Zino was born in Madeira to a British family of land dealers and was educated in England at St. Edmund's College, Ware, and studied languages at Christ's College, Cambridge. In 1963, he took part in an expedition to the Savage Islands and was shocked to see the annual slaughter of shearwaters ("Calonectris diomedea)" by fishermen. He then bought out all hunting rights to the islands to prevent hunting. Returning in 1967, Zino built a house, employing fishing folk who had been put out of hunting business, and began studying the breeding biology of Cory's shearwaters ("Calonectris borealis"). A coup in Portugal in 1974 encouraged the local fishermen to go on a rampage and destroy all the birds and Zino's research station. This vandalism prompted the government to take up protection of the birds and led to the inclusion of the islands in the Madeira Natural Park in 1986.