Meet our jack of all trades - Kona Ikinofo!

He may not wear a cape, but Kona Ikinofo has certainly spent the last 21 years making magic happen at Auckland Zoo, whether it be in the form of beautiful craftsmanship, fixing absolutely anything, or volunteering his time to take part in important horticulture projects.

Kona is a senior maintenance worker at Auckland Zoo, looking after everything from carpentry, painting, concreting, fencing and building crates. The maintenance team have to work closely with the keepers to ensure whatever they are creating will meet the needs to the animals, or when crate building, the standards of the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI). Before his 21 years at Auckland Zoo, Kona was still part of the Auckland Council family, providing city maintenance for the 20 years prior.

A jack of all trades, Kona’s favourite part of the role is using his hands, whether it be fixing things, making things or building things. His proudest moment? The beautifully crafted new wooden seats around the zoo that he built from scratch. The most challenging parts? Building things to really specific requirements, anything finnicky, detailed and time-consuming. But he loves the challenges his job can bring.

“You have to be quite innovative at times, it’s really important to work with keepers to ensure we meet requirements of anything animal-related maintenance is assisting with,” Kona said.

At just nine years old, Kona’s family moved to New Zealand from Niue, and as a child he typically tagged along. Kona is happy to call New Zealand home, but that doesn’t stop him from getting back to the beautiful island of Niue twice a year, and representing the island nation in touch footy and rugby league!

One of Kona’s Auckland Zoo highlights is when he travelled to Niue, but not to holiday, instead undertaking a massive project: creating Asian elephant Anjalee’s Niuean quarantine accommodation before she joined the Auckland Zoo family, and most importantly elephant Burma, in Aotearoa. Kona helped prepare everything for Anjalee’s arrival, and then he cleared it again after she left. Seeing the local’s wide eyes and priceless expressions as a big elephant came off a plane into the small community is a memory he will never forget.

Always ready to immerse himself in new experiences, Kona also participated in projects on Rotoroa Island installing solar power for the gannet colony sound system, and created a prototype of false nests to attract real gannets, and no surprises here – they worked!

Also quite the green thumb, Kona volunteered his time to help the horticulture team weed the pest plants at Rangitoto Island. He enjoys watching the horticulture teams’ projects and work around the zoo, often then trying to implement it at home. His conservation message for the world would be to ‘remind people that the planet is not just for the people, but we need to care for it for the animals’.

The maintenance team undertake a lot of tasks that are invisible to most people, but absolutely vital for a high-functioning zoo, and Auckland Zoo is lucky to hold on to such a valued team member for 21 years.