We bought a zoo
Subtitle: the amazing true story of a broken-down zoo, and the 200 animals that changed a family forever
By: Benjamin Mee
Publisher: Windsor
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Bath
Language: eng
Number of pages: 290
ISBN-13: 9781408430552
Subjects: Large type books; Zoos; Health
Description: "Chuck it all in and buy a zoo? Why not? thought Benjamin Mee, unaware of the grim living conditions, creditors and escaped big cat that lay in wait ... they moved with their two young children, Ben's 76 year-old mother and his brother, into a run-down zoo on the edge of Dartmoor which they had bought, and found themselves responsible for 200 animals including four huge tigers, lions, pumas, three massive bears, a tapir and a wolf pack. But tragedy was to strike for, in the midst of dealing with escaping wolves and jaguars, and troublesome adolescent vervet monkeys, Katherine, who had developed and had removed, a brain tumour while in France, began to experience symptoms again. The prognosis was poor, and so Ben found himself juggling the complexities of managing the zoo and getting it ready for re-opening, and at the same time having to care for his rapidly deteriorating wife, their two young children, and their ever growing menagerie of animals. Ben's story will both move and entertain -- charting, simultaneously, the family's attempts to improve the animals' lives, the build-up to the Zoo's official reopening, as well as Katherine's decline, her final days, and how the family went on"--Publisher's description.
Notes: Originally published: London: HarperCollins, 2008.