Mammals
Birds
Amphibians
Reptiles
In this edition of Durrell Diaries, Helen Otterwell, Head of Engagement and Learning at Jersey Zoo, shares the role she plays in teaching future generations about conservation.
My role at Durrell is Head of Engagement and Learning. This means I oversee all of the educational work we do here at Jersey Zoo with local schools and help to add in learning elements to the events we host too – like the recent visit from the Gruffalo!
I also oversee engagement which means looking for any ways I can get people to learn more about the amazing work that Durrell does, not only here at Jersey Zoo but at our rewilding sites around the world.
I’ve been here six months now after spending a long time working in the heritage world, but I have always loved Jersey Zoo - I was a Dodo Club member as a young girl. I’m a long-term member and often bring my husband and three boys up – one of my boys wants to work in a zoo when he’s older.
It’s a cliché, but every day here is different. We have different schools, different learning sessions and different events throughout the year, so there's never a dull moment. Some days my day starts with checking in on our Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, an animal we have in the Learning Team as they are great for educational purposes with both children and adults. Other days I work closely with Chris, our Conservation Learning Officer in running the sessions for the schools - her session on rainforests is notoriously noisy as she gets the children to reenact the sounds of the rainforest
I’m incredibly lucky because in my role I get to work with everyone across the site. I work with the keepers to get the latest information about the animals, I work with our events team to create engagement opportunities, I work with our in-house design team to create trails and signs, and I support our volunteers so they have everything they need to talk to the public about our animals.
But one of the main groups I work with are local schoolteachers to provide lessons here at the zoo that match what they are doing in school. This helps us make sure that our educational work is relevant and useful to the teachers.
For example, I recently worked Jerey College Prep School as we had them visit Jersey Zoo as part of their Science Week. We organised five different science-based activities for each of the year groups and had 335 pupils on site at once. It was fantastic to see so many pupils doing science around the zoo. Our male orangutan Dagu was definitely fascinated by so many children watching him. He spent a long time during the day at the window of the enclosure studying the children who were studying him.
My favourite part of the day though is without a doubt, the animal talk the team and I deliver during the week about the Visayan Warty Pigs. Not only do I get to feed them their lunchtime snack, but I can also talk to the public about these incredibly rare pigs. It is also an opportunity for me to share more information with our visitors about the work Durrell is doing in India with the rarest pig in the world, the Pygmy Hog. Being able to feed these amazing creatures whilst talking to visitors is always the absolute highlight of my day.
This article was originally printed in the Jersey Evening Post on Friday 15 November.
