Losing Island’s daily mail plane could seriously impact the Zoo

JERSEY Zoo has warned that it could be forced to say goodbye to certain species if Royal Mail axes its daily flights to the Island.

While the mail plane brings between five and seven tonnes of post to the Island each day, the postal operator has proposed replacing the flights with a ferry service, which it says would be more cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

However, director of Zoo operations Graeme Dick said that the daily flights were essential for transporting live insects – the diet of some of the Zoo’s residents – as well as for maintaining the freight-handling services on which the charity relies.

‘Some of our animals feed on live insects, a supply which is wholly reliant on the mail plane,’ Mr Dick explained. ‘We use between 50kg and 100kg of live insects every week, and we don’t have the capacity to grow and rear that quantity here. Specialist feeders, such as aardvarks and geckos, only eat certain live insects at a particular stage of their growth, and those insects wouldn’t survive for two or three weeks in a shipping container.’

Losing the mail plane could have other complications for the Zoo as well, Mr Dick said.

‘If that service disappears, then other freight-handling businesses are likely to collapse, which would leave us unable to transport veterinary samples, medicines and even animals,’ Mr Dick explained. ‘If one of our gorillas is sick, there is only so much human medicine I can use before I need licensed veterinary medicine and I might need that medicine quickly to keep the gorilla alive. Losing the mail plane could risk animals’ lives.

‘I don’t think that Royal Mail realises how critical to an island economy quick service is and I find it quite interesting that the service will continue operating to Guernsey, because of companies such as Moonpig and Funky Pigeon, but won’t travel an extra ten minutes to support an economy which is solely reliant on it not just for goods and services for people but also for animals.’

And the possible loss of the mail plane is just one of the factors which is causing the Zoo problems, as the cost of living and staff shortages are also creating challenges for the organisation. Mr Dick continued: ‘Rising costs are making it incredibly difficult, particularly where recruitment is concerned. If I advertised an animal-keeping job in the UK, I might get 40 to 60 applicants. Here, I get three or four and that is largely because Jersey is such an expensive place to live. That cost of living is crippling the lives of young people trying to join organisations like ours.

‘That means we have to pay higher salaries but that doesn’t address the lack of skills in the Island. We need very specific people from animal keepers and vets to field biologists, scientists and educators. That skill set doesn’t really exist here and, without a university framework in the Island, we are reliant on people from the UK, Europe or further afield.

‘The mail plane, rising costs and Brexit all have a huge impact on our operations. We also face problems with commercial flights. Every time that British Airways reduces its flight offering, we lose a plane big enough to carry animals. It is also clear to us that animals no longer have priority on flights so, once the handlers have loaded all the luggage and commercial goods onto the plane, they will see whether they have space for the animal. If not, they bump it off the flight.

‘Added to these challenges, which make it less viable to be in an island like Jersey, is the lack of support that we get from the Government of Jersey. Since funding for our education programme was withdrawn a few years ago, we do not receive any money from the government and yet we continue not only to run this programme free of charge for all local schools, but also to provide a massive beacon in the Island, offering a facility which most tourists will visit and which is also available for state visits and meetings.’

– Mr Dick is the subject of the No Ordinary Day Job interview which will be published in the July edition of Connect magazine