Robin's Nest from American Humane - Wolfgang Kiessling, President and founder of Loro Parque Animal Embassy

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

In this episode of Robin's Nest, Robin talks with Wolfgang Kiessling, President and founder of Loro Parque animal embassy. Robin talks with Wolfgang about his vision for the Loro Parque zoo and the Kiessling Prize to support individuals making extraordinary contributions to the field of wildlife conservation.

Welcome to Robin's Nest. So many of us have a deep connection with the animals around us and want to protect them from the pets in our homes to endangered species in the wild. That's why I joined American Humane. As one of the oldest and most effective animal protection groups, we help billions of animals around the world. Join us as we explore how we can build a more humane world together. Hello and welcome to Robin's Nest. I'm Dr. Robin Ganzert and this is the official podcast of American Humane and Global Humane, the nation's most efficient and effective humane organization focused on the humane treatment of animals all over the world, from certifying zoos to being the first boots on the humane treatment of animals all over the world, from certifying

zoos to being the first boots on the ground in crises and rescues, helping to ensure that animals are safe in the filming of movies and on sets globally, and that one billion farm animals are treated humanely, and our military veteran and military dog programs. There's so much to talk about with American Humane's power to touch lives and keep animals safe. But today we're talking with the world-renowned conservationist Wolfgang Kiesling. We want to hear what you think after you've listened. Please make sure to review the podcast on your podcast platform. What a treat to have Mr. Wolfgang Kiesling on today's edition of Robin's Nest. He is truly a titan in the space, having created Loro Parque, the world's number one zoo.

And certainly, he's a personal inspiration of mine, having saved 12 species from the threats of extinction. We're proud that he has devoted his entire life to making the world a kinder, gentler, more humane place for the animals that we all love. Thanks to Wolfgang, we are thrilled to carry on the legacy with the Wolfgang Kiesling International Prize for Species Conservation. Wolfgang, what an inspiration it is to have you today. Robbins Nest, our new podcast, thank you for joining us. Robin's Nest, our new podcast. Thank you for joining us. Well, I'm happy to be here and I'm always happy to be with you. Oh, thank you. So that's a wonderful occasion.

Well, I love welcoming you to anything that American and Global Humane does. So thank you. And I want to congratulate you because Laura Park is the very first Global Humane certified zoo and aquarium outside of the United States. So thank you for participating in our efforts and certainly being open to being certified by Global Humane. Yeah but that has been a good deal for both of us. Yes. First of all I should not remember that my good friend Brad Andrew brought us together. Yes. Brad and me, we had a long business relation and friendship relation. And so when he told me that he's working now with you,

it was clear to me that we had to be audited by you. That's right. And I thank you very much. And I hope that we can conceive the idea that the global human audition will be accepted by the tour operation in general. So we have been in the last weeks fighting quite a lot in England. You know that there was a bill foreseen that the two operation could not announce any longer parks which had elephants, dolphins, killer whales, gorillas and so on in their publicity. And thanks God we could stop this and we worked very close together

with the two operations in England and especially also with APTA. So that was a good announcement. It's a big victory for the animals because the impact of tourism in these facilities is significant because it brings in the cash flow needed to fund the animals and importantly pay for conservation projects. But I think anyhow that the animals have no voice and who else but the Zoological Garden can represent these animals. There is no other institution.

You see, and there are organizations which make a lot of money on saying that it's not good to keep the animals in a zoo. But yes, the animals are well kept. They are under excellent conditions. the animals are well kept they're in under excellent conditions and i think it would be a loss and a tremendous loss for humanity if the zoos would not be there you created in laura park by the way it's just a world-class gem everyone listening to our podcast should book a ticket to tenerife visit laura park stay at the Hotel Botanico. It's a life-changing and life-affirming experience.

But you created this incredible story, now as a bird park, into what you have termed a modern animal embassy. I love the powerful words that you chose, animal embassy. Tell us a little bit about the start of Laura Park and how you grew it from four birds to be this embassy. Well, first of all, I want to admit something. If you don't have luck in life, you're a poor fellow. So I was lucky. I was lucky with my wife, I was lucky with the team, I was lucky with my decisions. And if you look at us today, we started up with 25 people, we had about 150 birds. birds. Today we have 40,000 animals and we have 1,100 people working for the company and I think we have done a step forward. We have Loro Parque and we have also lots of other things like photovoltaic and we have these windmills wind generators yes and well we take care so in case something happens in the world our animals are always

taken care of financially taken care of so when the tourism would stop we could finance our costs through the photovoltaic or air generators or through money which comes in from buildings which we own and which are rented away and so on. So you've created an entire business operation centered around your love for animals. Oh, yes. And that's brilliant and beautiful. Yes, but I created in 1994. I say I created, let's see, my team and me, we created in 1994

the Loro Parque Foundation, which today my son Christopher is president. So we started by an idea of the Secretary General from CITES, Abdul Yomengi. He visited me in my hotel in Lausanne at a meeting from CITES and he said, Kiesling, you have now one of the biggest parrot collections in the world. You know what kind of problems you are going to have with these birds. The activists are going to make your life difficult. Oh my! So he gave me the idea to bring these birds into a foundation and that

they would work or breed in favor to their brothers and sisters in the wild. He said, if you breed one bird here and you sell it, you can close two holes. First of all, it's one bird less which is taken out of nature. And secondly, the money which you get for it, you give it to the brothers and sisters in their habitat. Well, we started this up in 1994, and imagine in the meanwhile, we have spent almost 26 million dollars only in projects. We are not talking that we spent in the foundation this money, no. Only in projects. All the general costs from the foundation, salaries, traveling costs, publicity and whatever there is, it's all paid by Loro Parque. So we have a very, very good situation. And I calculated 25 million and 5 meters long car. A Volkswagen, by example has five meters. Well we had 5,000 cars which we put one to the other.

And if you calculate that again this is five kilometers of cars which are lined up. Yes, yes. That's a lot of gift. That's a lot of gift. It's actually it's saving not only individual animal lives, it's actually saving entire species. Well, that's what we did. And what are you at, 12 or 14 number of species saved? Well, we have officially up to now 12, but we know the 13th is already in the tube. Yes. So we have lots of success, but the most wonderful and greatest success is that about 10 or 15

years ago, we got from Brazil four Lear macaws which were sitting there in Brazil for years and years and didn't breed. And they sent them to us to find out if we could breathe them. I love the Lers McCall. So we had after a year already the first breathing result and since then we bred approximately 40 so we made out of the four ten times more in the time, and we sent of these 19 back to Brazil. From these 19 which we sent back to Brazil, nine went into the a release program. Nine of them. Now two of them have bred and we have already four birds which were born from our birds bred in Laurel Park. Amazing. And which are flying And which are flying free in the cutting line.

It is a dream. It's for us one of the most beautiful things which has happened, yes. That story means so much to me, too, because I know we're featuring in our second full-length documentary film, Escape from Extinction 2, which, of course, you're a crucial stakeholder in the film and telling that story, I hope, is inspiring other people to do the same but what you've done is remarkable and I love love that story if we if we want to get out of this situation in which we are actually we have to react very very fast yes and I think you see that every day in the news, what kind of catastrophic circumstances we have in our nature right now.

It is catastrophic. We're talking about the loss of one million species in our lifetime. It's called the sixth mass extinction, and we talk about it a lot in Robin's Nest, because we talk about saving individual animals and, importantly, saving species. It's an urgent crisis that nobody really talks about, because we talk about different things in different countries, but there's not a worldwide call to action yet. But there are groups like the IUCN and WASA doing good things, don't you think? They are doing very, very good things.

But I think, and I said it before in another occasion, what we need, we need to come down with sense. We cannot ask all the countries which have these beautiful forests and they are cutting them off with a terrible speed. If we don't pay them for keeping them, they will go on and cut them off. It's a compensation model

that has to be community based, right? I remember after the war, Second World War, the Americans, that's why I'm such a fan of America, and that's not always like this in Europe, but I'm a deep friend of them. And this relies also to this air bridge, which they did for us between, think 48 and 50, something like that. You know the Russians cut off Berlin from all the connection which there was. No car could come in, no train could go to Berlin, but they couldn't stop the airplanes. So it was America which sent us hundreds

or thousands of airplanes, and they went in a speed of 30 seconds, left always one airplane in direction to Berlin to bring over whatever they needed. to bring over whatever they needed. And to pay this, to help to pay this, we had a stamp which was called Stamp of Need. And this was only at that time two pfennig. but with these too panic we reached to pay quite a lot of the bill yes so I was thinking in 88 already and I pronounced that I wrote to all the government they should try to put such a stamp again and this time worldwide for everybody so that the money which we get out of this we could save our nature. I love that. Brilliant. It is an idea which in our days wouldn't even affect very much the private people because private people don't write letters anymore. They telephone, they sims, they chat by the telephone and so on.

But business, business cannot stop. They have to send this. And if we would put up there 10 cents on each letter today, it would not even matter anybody in the business. No. And this would be money which is not a tax money, which would come in separately of everything, and we could send to Brazil a check of two or three or four billion every year. To save nature. To save nature. We would save nature, yes.

Well, this is an example of the brilliant ideas you have. And I think that those are what create the communities of real change. But we've created together a community of meaningful change by developing the International Prize for Species Conservation in your honor. It's called the Wolfgang Kiesling International Prize for Species Conservation and I'm so proud this year that Professor Theo Pagel is the recipient. Tell us a little bit about what this award means to you because it's one way to create that platform first of all I think you when you did your audit on Laurel Park you realize that we did

really good things excellent yes and it was your idea to say this person this Wolfgang Kiessling could be a person after which we name our most important conservation prize. Absolutely. And we spoke, you and me. Yes. It was a great honor for me that you decided to do that. Thank you. And here I am. I'm always at your disposal. And here I am. I'm always at your disposal. Whatever I can do and I think that we hit the right point. Conservation needs its own price and given by American humane or global humane like you call it now on the international market it's the greatest honor which can happen to me to our business to our idea and to the conservationists which are working out there having good ideas helping yes sweating and being treated during a big part of their life yes i think this is what they need yes well this prize's recipient this year is professor theo pagel and i know you've known theo for many years

and how would you describe him as a leader in conservation well i know i know him I know him since he was a young man. He followed his father. The father lost his his sight by diabetes. And I think he did a great job to work himself up to be now finally the director of the Cologne Zoo. Yes. And the president of Waza. And... Which is the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums for people who don't know what Waza is.

But that is a real career. Yes. And on his way, he has never lost the sight of conservation. Yes. So, Cologne Zoo, under his leadership, is investing quite a lot of money and time in protecting animals, especially in Asia. Yes. You know what I love about this beautiful opportunity

to create this prize in your honor and representing your incredible legacy in the space of conservation. I love the fact that this is giving us a platform of some of the world's top experts to be that voice for the animals. Our inaugural recipient was Dr. John Paul Rodriguez. How wonderful, an incredible leader in the space, and now the second year professor Theo Pagel, so two incredible spokespeople for the animals. Yes, and that's what the animals need. I think at the time in which we live there is no other representation

but people which are dedicating their life conservationists to To the animals and they're a big role in all this game is the Solofjegl garden the modern Solofjegl gardenical Garden. There are 750 million people every year going into zoos in the world. Amazing. It is amazing. This is an enormous amount of people. I can't believe it, but it is like that. That's almost 10% of the population. It is stunning. World population.

And you see, I wanted to say something to the problems of our Earth. I had a few days ago birthday. Happy birthday. Thank you. And when I was born, we were around 2 billion people on earth. On the 14th November last year, we passed the 8 billion. Wow. So we quadruplicated our population on earth four times in my lifespan. Amazing. Yeah, but you have to think ahead. Yes. What is going to happen to us in the

future? Now we have some samples, by example the Western countries, they have even less births than people which are dying. So there is a possibility to stop that. How can we do this? We can't do it to leave the problem to pharmaceutical companies. We have to interfere. The states have to interfere. The states have to interfere, the European community, the United States or the Asian Association. And we have to educate and to finance these things. Better to finance that than to finance other things believe it we cannot grow anymore

Our world is suffering so much The climate change is so and it's not stopping you can't you can't stop that any longer No, you will lose the Arctic you will lose the antarctic you will lose the Classiers. Is this English? The glaciers. We're talking about a collapse of the jet stream. You know, it's remarkable. Everything seems to be on the verge of collapse. Yes. Which our Earth won't look the same for people or for animals.

Well, it looks the same if you have a short view. You have to look around. You have to see what happens. Now with our television and news system, we have the opportunity to see every day what happens wherever it happens. Our world is in revolution, believe it or not. Yes. And also the enormous rain which we have in our days. Yes. Which is not normal anymore. These are tropical rainstorms which go through Europe and North America. And the fires. And the fires.

You had fires recently in Tenerife. We burned down 90 square kilometers in our island that is immense of wonderful forest. Unbelievable, beautiful forest. Beautiful forest, but our trees have a difference. For example, I went to Yellowstone Park and I saw that there some 20 or 25 years ago burned big part of the Yellowstone Park. When I was there, maybe 10 years ago, you saw still the trees standing there all burned. Yes.

In Tenerife, we plant trees, pine trees, which after three, four years, recover. Oh my goodness. So they regenerate even after much. They regenerate. That's beautiful. So we are all very, very sorry and very damaged about what has happened,

but we see light at the end of the tunnel so let's talk about the light because we've talked a lot about the dark with the mass extinction and the population and every all these crises on the earth you know you are such a titan a leader in the space and i know you look to inspire the next generation to continue this fight. Why do you have hope? I guess that hope is given to us by God. I think that we are born with a lot of inspiration and hope in our senses.

If I look at the world right now, forgive me might be my age, but on the political platform it is catastrophic. It's catastrophic all over the world. We have leaders which we really don't want to have. And that makes it very difficult. Hope that it gets better. You see, God has created this earth with hills and with deepness. Valleys. Yeah, but valleys are very deep.

If you go in the ocean, this hill which you have here, 8,000 meters, goes down another 4,000 or 5,000 meters. Yes. So, I think that we have climbing up, climbing up, climbing up the hill until, until let's say the beginning of this century and then we dropped and we dropped and we dropped now how far can we still drop when do we reach when do we reach the bottom and how high can we climb out of the bottom that we create? Yeah, after we have reached the bottom, we climb up again. Well, I love that you have hope, and I love that God has inspired hope in you, and I love your references to the hills and the valleys and climbing back up again.

We will be all climbing up, believe it. I love that. And I especially so love your modern animal embassy and how you've created Laura Park to be a world-class standard. And most importantly, one of your most significant legacies is the Laura Park Foundation, and you have saved species from extinction. I'm so proud to know you.

Thank you so much for joining me today at Robin's Nest. Kind of a fun little nest to be in, isn't it? Wonderful to be in your nest. Thank you very much. Thank you Wolfgang. Safe travels and thanks for being with us.