Shifting stories about a chick's death cost this zookeeper her job, Authority rules
Employment Relations Authority member Eleanor Robinson ruled on 4 August 2026 that a Hamilton Zoo keeper's shifting accounts of a chick's death justified her dismissal.
The zookeeper, who cared for the zoo's birds and reptiles from 2019, volunteered with colleagues in March 2021 to hand-rear a batch of guinea fowl chicks as a training exercise. She asked to take charge of the project on a day when her team leader and other senior staff were rostered off.
That morning she brought the chicks' incubator into the zoo and later reported that she had plugged it in and switched it on straight away. By mid-morning one chick was dead and five others were in distress, after the incubator's temperature climbed to nearly 50 degrees Celsius, well above the required 35 degrees.
She initially told her team leader the incubator's thermostat had simply been knocked. Her colleague, the team's second-in-charge, later told the team leader she had actually said the incubator was not switched on until well into the morning. When the team leader raised the discrepancy with other staff, they backed the colleague's account. The zookeeper did not correct her own version until directly confronted five days later, telling him it "wasn't necessarily just me."
Hamilton City Council invited her to a disciplinary meeting, alleging she had misled her team leader throughout the investigation and citing possible breaches of its code of conduct covering careless or negligent performance and, more seriously, dishonesty or misleading the council. It also pointed to two earlier incidents in 2020 involving the deaths of a frog and a parrot, and a February 2021 episode in which she had also been untruthful with her team leader, as part of a wider pattern, although no disciplinary action had followed any of those earlier incidents at the time.
Robinson found the council was entitled to conclude the zookeeper understood the incubator's operation and the need for regular temperature checks, given her experience and her decision to volunteer for the role that day. She had failed to disclose material information promptly, Robinson found, only altering her account once directly challenged. The council had carried out a fair investigation, raised its concerns clearly and given her a proper opportunity to respond, including support from her parents at the disciplinary meeting, before a manager concluded the episode had "eroded the trust and confidence that underpins the employment relationship" and confirmed her summary dismissal on 11 May 2021.
The zookeeper separately claimed she had been unjustifiably disadvantaged by the council's handling of a bullying complaint against her team leader. The Authority found she had never raised a formal complaint or approached any other manager, despite knowing she could do so under the council's bullying policy, and that an employer could not be expected to respond to concerns it was never told about.
Robinson determined the dismissal was justified and dismissed the disadvantage claim over the bullying complaint. Costs were reserved for the parties to resolve between themselves.
