David Taylor (veterinarian)

David Taylor became the first veterinarian to specialise solely in exotic animals. Some of the zoos that he has worked for include Chester Zoo, London Zoo, the now closed Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester.

In the early 1990s he founded the International Zoo Veterinary Group (IZVG) with his partner Andrew Greenwood and the Martin Dinnes Memorial Veterinary Centre in California.

He is the author of numerous books including a number of books on cats, children's wildlife books and 8 volumes of autobiography - Titles of the autobiographies are (in no particular order) Dragon Doctor, The Patient Elephant, Vet on the Wild Side, The Wandering Whale, Next Panda Please, Going Wild, Is There a Doctor in the Zoo?, My Animal Kingdom, One by One and ZooVet.

A British television drama series, One By One, featuring a vet heavily based on Taylor and his work was made and screened by the BBC between 1984 and 1987.

Between 1983 and 1988, Taylor made regular appearances on the Saturday morning children's show No. 73. He brought all sorts of exotic animals to the show and would usually be interviewd in these segments by Andrea Arnold. Andrea's character,'Dawn' supposedly worked at Taylor's veterinary for a while. Taylor held several competitions on No. 73, including one in 1987 in which the winner went on a trip to a Madrid Zoo accompanied by himself and 'Dawn'. Subsequently, in 1984-1985 Taylor and Arnold presented their own programme on Children's ITV: 'Talking Animal', in which each episode focused on one animal.