Benjamin Mee was living his dream life in the south of France, when his sister mailed him a real estate listing for a run-down zoo with a note attached: Your dream opportunity. He, his mother, and three of his brothers and sisters work for 2 years to buy, restore, and open the zoo. An interesting look behind the scenes at a business I'd never really thought about.Mee is an engaging writer, with interesting material. The second day they owned the zoo, his brother runs up to the house yelling "Big cat on the loose! This is not a drill!" One of the leopards has escaped, and they have to figure out how to safely get him back, with bad equipment (they have to reinforce a tiger house that evening to have a place to put him) and missing equipment (they have no functioning dart gun, so if things go bad, they will have to kill an animal).
I've always been kind of uncomfortable with zoos - I haven't liked seeing the animals caged - and I was interested to learn the justification behind zoos (conservation of species, engaging the public in conservation efforts, providing funding for conservation efforts). I don't know that I'm entirely comfortable with them, but I feel better now.
I liked learning about the difficulties in rehabilitating a run-down business. The Mees appear to now have a successful zoo, but it was only possible because the BBC produced a four-episode mini-series on them. Without that, they would have made a heroic effort re-fitting and improving the zoo, then not made enough money the first year to keep running. I'm glad Mee wrote this book, because I think it will help keep people coming to the zoo. I'm pulling for them to succeed.
We Bought A Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals that Change Their Lives Forever
Benjamin Mee
2008
Available from Amazon
No comments:
Post a Comment