Every first Saturday in June will be the date on which the Belize Zoo honors the legacy of the zoo’s founder, who passed away in 2021. 

By Khaila Gentle

BELIZE CITY, Wed. June 1, 2022

The Belize Zoo, known as the “Best Little Zoo in the World,” will be honouring its founder this weekend by declaring this Saturday, and every first Saturday in June, as Sharon Matola Day. Matola, who passed away in March of last year at the age of 66, established the Belize Zoo in 1983 after being tasked with caring for a small collection of animals that had been used in a wildlife documentary.

For the zoo’s first-ever Sharon Matola Day—which takes place just one day after Matola’s birthday on June 3—all Belizeans will be granted free admission. Jamal Andrewin-Bohn, Conservation Program Manager at the zoo, told us that this is being done to increase accessibility to Belizeans.

“Every first Saturday in June starting this year, 2022, and every year after we will have a day where, first and foremost, Belizeans will be able to come and enjoy the zoo, which is Sharon’s legacy. This is what she left behind after forty years of work in conservation for the people of Belize,” he said.

In lieu of the usual admission fees—which Andrewin-Bohn says is one of the main ways the zoo, a non-profit organization, keeps its animals fed—visitors are encouraged to donate fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat if possible, paying homage to Sharon’s strategy of garnering in-kind support to keep the zoo running.

“In the very early days of the zoo, when there was no income, no structured sources of income coming in, she would give free tours and show people around the zoo, and in turn, people would give a little something from their own backyard. So if they had extra mango, some extra live chickens, or whatever it may be, this is how they kept the zoo shored up,” he added.

According to Andrewin-Bohn, in-kind donations, especially of fresh produce and other agricultural products, were how the zoo survived not only in its fledgling years but during the COVID-19 pandemic as well.  

While the zoo has still not-fully recovered from the effects of the pandemic, it has come a long way: having gone from reducing its total number of employees from 58 to 30 at the height of the pandemic to employing over 40 persons this year.

“We’re slowly recovering; we’re getting back on our feet. Our programs are coming back … we’re seeing more visitation, so that means that we’re in a better position to feed the animals, pay the staff, keep the lights on and do more of the socially oriented programs that we used to do before the pandemic,” Andrewin-Bohn said.

This Saturday, visitors will also have a chance to meet the many faces that help to keep the Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Center up and running, as the entire management and staff will be present on-site along with a host of tour guides.

The zoo will be offering various souvenirs, including commemorative t-shirts as well as free copies of the children’s book Adventures of Hoodwink the Owl, which Matola authored.

Ever since its establishment in 1983, the primary focus of the Belize Zoo has been showcasing native wildlife and providing a home to animals in need. It was created after Sharon Matola, then in her late twenties, was left to care for 17 animals that had been used in a wildlife documentary. Those animals, tamed and used to humans, could not be placed back in the wild. In a 1995 interview with The Washington Post, Matola explained how she was at a crossroads when she had to decide what to do with them.

“I either had to shoot the animals or take care of them, because they couldn’t take care of themselves in the wild,” she’d stated.

Over the next four decades, what began as a small “backyard” menagerie of a few animals, including two jaguars, two macaws, a boa constrictor, and a few parrots, would grow into a home for over 200 animals belonging to over 45 species, all native to Belize.

All of the animals at the Belize Zoo have either been born at the zoo, rescued, orphaned, rehabilitated, or donated by other institutions—one of the many aspects of the zoo that have earned it the title of “Best Little Zoo in the World”.