Thorsten Pape

What an exciting life Thorsten has had! Due to Thorsten’s fathers’ career he was fortunate enough to grow up abroad and to experience a variety of cultures, sights and animals. Born in Africa and moved to Sri Lanka at the age of two, most of his spare time was spent in the Maledives. It is there that Thorsten’s fascination of animals began to develop. Next he moved to Indonesia where he traveled to Komodo Island to visit the Komodo Dragons which initiated a great interest in reptiles. Thailand was the next destination and it had it all. Thorsten was able to backpack up in the hill tribes, and view a variety of animals in there natural habitat, and when he was not in school, you were sure to find him at the floating market handling Burmese Pythons and Gibbons. “The fact that I grew up in these developing countries is probably why I developed such a love for animals. From childhood onwards I had the opportunity to observe and interact with ‘exotic’ animals. The only difference of course, was that for me they were never exotic, they were a natural occurrence.”

Next he moved to the United States, where he attended The Academy of Art College, majoring in photography for four years. After spending many hours at the local San Francisco Zoo, he was made aware of a special college in Southern California that taught students how to train and manage animals. Immediately, he knew that working with animals for the rest of his life was what he was meant to do and graduated from Moorpark College’s Exotic Animal and Management program. After graduating, Thorsten moved to the Caribbean and became a dolphin trainer at Dolphin Fantaseas in Antigua. After 3 years he moved to Hawaii and worked at Sea Life Park as a Training Supervisor; training a variety of dolphins and sea lions. However, he missed the reptiles and decided to move back to California and again work with the reptiles that had always intrigued him.

Thorsten is fluent in English and German.

Thorsten has been featured on:

• U.S.A Animal Planets, “Moorpark 24/7”
• Europes VOX “Wolkenlos” travel channel
• Europes VOX “Tierzeit”
• Europes VOX “Tours”
• U.S.A “Strut” San Fransisco

For more information, please visit Thorsten's website at www.thorsanimaltraining.com.

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