…I only went as far as Lanark to visit my friend the storyteller Allison Galbraith and her bookcase of storytelling books. I found an excellent story about Rainbow Lorikeets and a couple of good tales from South America. As part of my residency I want to find tales for as many of the zoo dwellers as possible. The only way I’m going to manage this is to call on my networks for help. It will have to be a community effort.
The first animals I’m going to tell stories for are the zoo’s Egyptian Vultures and Turkey Vultures for World Vulture Awareness Day on September 5th. I had a meeting with one of the bird keeper and one of the hoof stock keepers to talk about the messaging for both that day and Rhinoceros Awareness Day later in September (22nd). We had our meeting in the Keith Room of the Old Mansion House in the company of the little elephant sculpture. I wonder what stories that room, and the elephant, could tell?
I’ve done well on vultures, finding an ebook on vulture human relationships over the centuries, which contains dozens of folktales from around the world, though about two thirds of the tales are from the Western Hemisphere. I’ve been reading it avidly since I downloaded it. Highly recommended for when you need a vulture tale: Carrion Dreams 2.0: A Chronicle of the Human-Vulture Relationship. I’m still working on Rhino Tales. Rudyard Kipling had a good one, I seem to recall.
See my events page for other opportunities to hear me tell: Events
Restorying the Earth 
Kipling’s “Just So Stories” and may Aesop Fables would be resources from a Western tradition.