Animal Collection Keeper
Shepreth Wildlife Park

Rebecca W

00:00:02 My name is Rebecca W. I’m the Animal Collection Manager of Shepreth Wildlife Park, which means I manage the entire collection so from going out and feeding the animals to dealing with licenses and legislation. The animals that we have at the park are varied so we’ve got everything from rabbits and deers through to big cats, wolves, primates. So, we’ve gone from rescuing animals through to the breeding programmes and we’re doing a lot of work with conservation charities now as well.

00:00:27 I love studying. I’m so sad! I love to learn. So, yeah, I was always, always very studious and, yeah, I definitely loved learning, sure. So, when I was little, I was born here. So, I wanted to be a vet and I wanted to be a vet at the park and then, I’ll never forget, when I was about 13 or 14 I was lucky enough to go and do some work experience at the local veterinary surgery. So, I’m sitting there and she’s about to operate, she cuts open, I don’t remember a thing. I passed out. So, I kind of thought, “Ok, so that isn’t for me.”

00:01:01 And then I went onto a totally different realm and decided I wanted to be a lawyer. I don’t know why I wanted to become a lawyer. I think, I loved studying so probably it was a challenge, I guess. Got my place at law school and took a year out. So that was probably where everything changed. So, in the year out I was broke, not a penny to my name and a job came up at a magazine that I applied for. I didn’t think I’d get it. A year later they were promoting me, company car and perks and things like that, so I wrote to the university and said, “Is there any chance I can get a year off, another year off?” And they said, “Yeah, that’s fine.”

00:01:32 Sales were going up, I was promoted to manager and da de da and wrote back to the university and said, “Ok, so I need another year to defer because I really want to get this life experience,” and they said, “Forget it, because you’re obviously not interested.” So, I made that decision at that point not to go to university. And then as I was at the magazine I was heavily into sales and it just kind of wasn’t me. It was a lot of entertaining, wining and dining to really get the sales in and stuff and it wasn’t me.

00:02:02 I’d always worked here, though. Always from 16 I’d always worked here at weekends voluntary and always helped out with the animals so the opportunity came up at the wildlife park, it was a family business so they wanted to try and get more of my brothers and sisters involved, so I took the job. So, I did a zoo management degree. Every night I was literally working in the park until it gets dark and then going in and literally studying. So, kind of everything was kind of mad but I love that. I love that about life, that you haven’t got time to think because there’s always something going on.

00:02:32 It took me quite a few months to make that decision because of the money and the lifestyle I was living then to what I’d doing now, but I don’t have any regrets. But at the time it was quite a difficult decision to make and of course the park seven, eight years ago wasn’t doing very well so the future of a position here as well wasn’t set in stone. So, there was a lot of kind of decisions that I had to go through and now I just love it because the whole place has turned around and we’re really starting to make a name for ourselves as well as Shepreth Wildlife Park.

00:03:05 The thing that I guess I get my most rewards from is the tiger day. So I do an annual tiger day that started about four years ago and this year we blew the park out and it was the busiest day that we’d ever had here in 25 years. But the most important thing is that everyone left knowing about the charity. I think people are starting to take us seriously and know that it’s not just about us trying to help ourselves. We’re trying to give back where we can. By helping all these other charities that we help I go to bed feeling really good because I think not only are we looking after the animals here, but we’re doing something a little bit bigger that I couldn’t do as an individual if I wasn’t here.

ENDS