In two months' time I may be able to put our old house on the market, to feed to the ailing zoo – if it is still here to save. With all this money flowing out, I had to travel to France last week to sell the home in which my children grew up – complicated, inevitably, by some arcane French probate laws relating to the death of my wife Katherine in 2007. The cost: £4,200 – that's two thirds of a month's mortgage payment, or three keepers' wages, slightly less than our monthly electricity bill, or slightly more than our insurance premium. When one of our visitors thought it a good idea to throw a lifebelt into the tiger moat, naturally the cats bit it, and one broke a tooth. Big bills (not just the ones belonging to our two macaw parrots) are a fact of zoo life. I figured running a zoo would be harder than I thought. Six months later, I had a brand new line of excuses for submitting my copy late: 'I'm afraid a wolf escaped and it took most of the day to get it back, and now I'm a bit tied up with the council. We laughed, then we visited, and then realised that if we didn't buy it, most of its gorgeous animals would be destroyed. We were looking for a large house for my mother to live in with some of her children and grandchildren, and the details for Dartmoor zoo came up. As well as taking the Bootcampers through the highs and lows of his ‘adventures’, Ben then took us all on a personal guided tour of the zoo to show us just how far the zoo has developed since it first re-opened.I n 2006, while writing a book on humour in animals, I unexpectedly found myself becoming a zoo director. You may remember Ben’s Zoo on the BBC that showed his story of how as a writer with no previous experience in zoology, he spent his family’s life savings to re-open DZP in July 2007.īen’s story is inspirational for new and would-be entrepreneurs in demonstrating how sheer determination to succeed will enable you to beat the odds and still win. On their first day of immersion in the Entrepreneurs Bootcamp, the Bootcampers explored what it means to be a good leader, especially when life conspires to make things difficult for the entrepreneur! We were privilidged to have the chance to meet and chat with Ben Mee, owner of the Dartmoor Zoological Park.

Ben mee zoo