Colors of Global Wildlife: Exposing Racism at the Infamous Animal Park
Global Wildlife Center’s reputation as a family-friendly animal park is special. It’s a place where children and adults alike watch and feed exotic animals in excitement. Unfortunately, these guests never get to see the true colors of Global Wildlife.
Ken Matherne, owner of Global Wildlife Center of Folsom, La., has been accused of propagating racial bias in the hiring process. Global Wildlife is already suffering from many other allegations of misconduct stemming from what is described by former employees as a toxic workplace culture.
Many residents of South Louisiana are familiar with the Global Wildlife Center as a place where visitors can interact with exotic animals from around the world. Over the summer of 2019, however, New Orleans’ WWL News published three articles and videos discussing alleged wrongdoing at the center, including allegations of animal abuse, misuse of funds and even employees being sexually assaulted by the facility’s owner, Ken Matherne.
More recently, several anonymous sources have come forward claiming to have witnessed acts of racial profiling in the Global Wildlife Center’s hiring process. Although several of these sources preferred to remain unnamed, they are all confirmed to be former Global Wildlife Center employees.
One source stated, “When I was working in box office one day, around October or November of 2018, this guy came in and asked to get an application for Global. Back then it was done in person and not online. When he gave me the application after filling it out he also gave me his resumé. I had to bring the resumé and application back to the managers.” Before she was able to deliver the resumé, however, she was stopped by one of her coworkers.
“Before I got to the manager’s office I had to go past the head office personnel who asked what I was doing,” the box office worker continued. “When I told her that I received a resumé she asked to see it. She read some of it out loud, how he studied zoology overseas and had interned in Africa.”
Both employees agreed that the new applicant was more than qualified for a position at Global Wildlife. The source continued by saying, “After hearing that I said,’Wow he would do great here.’ And the office lady said, ‘Yea he’s got great experience, maybe over qualified. Was he cute?’ And I said ‘He was a good looking black guy.’ Immediately after she said, ‘Oh no, we don’t hire black people. Kenny [Matherne] doesn’t like them.’ I was just in shock.”
Although she felt there was little she could do, the source made sure to share the information with her coworkers. “A couple of days later, a lot of the staff was eating lunch in the breakroom with me and I told them what she had said. Everyone got upset, some said ‘what do you expect, he’s racist’ and some even cried. After we talked about it and how wrong it was, we all went back to work,” the box office worker said.
Word of this spread around the workplace, and eventually came to the attention of Global Wildlife’s management. Unfortunately, according to employees working there at the time, managers did not react in the way they should have.
The source went on to say, “About a week later I got called into the office by the general manager at the time, and she told me not to tell anyone that the office lady said that, it would upset staff and the daughter of the owner, who was helping out around the center. She said ‘we wouldn’t want that to get back to Maci [Ken Matherne’s daughter] about what was told about her dad.’”
Even though this incident allegedly occurred over a year ago, the source is still very upset about it. “The whole situation was horrible,” she concluded. “That man would have been great at his job there but was just tossed to the side because he was black.”
The box office worker specified that she had worked at Global for around three years, having left in June of 2019. In her time working there, she said she only had four African American coworkers who she believes were all hired in May of 2019.
Importantly, this was after a major turnover in Global Wildlife’s upper management that saw almost every member of the managerial staff replaced. The source said that, prior to the turnover, she had only one non-Caucasian coworker, a Native American girl named Megan Thompson who worked as one of Global’s tour guides.
Megan Thompson, the Native American employee mentioned by the anonymous box office worker, was also working at Global Wildlife the day the alleged racial bias was brought to the attention of the staff there.
Thompson said that she was among the many employees who were upset when they heard about this incident. “A group of us were in the break room,” she said, “and it was brought up how I was the only visible brown person at Global. They poked fun at me being Global’s token brown person.”
“Then [the box office worker] brought up that it was a shame that the guy who had just turned in an application wouldn’t get hired,” Thompson continued, “and when I asked why she mentioned how she had brought his application to the office and [the person working there] read the name and asked if he was hot.”
“[The box office worker] said yes, he was if you’re into black guys,” Thompson went on, “and [the person working in the office] said, “oh no, we don’t hire black people,” and threw his application away while laughing.”
Thompson, concerned about these events, spoke with one of her managers. “I was not the original person to bring it to the manager’s attention,” she said, “but they did not address it until after I talked with [management].” After voicing her concerns, she was called into the manager’s office alone.
“Everyone had heard about it,” Thompson recalled, “but management chose to address it one by one.” She said that several other employees were called in to speak with managers before she was, but “each of them were told not to mention anything to me about the meeting.”
Recounting her meeting with the general manager at the time, Brittany Ricks, Thompson said, “Brittany started out the meeting by stating how she was surprised by what a great worker I was and that everyone was telling her how much they liked working with me. Then went into stating that she is by no means racist, and that Mr. Ken [Matherne] is not racist or prejudice either, also mentioning that he is just very conservative and old-fashioned. Another point she made was that the gentleman whose application supposedly got trashed was looked over, and he was called for an interview due to his credentials.”
Although her managers were trying to reassure Thompson, what was said next had the opposite effect. “After that,” Thompson said, “[Ricks] went into stating that the reason they haven’t hired any African American people is because it’s ‘known’ that the majority of the time, they are not a friendly group nor very hard working, and would most likely not enjoy handling the responsibilities that are asked while working at Global.”
Thompson went on to say that several other managers made a point of apologizing to her personally, including Ken Matherne’s daughter, Maci. The managers assured Thompson that they did not encourage prejudice, but she was not convinced.
Although this was the most serious offense she witnessed, Thompson said there had been undertones of racial prejudice before. “Overall,” she said, “I didn’t feel like I was singled out because of my race.” However, Thompson also said, “It didn’t feel too good to know that Britany wasn’t confident in my ability, regardless of how much other managers said I was a good worker.”
She also didn’t always appreciate being reminded that she was the “token brown person,” but admits she also joked about that. She went on the mention that “I was the only female allowed to go to [Ken Matherne’s house] to bring Ken his mail and groceries because I ‘wasn’t his type,’ so I wouldn’t have to worry about being harrassed.”
Thompson also specified that, having worked at Global Wildlife for a full year, she never had any African-American coworkers, and although some of her coworkers were of mixed ethnicity, “You’d never know unless you asked them. I didn’t have any non-white coworkers if you just go by outward appearances,” she specified.
Although these relatively minor incidents had occurred, Thompson said the discovery of alleged racial bias in Global’s hiring system was what prompted her to quit her job there. “What was supposedly said and how it was handled led me to the decision to leave,” Thompson concluded.
Lauren Hunt, another tour guide who left Global shortly after the alleged incident occurred, said that she worked there for over two years starting in early 2016. During that time, Hunt said that she never had any African-American coworkers, and that the only non-Caucasian coworker she had was Megan Thompson.
In addition, Hunt made several further allegations. She stated that Ken Matherne has direct control over the hiring process at Global Wildlife, citing the circumstances surrounding her own hiring as evidence.
Hunt said, “My father and Ken Matherne have a mutual friend. When I mentioned that I was looking for a job, [the friend] told me to apply at Global. I was hired pretty much immediately. The same day I turned in my application, I was hired.” Other employees have to undergo a rigorous selection process involving multiple interviews before they are eligible to be hired.
Hunt also made allegations that a similar event to the 2018 incident may have occurred in September of 2016. “An African American woman came in with her mother and turned in an application,” Hunt recalled. “It was also trashed.” This event has yet to be confirmed by another source.
Finally, Hunt made references to Ken Matherne’s history on social media, saying, “Everyone knows Ken used to use the n-word all the time on his Facebook statuses. He would never use the ‘hard r,’ but that doesn’t make it acceptable.” Many of Ken Matherne’s Facebook statuses that may have contained inflammatory or racially insensitive remarks have been deleted.
Another former Global Wildlife employee, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that she had worked at Global for over four years. In that time, she said she had a total of around 10 non-caucasian coworkers, but that all of the African American coworkers she had were hired in 2019. Britany Ricks, the manager at the time of the 2018 incident, was fired on January 17th of 2019; all of the African American employees would have been brought in after she was fired.
The new General Manager, Jimmy Zamin spoke about this incident saying, “I was not the GM during that time last year. I don’t know anything about that time, but I will look into it.” Zamin was promoted to the position of General Manager sometime in March of 2019, shortly after Brittany Ricks was fired.
Zamin has said he will investigate this incident further, but is sure that this situation could not have happened at Global. He commented saying, “I am now the GM and I work within the law. I myself am a minority Iranian from the Middle East. They hired me and other minorities of color and sexual orientation.”
Although Zamin’s time as General Manager has seen several African-American employees hired, it appears that he may harbor some racist sentiments as well.
The anonymous box office worker recalled an incident shortly before she left her position at Global Wildlife. Two African American members of the operations staff (responsible for groundskeeping and maintenance) had taken a small boat into the fish pond of Global’s visitor center to fix the fountain there.
“I had gone to Jimmy to tell him I wouldn’t be able to work one day,” the source said, “and he was laughing at them out there on the boat, saying how he knew they wouldn’t be able to swim.” The box office worker believes Zamin was clearly making a racist remark.
Though Zamin claims there is no racial bias at Global Wildlife, this allegation certainly disputes that.
The office worker who allegedly made the initial inflammatory comment was contacted, but chose not to comment. Although Brittany Ricks, Maci Matherne and Ken Matherne were reached out to, none of them were able to be contacted at the time of writing.
If these allegations are true, then it becomes clear that Ken Matherne’s Global Wildlife incorporates prejudice and racial bias at its highest level. The hiring process is tainted and the turnover rate is disturbingly high. Dissatisfied and angry former employees have revealed the true colors of Global Wildlife.
