Worst Case Scenario with Abi Clarke and Julia Stenton - Abi’s new podcast: Zookeeper in Training

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

Abi Clarke is back in your ears! She’s trading the comedy circuit, for the Sloth habitat, as she attempts to become Chester Zoo’s newest recruit. Abi has just six weeks to prove that she has what it takes to become the zoo’s next hire. Armed with bundles of enthusiasm, and very little skill, Abi is learning the ropes from the real-life zookeepers, vets and animals that make Chester Zoo the best in the UK. Hit this link to hear the full episode: https://podfollow.com/zookeeperintraining. Or search ‘Abi Clarke: Zookeeper in Training’ on your favourite podcast app! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ACAS powers the world's best podcasts. Here's the show that we recommend. Hello, everyone. I'm historian David Boris, and I want to let you know that I'm hosting a brand new podcast coming out this fall of 2025. It's called The Conflict and Culture Podcast, and it explores everything and anything to do with military history beyond the battlefield. This season, we have episodes on. on American rock music during Vietnam, the myth of the Clean Vermacht, the Apache Way of War,

and so much more. First episode drops this September. Check it out. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcast everywhere. acast.com. I have news. Chester Zoo has asked me to host

their brand new podcast, and in it, I am getting to pretend to be a zookeeper. I had the best few days of my life. I lived out a lifelong dream of meeting otters. I fed bats from the palms of my hands. I fed a dragon. I did have to pick up some poo. But in return, I got to scratch a rhino behind the ear.

So is that not worth it? If you want to see any of my adventures, I mean, I'm going to show you some now, but also listen to the podcast, follow us on socials, all of that. Okay, it's the footage by. I'm ready to dive straight into this. I'm ready to get my hands dirty as I'm about to meet my all-time favorite, the giant otter. Now, okay, I've been waiting my whole life for this. It's like meeting a celebrity. Now, you might think that ease me into this, baby steps, but no. My first job involves slicing up raw, whole fish, guts and all, and feeding it by hand to these claseless.

A. Dangerous Animals. But at least they're adorable, right? Oh my God, babies! Oh, they're so cute. Listening back, I immediately regret doing this podcast. I did not think through how my voice would sound when talking to animals. That is embarrassing. Is it disrespectful to talk to them like that? Should I keep an animal voice? They just look like, That's better. That's better.

That's better. The first keeper to welcome me to the zoo was Fraser from the carnivore team. Is there just two of them? Just them too, yeah. What are their names? We got Tiberi, who's our female and Manusa, who's our male. The Bibi's got quite white throat markings. So that's quite an obvious tale between the two.

If you look at both of their throats, you can see she's quite white in colouration, and he's not. She's also a little bit bigger than him as well. Day one, that's a little bit bigger than him as well. Day one. That is me soaring a whole fish in two. Soaring is an important word. It was not a gentle cut. What is this guy's relationship?

Like, are they official? Are they just seeing each other? Definitely official. I think they keep it under wraps, you know. They don't want many people to know. When we ever see them really communicate and socialise together on cameras, because normally when we're here, it is food related, you know, they know us and recognise us as we're being fed.

So when we're not here is when, you know, the real action goes down. Is it true that they hold hands? They do hold hands. When sleeping, they do hold hands. We've got videos of them holding hands, actually. It's very, very cute. So the relationship is really, really special. Before getting him, she was by herself for a small part, a very small time.

And in that, you can tell that she needed a companion. And it's great that they can sort of be together and come together and off the back of it. They've got a really, really strong bond. And it's something that we take pride in. And I think they naturally take pride in as well. And how did you like get them to get on? So honestly, they did the hard work for hours if we're being honest. You know, we can do what we can to try and help them get along with each other.

But naturally, it was up to them. They're not naturally by themselves anyway. So I think as soon as they knew one another were here, they just wanted to be with each other. It's really, really lovely that it can be like that. Never ever have any issues, not any conflict between these guys that are most inseparable. If we ever have to separate them for even a small, small, small, small part in time, they go bonkers for each other.

They just want to be of each of all the time and yeah, it's really special. It's really lovely and it's good that they can have that relationship. These are giant also, right? So these are giant otters, so there's 13 different species of otter and these guys are the largest of them all. They're actually the largest of all the muster lids. So muster lids are essentially the weasel family. So that's your badgers, your ferrets, your moles and all. also all different otters as well,

and these guys are the largest. So they're found in South America, so all along the Morocco and Amazon River, all on the base of them. And these guys typically live in family groups and formations. Is it dangerous, like if you get bitten by Oh, these guys are insanely dangerous. They're actually known in the wild,

chase away Jaguars. So Jaguars are essentially the only animal that they can be seen as prey for. That's why they're actually, normally living family groups, strengthening numbers essentially, so the more of them, the better. Oh my God, yeah, there's that video

of otters taking down an alligator. Yes, yeah, yeah, there is. Is that these otters? Not these guys personally. So let's. Exactly, so alligators, jaguars, basically anything that might challenge him in or outside of the river,

these guys are faces anything, and they will, as you can say, snappy as you like, and listen, they'll take on almost absolutely anything. So how big is a giant otter? A giant otter can range, anywhere from, in length, anywhere from four to six feet. So as you see when they stand up, they can actually get quite tall

and the weights can vary quite a lot as well. Some females, our female in particular, is just about 30 kilos. And would she mind you saying that? Well, you have to ask her. I think she takes pride in how big she is to be fair. So, yeah, these guys can get absolutely huge. And like you said, it's a strengthening mechanism and it's also helps them hunt down different price.

I'm literally butchering a fish as we speak, so... Hey, that's the vibe. ACAS powers the world's best podcast. Here's the show that we recommend. Hello, everyone. I'm historian David Boris, and I want to let you know that I'm hosting a brand new podcast coming out this fall of 2025.

It's called the Conference. and culture podcast, and it explores everything and anything to do with military history beyond the battlefield. This season, we have episodes on American rock music during Vietnam, the myth of the clean Vermacht, the Apache Way of War, and so much more. First episode drops this September. Check it out. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

podcast.com.