1. Jake Veasey, the zoo’s director of animal care, conservation and research, checks on Lobi, one of the zoo hippos. Ted
Rhodes/Calgary Herald
Photograph by: Ted Rhodes Ted Rhodes, Calgary Herald
Compelling Calgarians: Fighting floods, saving
animals just a day in the life of a zookeeper
extraordinaire
CALGARY HERALD JANUARY 2, 2014
Australia may lay claim to Crocodile Dundee, but Calgary has its very own version of the nature
adventurer.
Jake Veasey, the Calgary Zoo’s director of animal management, conservation and research, emerged
as one of the heroes of the flood last summer as he fought through rising waters to save many of the
large, dangerous animals housed on St. George’s Island.

2. Securing roaming hippos and corralling terrified giraffes was all in a day’s work for this daring
zookeeper who saved a woman cyclist from the freezing Bow River on his first week on the job in
November 2010.
“That’s another flood-related story. We had a bit of an ice jam and we were looking at evacuating the
Canadian Wilds.”
While there, they heard a woman screaming and found her clinging to her bike, disoriented and
confused, on a block of ice in the river.
“With temperatures like that we couldn’t just call emergency services. There’s a good chance she
wouldn’t have made it.
“Maybe it was my naivete. I jumped into the water. The decision process was very quick.”
Veasey jumped in with two feet again in June when the zoo was flooded.
“Different people react differently in a crisis. I’m someone who likes challenges. Something switches on
in my brain when there’s something crazy going on. I don’t panic. It gives me a lot of clarity.”
Veasey is also clear on the role the Calgary Zoo has to play in animal conservation and he won’t
accept anything less than establishing it as a world-class organization and a global leader in
conservation.
“We’re not interested in being a good zoo. We’re not interested in being one of Canada’s best zoos.
We’re interested in becoming a world leader that other zoos want to emulate. It’s pushing the
boundaries of excellence. That’s what motivates me.”
Veasey says the Calgary Zoo has lots of experience in community-based conservation, such as with
the Wechiau hippo sanctuary in Ghana. He wants to bring that to bear in other projects such as
protecting the European bongo, Africa’s rarest large mammal, of which he has been a key proponent.
Determined and passionate about animal welfare, Veasey is setting the agenda for the future of the
zoo.
“He has been a really pivotal part of the zoo’s commitment to animal welfare,” says Lindsey Galloway,
director of marketing, communications and sales, citing Veasey’s determination to make the Calgary
Zoo among the best in the world for animal stewardship.
“The attitude he’s brought to us is that animal welfare is our licence to operate.”
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