Education of Zoo Visitors and Advocacy of Kea - Kea Conservation ...

Educational zookeeper talks
Educational zookeeper talks have shown in previous studies (Hienrich & Birney 1992,
Kelling et al 2003, Tribe & Booth 2003, Povey 2005) to be one of the most effective
ways of conveying conservation education to visitors. Two thirds of holders gave
educational talks, the majority of those occurring either every day or once a week.
A very low number of visitors listened to a zookeeper talk in this study; this could
have been due to random days selected for sampling and talks not occurring on
sample days. However, one third of all talks are given impromptu, and over half of
holders did not advertise the talk in any form, this must impact on the number of
visitors being aware of zookeeper talks, thus attending talks. Educational zookeeper
talks would be more effective if more of the visitors are aware through advertising
and a set time given for talks. While it may not be practical for talks to be given every
day, they should be given on days that have the highest visitor numbers in order to
have a greater impact.
The information provided in zookeeper talks varied and more emphasis was placed on
advocacy information than was on signs - curiosity and intelligence with highest
frequency over all, behaviour, damage potential and the historic cull were also in
higher frequencies. Knowledge based information such as biology, habitat and
morphology had high frequencies. Conservation information – protection status,
threats, estimated numbers in wild and threat classification had higher frequencies in
talks than on signs. Behavioural change information was given in some talks, feeding
of wild birds in half of all talks, but ways to minimise damage to property was the
lowest frequency observed.
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