'Fun' ad for new staff at zoo where keeper was killed by tiger last month deemed inappropriate

A job advertisement for a zookeeper has been labelled inappropriate by the city's mayor, fellow councillors and a leading human resources expert. The advert was looking to draw three zookeepers to join the team at Hamilton Zoo in New Zealand. It comes almost a month after much-loved Hamilton zookeeper Samantha Kudeweh was killed by sumatran tiger Oz at the zoo. The advert, which appeared on an online website for a week before it was changed after a member of the public complained, read: "An exciting opportunity has recently arisen within Hamilton Zoo for three zookeepers to join our busy and fun animal operations team!" Hamilton City councillor Karina Green was horrified when she learned of the advert.



"My honest, straight-off-the-cuff response is I'm a little appalled to be honest, and I don't consider it to be appropriate." Green said the council's steps to rectify the wording of the ad was "something at least." Hamilton mayor Julie Hardaker said she would not have worded the advert like that. "Personally I would not have advertised a job for zookeepers with that wording," Hardaker said. "As to the wording of advertisements, well again, that would be up to the chief executive to approve." But council chief executive Richard Briggs said the council had listened to the public over the wording. "We don't see this as a "good taste/bad taste" thing. We took on board some feedback and made some changes to the language in the advertisement as soon as we could."

Briggs said the advert was originally posted on October 9, and on October 15, council received a complaint about the language used. "We had some feedback from a member of the public about some of the language contained in the original version of the advertisement – specifically, the opening line. We reviewed the advertisement and made some subsequent changes. We immediately moved to change it. There can, however, be a delay between when we make the edits and when they appear on screen in front of job seekers," Briggs said. Human Resource Institute chief executive Chris Till said it was an "unfortunate misjudgment" by someone trying to get the job done. "It's not appropriate to use the word 'fun' given the circumstances in which a much loved colleague has died at work," Till said.



"I don't think it's tasteful from a human judgment point of view. I would have taken out the words 'exciting', 'recently arisen' and 'fun'." Till said job advertisements are usually placed by junior members of a Human Resource department, and that in this case there was no malicious intent. "If I had found that that had gone out I would have found a way ... to withdraw it and then put it up again with changed wording. If anybody was offended by it, I would apologise and say 'we have rectified the error and we're sorry'." Zookeeper Kudeweh, a mother-of-two was killed on September 20 while carrying out routine duties inside the animal's enclosure at Hamilton Zoo. A trust set up to raise funds for Kudeweh's family has raised over $28,000.