Contact Us
Call us on: +44(0)1332 810 481

Home » Speakers » Benjamin Mee

Fees:

*Fees are a guide only. Exact cost will be dependent on requirements and are subject to change.

Benjamin Mee

Benjamin Mee is a writer, presenter and the owner of Dartmoor Zoo. Portrayed by Matt Damon in the brilliant Hollywood blockbuster We Bought A Zoo, Ben is also a world-renowned speaker. Engaging and inspirational, Ben has a relaxed, informal style and a powerful story to tell. As a result, his message resonates with audiences at a personal and at a business level.

Enquire

About Benjamin Mee

Benjamin Mee delivers speeches which inspire and engage people of all ages, students and senior executives of global organisations alike.  His book, We Bought A Zoo, documents his purchase of a dilapidated country house with numerous wild animals roaming the grounds. Above all else it highlighted his determination to save them from being destroyed.

Biography

Benjamin Mee was born during a bush fire in Australia but grew up in Surrey where he had a turbulent relationship with the education system and was expelled from school. His first job was as a bricklayer and decorator.

However, after an encounter with a dolphin, he became fascinated with the field of animal intelligence and has never looked back. He decided to study Psychology at UCL before completing an MSc in Science Journalism at Imperial College. This leads on to a 15-year career in Journalism, both print and Broadcast. Ben was a contributing editor to Men’s Health Magazine and was also a columnist for The Guardian for many years.

In addition, he has written, and continues to write, many articles for newspapers, such as The Independent. He also had a regular slot on LBC Radio, as well as having undertaken interviews for a variety of programmes, radio segments, and news broadcasts.

In 2004 he moved with his family to Southern France to begin writing a book on the Evolution of Humour in Man and Animals. It was whilst in France that his wife Katherine was first diagnosed with a brain tumour, which she subsequently had removed and received treatment for. Not long after, Benjamin’s father died, and his mother decided to sell her house and buy another property in which she and other family members could live together.

It was during the process of looking for properties that Benjamin’s sister sent him a sales brochure for Dartmoor Zoo, with a note on it saying, “Your dream scenario!”. And that’s when everything changed.

Benjamin and his family visited the large house, which just happened to have numerous wild and dangerous animals living in the grounds and fell in love with it and the animals. They were particularly struck by the fact that, if a purchaser couldn’t be found, most of the animals would have had to have been destroyed. It was a massive undertaking – the zoo had an extremely poor reputation, was in massive financial difficulty, and was incredibly dilapidated. The family forged forwards, they wanted to save the animals, and they bought the zoo in 2006.

To make a challenge even more difficult, amid dealing with escaping jaguars and troublesome adolescent vervet monkeys, Katherine began to experience symptoms again and it was discovered that her brain tumour had returned. The prognosis was poor, and so Ben found himself juggling the complexities of managing a zoo and getting it ready for re-opening while facing the consequences of his wife’s terminal illness and caring for their two young children.

Ben′s story is one that both moves and entertains – charting simultaneously the family′s attempts to improve the animals′ lives, the build-up to the Zoo′s official reopening in 2007, as well as Katherine′s decline, her final days, and how the family went on in the face of many obstacles.

Benjamin wrote a book about what happened: We Bought A Zoo. It is an international bestseller and has been printed in 23 countries. Dartmoor Zoo also became the subject of a BBC2 four-part documentary called Ben’s Zoo in 2008. Then Hollywood came calling – 20th Century Fox film studios picked up the book and turned it into a moving film, directed by Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire) and starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson. The We Bought A Zoo film of 2012 was a blockbuster, and charts Benjamin’s inspirational story of one man’s leap of faith, triumphing over personal tragedy, and the battle to succeed, whatever obstacles stand in your way.

Dartmoor Zoological Park, Sparkwell, Nr. Plymouth in Devon remains open today, since the Mees donated the zoo in 2014 to the Dartmoor Zoological Society. Benjamin is the CEO of the charity and continues to live on site with his two children.

Ben has many projects on the go, including writing four books and expanding the, still struggling, Zoo. He has also become an official Ambassador for Brain Tumour Research to help the research to help the research into fighting this devastating condition.

Benjamin has television projects in development and travels the world conducting speaking and fund-raising tours to help finance the zoo, which has just completed the process of becoming a charity. He also spends his time visiting zoos, investigating animal intelligence, and conducting research for his books. In amongst all this he continues to educate, following his passion for transforming lives through knowledge, collaboration, and partnership, and encouraging sustainability through shared practice in the context of conservation. He has been awarded an honorary science doctorate from Plymouth University in recognition of his work and passion for research and the communication of science.

Additionally, thanks to his recent articles, Benjamin has now been brought to international attention and is now the forefront of a new movement to open the zoo world to the outside, change regulations, and work more in tandem with other organisation, with the crucial aim of making the public aware of the importance of zoos in conservation and their necessity to protect and conserve the wild.

Booking Information

{Speaker} News

You may also like

James Cracknell OBE

Double Olympic gold medallist in rowing

Ken Hames

TV presenter and survival expert, former British Special Air Service officer

Miles Hilton-Barber

Blind adventurer who has climbed Mont Blanc and ran across the Gobi Desert

Oli France

Expedition Leander and Adventurer

Andy Torbet

Stuntman, Adventurer and TV presenter

Jim McNeill

Polar Explorer, Climate Change and Incident Leadership expert

Hari Budha Magar

Army veteran turned record-breaking mountaineer

Andy Pag

Renowned sustainable traveller whose adventures have included driving around the world in a scrap yard bus fueled by cooking oil

Dee Caffari MBE

The first woman to circumnavigate the globe, non-stop both ways round

Dallas Campbell

Former presenter of The Gadget Show

We would love to hear from you

Enquire here

Please don't hesitate to get in touch today and one of our experienced agents will get back to you.

Contact Form [CTA]

The Speakers Agency
Steven Bartlett, entrepreneur and keynote speaker
Browse By

Name

Helen Lederer, comedian, awards host and actress who is best known for starring in Ab Fab.
Browse By

Annual Events

Simon Reeve, adventurer and after dinner speaker
Browse By

Category

Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, diversity campaigner, keynote speaker and human rights activist
Browse By

Topic

Proudly Supporting
An image of the logo of Child Bereavement UK, the chosen charity supported by The Speakers Agency
Read More About Our Support

Child Bereavement UK supports families and educates professionals when a baby or child dies or is dying, or when a child is facing bereavement.

Our former Managing Director Sylvia Tidy-Harris is one of their national Ambassadors and we are proud to support this great charity.

Stay In Touch

To stay up to date with the latest news and developments at The Speakers Agency please subscribe with your email below.