the sight of the Ring-tailed Lemurs sun-bathing on a hot sunny day, or the Scottish Wildcats sniffing out their food, or the unique sound of the laughing Kookaburras calling, will make people stop for a minute, appreciate the wonder of these creatures and learn something new. Seeing these animals exhibit their natural behaviours can spark a level of curiosity that makes people want to know more about a species, whether it’s the conservation efforts of the Scottish Wildcats or the natural history of Deer species found in the UK or even why chickens bathe in the dirt.  

GHPZ is nearing it’s 120th anniversary and in those years we have made wildlife accessible to hundreds of thousands of visitors. If we can inspire just some of the people that visit us, to care about wildlife and its conservation and to learn more then we are achieving our mission. And potentially that visiting child, stood in awe, looking at our animals may be inspired to go on and do great things in wildlife conservation.

- Laura Botelho, Manager, Golders Hill Park Zoo

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