Director of Animals

Yorkshire Wildlife Park

Since its opening in 2009, Yorkshire Wildlife Park has evolved to become the UK’s number 1 on-foot safari. A dynamic centre for conservation and welfare, we feature walkthrough exhibits that take the guest directly into the world of the animals. With a 5-year masterplan in place, the park is set to expand, creating more ground-breaking animal reserves as part of a multimillion pound, unique and innovative development.

A unique opportunity has arisen for a strong leader with an in-depth knowledge of conservation initiatives and the zoological community to join the expanding animal department at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. The successful candidate will demonstrate the ability to develop research and conservation projects along with a strong previous working history in zoo management. It is also desired that they will have robust commercial acumen which will support them in developing the department for the future.

The candidate will be responsible for the delivery and management of all strategic activity within the animal department. They will formulate and implement strategy which aligns the animal department with the group’s objectives, whilst ensuring the continuation of the department’s exemplary standards for animal welfare, health and husbandry, conservation, guest experience and innovation.

Main Duties & Responsibilities:

Budgetary responsibility and overall management of the animal department’s costs.
Ensure synergy and continuity in relation to standards of management across the department.
Coach, develop and motivate the department’s leaders to consistently deliver exemplary standards for animal welfare, health and husbandry, commercial astuteness, people management practices and visitor experience.
Lead and develop a culture of continuous improvement to meet and exceed departmental KPI’s.
Lead the department to achieve its objectives in relation to in and ex situ conservation programmes.
Develop further research opportunities and projects.
Constantly review the YWP animal collection plan.
Develop and maintain relationships on behalf of YWP within the Zoo community i.e. studbooks, EEP’s, tags etc.

Candidate:

Excellent knowledge of the zoo community and relevant legislation.
A relevant scientific degree.
Commercially astute with an acute attention to detail.
Well versed with Microsoft Office, specifically Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Excellent interpersonal skills.
Standards and quality driven management style.
Must be flexible and able to work during our peak times which include weekends, bank holidays and school holidays.

Closing date for applications is: 31st Jan 2021

To download the vacancy information pack and the required application form, please visit the vacancies section of our website https://www.yorkshirewildlifepark.com/about-us/vacancies/

FYI

This vacancy has been posted out to the many thousands who read the popular Zoo Jobs Blog Page and then on to the 129,400 plus followers of the ZooNews Digest Facebook Page. It is then immediately forwarded on to Twitter and then to Pinterest and Linkedin (8,000+ connections). Many vacancies are shared to individuals and groups. In short your vacancy will have the potential of reaching something in the region of some 80,000 plus people within 24 hours. Most of these people are working in a zoo environment, Keepers, Curators, Vets, Zoo Directors, Trainers, Aquarists and more.

ZooNews Digest has subscribers in over 1200 Zoos in 150+ countries. Zoo professionals are International.

The number of people who will actually read the posted vacancy will actually be considerably less. Usually this will be between two hundred and three thousand. This will depend on the type of post, the time of the year and where it is located…of course not all will apply. I wish you the very best of luck in finding the right candidate for your post.

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