CAPTIONS TO COME:
By Kath Gannaway
BADGER Creek Hall was packed for a celebration of the life and times of Kevin Mason on 18 July.
“He is still alive, and well, but we thought it was time,” reassured the invitation from his Healesville Sanctuary colleagues.
Surrounded by friends, family and colleagues, some going back decades, there was the sense that Mr Mason’s retirement after 50 years at Healesville Sanctuary was very much the end of a special era.
He was 20 years old, good looking and just weeks away from marrying his sweetheart Marion Barber, when he moved from a dairy-hand job on Vern Mullett’s farm on Badger Creek Road to a job as an animal keeper at the Sir Colin MacKenzie Sanctuary for Australian Flora and Fauna, across the road.
It was the start of a career with Australian wildlife and people he describes as a great adventure – and a privilege.
“The connection there has been unbelievable … greatly appreciated,” he said, conceding retirement (such as it is) was a concept that was going to take a bit of adjustment.
That connection started at Badger Creek Primary School, which he attended with Marion, who also worked at the Sanctuary in the 1960s.
He recalls growing up with the Fleay family, when David Fleay was director and would bring animals over for nature study sessions.
Locals had free entry to the Sanctuary in those days.
In 1960, when he started, Mr Mason was one of eight permanent staff and his wage was the equivalent of $33 for a 12-day fortnight.
“I started as a keeper, then went on to headkeeper, assistant curator, special projects and customer relations,” Mr Mason said of his career path, but that is just a time-line.
The real story is of a lifetime of building and sharing knowledge, of being the face of the Sanctuary for groups as diverse as school students and nursing home residents to film and rock stars, visiting state dignitaries and royalty, to the most influential people in the world of zoology.
Among his contributions to wildlife and the Australian wildlife experience was the groundwork for a national accreditation program for other institutions.
His early work on the animal rounds was at the heart of his dedication to the job and he has amazing stories to tell with his own and others’ interaction with wildlife, both in the wild and in captivity.
Many of the programs and services which are integral to the Sanctuary and to its reputation as a leading wildlife organisation have Mr Mason’s stamp on them. The Friends of the Sanctuary Guides, the animal rescue, and the history archives, which he started 20 years ago, and has developed into an irreplaceable historical resource.
In a job where he has walked and talked with hundreds of celebrities, he finds the names hard to recall … Eartha Kitt and Dolly Parton, are two, Dutch royalty.
It is when he talks about his connection with people like himself, whose lives revolve around the love of animals, that he has the best and clearest memories.
People such as David Fleay, and naturalist Gerald Durrell, and special animals such as Jess the wedge-tailed eagle and Chook the Lyrebird who was hand-raised in captivity at Healesville.
“Working with the raptors was a very special time,” he said.
“You hear of animals bonding for life and eagles are one of those animals.”
He formed a very special bond with Jess over many years and recalls the tenderness of their morning greetings when he would stroke Jess’s back and in return the huge eagle would groom his hair and chew around his ear.
He tells of being scolded and ostracised by Jess one morning, when he dared to speak to a human animal first.
“Just getting to understand animals like that, first hand, to me was a very humbling experience and I think a very privileged experience to be able to do that,” he said.
He has legions of such stories built up over 50 years of work, which he could only have dreamed of as a youngster sitting at a desk learning about wildlife from the great David Fleay.
Along the way, he has gathered an army of admirers whose testaments on the Sunday at the Badger Creek Hall spoke not only of his professional contribution to Australian wildlife, but of the love and respect he has within the zoo and wider community.
What now?
Mr Mason will continue working on the history archives as a Sanctuary volunteer. “It will be sad not to be involved with the animals or visitors as much, I’ll miss that tremendously,” he says. “But it is still like home to me.”
