- Sharon Matola
Sharon Matola is founder of the
Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Center, begun in 1983 to protect exotic animals that had been used in a documentary film. It is now home to over 125 native Belizean species, and instructs people about wildlife and how to care for wildlife [Maynard, Caitlin and Thane: "Rainforests and Reefs: A Kid's Eye View of the Tropics." Zoological Society of Cincinnati, Inc., 1996.] Matola's life story - in particular her struggle to stop theChalillo dam - is documented in the book "The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird" (2008), byBruce Barcott .Founding the Zoo
Matola, the North American founder and driving force behind the zoo, arrived in Belize after a colorful career that included a stint with a Romanian lion-tamer and a circus tour in Mexico. Today, she recounts an incident that helped convince her she was on the right track during the zoo's difficult founding years in the early 1980s.
That was 1983, when the zoo consisted of chicken wire cages sheltering animals left over from a natural history film. Matola was hired by the film maker to care for the animals, and when the film was completed, she was left to decide how to dispose of them. Many were tame and unaccustomed to life in the wild, so the idea of an unusual zoo cropped up. Matola hung signs around the country to raise awareness about the wealth of Belizean wildlife and its deteriorating habitat; and she went outside Belize to raise money from environmental groups. [Discovery Channel. Ed. Huw Hennessy: "Insight Guide Belize." Insight Print Services (Pte) Ltd., 2000.]
References
*
Bruce Barcott (2008). "The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird". Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6293-5External links
* [http://i.abcnews.com/WN/popup?id=3582342&contentIndex=1&page=1 Jungle Wonders of the Belize Zoo] , ABC News picture gallery of Matola and the zoo.
* [http://video.aol.com/video-detail/abc-nightline-the-belize-zoo/772234220 Nightline Video, September 10 2007] . Also on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y5RIB9Z-AI YouTube] .
* [http://www.belizezoo.org/ Belize Zoo] , official site.
* [http://www.belizemagazine.com/edition11/english/e11_04questions.htm Interview with Matola] , Belize Internet Magazine
* [http://www.ssvc.com/bfbs/radio/presenters/s_matola.htm Biography] , BFBS Radio of Belize
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
