About Me

Despite my name and profile picture, I'm not actually a weasel. I'm just your every day guy that likes visiting zoos and building virtual ones. 

I was born in 1993, which makes me 29 years old at the time of writing this, in the town of Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, England. I've had a fascination with animals and zoos ever since a young age, something which may have been passed down from my great grandfather who was a keen a naturalist.

I started my virtual zoo building life in around 2001 when my mum brought home a pirated copy of Zoo Tycoon (2001) from a car boot sale. I was amazed by the game as it gave me a way to enjoy zoos without having to visit them, something which was a rare treat when I was younger.

I was infatuated with the game and I soon found myself playing its sequel, Zoo Tycoon 2 (2004), in the mid-2000s. I played the game religiously and, eventually (in 2006), discovered the world of online communities and user-made downloads. This is when I first created the account "Mr.Weasel" and the avatar which I still use to this day. I wish there was a meaningful reason behind the name but it was simply a word I found funny at the time!

When the official Zoo Tycoon 2 forum disbanded, I found myself drifting through the many fan-made forums, such as (in no particular order) Gaia, Environ, Caldera Unlimited, The Zoo Tycoon 2 Round Table and Tesara. This is where I discovered a style of building which emphasised realism, pioneered by a user named markun. I adopted a similar style and have kept it ever since. I took a break from virtual zoo building in 2016 when I started focusing on other games but I came back in around 2019 for Planet Zoo.

When I build, I like to focus on realism and detail. I usually only build things you can see from a guest perspective (so I usually don't detail backstage areas, etc). I also prefer building British zoos as those are the ones I mostly visit but I will occasionally build Florida ones as they're also very nostalgic to me. Smaller zoos are kind of my "niche" as not many people tend to build those, even though they're probably the most common zoo type.

Beyond virtual zoo building, I'm actually a video editor by profession and work for a company which edits funeral services (quirky, I know). I like video editing in my spare time, as well as playing other games, mainly the Grand Theft Auto series and military shooters.