Own a zoo? New Benjamin Mee memoir proves it really is possible

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/09/2008 (6474 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“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 (Weinstein Books)

We may have studied animals, we may love animals. We may hate zoos, we may love them. But who can actually claim to own one?

Benjamin Mee.

Through chance, the steadfast “look-the-other-way” support of his family and a long line of credit applications, in October 2006, Mee and his family became the owners of Dartmoor Wildlife Park, its 200 wild animals and their decrepit homes.

Two years earlier, Mee, a newspaper columnist, and his wife Katherine had escaped from London with their two young children and bought two old stone barns in the heart of Southern France. Paradise.

But, when Mee’s sister sent him a listing for a zoo in Devon, England, his gears began to turn.

As a student of animal behaviour, Mee was only marginally more qualified for the job of zookeeper that the average person. But as a conservationist, he saw the potential in the zoo immediately: to live with, educate the public about, and help create a better world for the animals was something that he, and amazingly his 76-year-old mother, couldn’t pass up.

The goals of the zoo were clear – keep the dedicated original staff, improve the conditions, bring it up to code, reopen, educate visitors and somehow find the money to keep the whole thing going. What wasn’t clear was what and who would cause the bumps along the way. It was these impending snags that were too good for the media to pass up, so BBC2 sent a camera crew to document the turmoil.

And they weren’t disappointed.

Sovereign, a cunning jaguar escapes, as does a wolf. Tigers argue, buildings leak, a depressed snake is rehabilitated, the bank accounts hemorrhage money, employees are hired and fired, and there is mud, mud and more mud. And, sadly, Mee’s wife Katherine passes away after an intense battle with brain tumours.

Remarkably, through it all Mee, his children, his mother, his brother and the zoo staff persevere and the zoo reopens in July 2007 as Dartmoor Zoological Park.

How on Earth?

Mee probably asks himself that question on a regular basis and it’s one the reader will have as well. The park itself remains a bit of a mystery – there are few pictures in the book and those that are included are of the animals and Mee’s family.

It would be both impossible and tedious to include all the details, so Mee’s story has a bit of a whirlwind feel to it. We are given the surface but nothing much deeper. Going deeper is the job of a good memoir. This one doesn’t quite get there.

What a great story though – definitely the stuff of dreams.