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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