Joel Tatum has had a busy and varied career as a producer, director, writer, and zookeeper. He is also a self-proclaimed "pet-shop junkie" who checks out the local zoo and pet stores when he visits a new city. In his capacity as a zookeeper Tatum has worked with many animals ?{ chimpanzees, snow leopards and mountain tapirs, to name a few. He also pioneered remote central lowland areas of Papua New Guinea for Tim Werner of Conservation International, assessing infrastructure needs to support ecotourism, and he has just completed an operant conditioning program for three black rhinoceroses.
In conjunction with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, he hosts in his private aviaries endangered lories (fruit-, pollen- and nectar-eating parrots) from the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. One of his primary interests lies in helping bring people and nature closer together, by means as simple as helping a pet-owner understand his dog better or as complex as changing someone's point of view on conservation.
