We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Broken-Down Zoo, and the 200 Animals That Changed a Family Forever

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Stéphanie Szostak as Katherine Mee, the deceased wife of Benjamin Mee and mother of Dylan and Rosie Mee. Milo has been home-educated (“his choice”) and is currently studying for an Open University Science unit. Ella is happily at school locally: “she prefers to be with her gang of friends” and both are, says Benjamin, doing well. As for himself, Benjamin says he has come to terms with his bereavement. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. We didn't get a lot of money from the film but we did get a lot of attention and that was the main motivation for doing it." Knegt, Peter (December 19, 2011). " 'Descendants,' 'Drive' Lead Satellite Award Winners". Indiewire . Retrieved May 29, 2015.

I don't particularly like looking at animals behind wire. But, as a zoo director, I understand that it is absolutely essential that we keep them there. We can build up a broad genetic population in zoos and then if we can work out a way to regain an area the size of Siberia, just for tigers, then we can re-release them." When Benjamin Mee first saw Dartmoor Zoo, his wife Katherine was suffering with a rare form of brain cancer and they had two small children. Despite it being the off season for the zoo, they are currently open Fridays - Mondays from 10am, and will be running a number of offers throughout the year to make visiting even easier and more affordable during the cost of living crisis. Through January, the zoo are running Members Month - any Dartmoor Zoo member can bring up to four guests in for 50 per cent off.

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. When he arrived he was absolutely terrified, cowering in the corner of his crate,” says Ben. “Then I realised he’d never heard English before, so started speaking to him in French. He instantly looked right at me as if, ah ok you’re the same as those guys who fed me and were kind to me before, and then he was fine.” ScarlettJohansson as Kelly Foster, the 28-year-old lead long-time zookeeper at Rosemoor Animal Park who is Benjamin's love interest and is a mother figure to Dylan and Rosie.

ThomasHadenChurch as Duncan Mee, [5] Benjamin's older brother and an accountant and Dylan and Rosie's uncle I like stories about fixer-uppers and when a group pulls together to accomplish a goal, which is what Mee and his crew did to renovate the zoo. There are several amusing incidents with the animals, including a nighttime squabble with a porcupine. I've also decided I will never volunteer to carry a drugged jaguar, because those animals might suddenly wake up. Yikes. In the middle of this barely controlled mayhem, with limitless help from my brother Duncan and my mum, I found time to write this book, We Bought a Zoo, kindly commissioned by Harper Collins. Their support, and that of the camera crew who made the four part documentary series on BBC2 Ben's Zoo (a misnomer over which I had no control and caused all kinds of family ructions), made the whole thing possible. Instead of an escaping grizzly bear, as portrayed by the film, it was a jaguar called Sovereign that had escaped. [27] Benjamin's children were also younger (aged four and six respectively) than the children in the film. [27] And, after all, Benjamin knows first-hand how healing it is to work in the magical atmosphere of Dartmoor Zoo. “Yes, losing Katherine was very, very tough on all of us. But this is an amazing place for us all to live and the animals give us such joy. The kids are OK, I'm OK and the zoo is OK. You can come through and smile.”In 2011, We Bought a Zoo came to screens for the first time, putting Dartmoor Zoo - or Rosemoor Zoo as it's known in the film - on a global stage. It was a two-year process before Benjamin and his two children, Milo and Ella, got to sit down at the premiere and see their lives on the big screen, thinking "what did they do to my story?"