COMMUNITY
CALLING FOR change For Zoo Member Jack Ryding, a pledge to recycle phones during last year’s lockdown has given his passion for primates a purpose.
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Wallace
n term three last year, as students across Melbourne were in the throes of remote learning, 10-year-old (who was nine at the time) Jack Ryding seized an opportunity to help one of his favourite animals. “My school shared a link to the Melbourne Zoo website and the ‘They’re Calling On You’ campaign,” Jack says. “I wanted to go a bit further, so I started collecting phones.” Jack got to work making posters, asking people to donate their unwanted devices, which his mum Mia then circulated on social media. By January this year, he’d collected 36 phones. Connected by his newfound passion, Jack enjoyed a behind-the-scenes encounter with the resident gorillas
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Meet Jack – which strengthened his love for the primates. “I’ve got a big interest in monkeys and apes, especially Orangutans,” Jack says. It’s their close relationship to people that makes him determined to protect them. “They’re basically humans,” he says. Now that Jack has caught the conservation bug, he’s keen to do more. He plans to start gathering phones again and will be urging his friends to get involved, too. “I say to them that it’s not only good for the gorillas, but it’s also fun seeing how much you collect along the way,” he says. “Once you collect the phones and hand them in, it’s a really good feeling because you know that you’ve done something good.”
Above: Jack Ryding. Clockwise from top left: Western Lowland Gorilla; Vervet Monkey; Western Lowland Gorilla; Orangutan.
IMAGES: JO HOWELL, ALEX STORER
WORDS Beth
