Introduction

Hello to everyone (or anyone) reading this. Welcome to my monthly blog recounting the stories of the animals at the conservation park I am currently based at; I hope you keep reading and find it interesting. Now as this is the first entry to the blog, it will unfortunately be a little bit of a narcissistic overview on myself, before we move onto the interesting animal stuff in later entries.

Mo our Red Panda patiently
waiting for a Grape

So, I am currently a Biological Sciences student at the University of Liverpool with a passion for all things conservation. With the aspirations of maybe one day being a zookeeper myself, I decided to take a year out of my studies to volunteer at a zoo to gain some valuable experience. I was lucky enough to secure a placement at Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park (BWCP) and so here I am volunteering from Monday to Friday each week. Please feel free to take a look at their website and Facebook page using the links on the blog home screen! Then in a moment of madness or genius (yet to be determined!) I decided that it might be a good idea to start writing a monthly blog on my experiences and any interesting stories or topics that may come up. I have never written, or even attempted to write, a blog before and so this will probably go one of two ways. Maybe I’ll end up with the next Nobel Prize in Literature, maybe it’ll go down like a lead balloon… to be perfectly honest, I’d happily settle for somewhere in between. Anyway, here goes…

First of all, I thought it might be interesting to start by talking about the park itself and the day-to-day tasks that a keeper or volunteer may perform whilst there. BWCP is situated in Edgbaston, Birmingham only a 10-minute drive from the City Centre itself. Surrounded by high rise buildings in the city, and Cannon Hill Park behind, the park provides an idyllic green escape from the bustling city around it. Whilst not the biggest zoo or conservation park you would likely go to, prices remain relatively low and many of the species found here are often unusual and endangered. In the two months since I started, the staff members have been fantastic and have enabled me to learn a lot about animal welfare and zoo conservation, as well as having some fun along the way. The conservation park also actively takes on numerous volunteers. Whether these are college/university students or simply people with a passion for animals who want to help, there are usually multiple volunteers in each day who are given a range of jobs. Whilst this can mean that days at the park are busy, it ensures that you can pick up skills and experiences relatively quickly, after being almost thrown in at the deep end. The large number of volunteers also means it is likely that you will meet and work with a wide range of people and personalities, helping build crucial communication and people skills for the future.

One of our two baby Ring Tail Lemurs -
unfortunately they have yet to be named! 

Anyway, moving back to my early experiences as a keeper, I was tasked with helping to care for a wide range of animals in the ‘Carnivore section’ of the park, although funnily enough not very many of the animals in this section are actually carnivores. On most days this consists of caring for the following animals: Alaotran Gentle Lemurs, Ring Tailed Lemurs, Ocelots, Sacred and Bald Ibis, Red Pandas, Patagonian Mara and Squirrel Monkeys. There are obvious deviations in the food and specifics in the enclosures, but the premise generally remains the same: provide food and water, ensure the animals and enclosure are okay and clean the enclosure. In future blog entries I will zoom in on the specific animals we have at the conservation park, their stories, the challenges their species are facing, as well as the conservation work being done at the park and around the world to help. Thank you for reading the introduction, please feel free to have a read of the first species-specific edition where I will be focusing on the great work done at the zoo with our Critically Endangered Alaotran Gentle Lemurs!