Talking to the animals ZOOKEEPER'S AMAZING BOND

It's been a wild ride and one Christine will miss on her tamer new chapter

- Kasia De Vydt-Jillings

For 44 years, rain or shine, Christine Tintinger woke up, put on her uniform and went to work as a zookeeper at Auckland Zoo, ready for whatever the day had to offer.

In that time, she's experienced it all, from watching a baby orangutan's birth and being a companion to tea party chimpanzee Janie, to featuring on the popular television show The Zoo and travelling to Sumatra to see primate conservation in the wild.

As she retires this year, Christine sat down with the Weekly to talk about her impressive tenure.

"I'm lucky to have worked in a place that has given me so much pleasure," enthuses Christine, 65. "The zoo is like a little microcosm of life. There are births, deaths and marriages. Amazing, happy things and sad things, and things that come out of leftfield you never saw coming. But you deal with what's in front of you and move on because other animals are relying on you."

This get-it-done attitude has served Christine well from her first days on the job as a 21-year-old in the ungulates (hoofed mammal) section, looking after giraffes, deer and antelopes.

"It's a very physically demanding section, but I'm the sort of person that just gets on and does it," she explains. "I can visualise my younger self raking in the hot sun, thinking, 'I have achieved what I wanted to and look at little old me right where I wanted to be.""

Christine's ambition to become a zookeeper started as a teenager, inspired by prominent British conservationist and TV presenter Gerald Durrell's animal books.