Paul Davies

What animals do you work with?

I work in the Australian Fauna Precinct that looks after all our native animals. One of my favourite areas is the Nocturnal House that displays our nocturnal marsupials.

How long have you been working as a zookeeper/vet/vet nurse?

I first started working as a keeper when I was 17 years old and worked for 8 years at Edinburgh Zoo and London Zoo. I have been working at Taronga Zoo for 28 years and originally worked with Taronga's primates.

How did you get into zookeeping/vet/vet nursing as a profession?

Since I can remember I have always wanted to work with animals and from a young age was a member of the Young Zoologist Club of London Zoo. I can remember receiving animal and nature books from my parents as I was growing up due to my fascination and wonder of nature. I completed a three year course at Paddington Tafe in London and have been involved in the zoo industry since.

What do you love most about your job?

I love the variety and I love a challenge! The Nocturnal House can be a challenging place to work in as the animals are quite cryptic and some are very small and hard to spot and then there is the fact that the Nocturnal House is completely dark! So you really need to think outside of the square and I like to reinvent and challenge the conventional ideas of exhibit design.

Most of all I love to be able to tell a story! I am always coming up with weird and wonderful ways to showcase our nocturnal house animals, keeping them active and challenged and most importantly educating and inspiring our visitors.

What has been the wildest moment of your career so far?

Implementing new concepts and designs into the Nocturnal House that have worked a treat! We added a running wheel to the Plains Rat exhibit that is connected to an odometer, displaying how far they have travelled in a day and we also installed a fan in the Feathertail Glider exhibit that operates at different times of the day encouraging them to move around and to glide.

As well as being great enrichment for the animals these inclusions make the animals visible to our visitors and gives them an insight and appreciation of their natural behaviours.

Feathertail Gliders are one of your favourite Australian mammals, what do find so fascinating about them?

When I first started to work at the nocturnal house the Feathertail Gliders really scared me as I was use to working with primates and bigger animals not with tiny animals that were quick and would squirm and often even bite! However this apprehension and challenge soon evolved to a passion and now I wouldn't have it any other way.

I am absolutely passionate about teaching people about our native wildlife and encouraging a sense of wonder and respect.  Australia has so many extraordinary little nocturnal creatures, that many people do not even know exist or have a vague knowledge of. Each and every one of them plays a very important part in our eco-system and are often really cool critters.