Sharon Matola (June 3, 1954 – March 21, 2021) was an American-born Belizean biologist, environmentalist, and zookeeper. She was the founding director of the Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Center, a zoo which was started in 1983 to protect native animals that had been used in a documentary film in Belize. Matola graduated from New College of Florida in 1981 with a degree in biology. Early life Matola was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 3, 1954. Her father was a sales manager for the National Brewing Company and her mother was an administrative assistant. She showed great interest in animals and concern for their welfare from an early age. After graduating from high school, Matola enlisted in the United States Air Force, in which she received jungle survival training. She then studied Russian at the University of Iowa before transferring to the New College of Florida in Sarasota, Florida, from which she received a bachelor's degree in biology in 1981; while at the college, she studied fish taxonomy during a trip to Belize. After college, she became an assistant lion tamer at the Circus Hall of Fame before attending graduate school to study mycology. She left graduate school for a job as an exotic dancer in a traveling circus in Mexico, hoping to do biological field work during the day before dancing at night. Belize Zoo Matola's job in Mexico brought her to the attention of filmmaker Richard Foster, who hired her in 1982 to care for 20 animals being used in the making of a wildlife documentary film. When shooting of the film was completed, she was left to decide how to dispose of the animals, by then habituated to humans and unsuited to release into the wild. On a whim, she decided to care for the animals by starting the Belize Zoo, hung signs out on the road, asked a nearby restaurant to coax patrons into visiting the zoo, and waited to see who would show up. She soon realized that what Belizeans knew about Belizean wildlife at the time was often more myth than fact and that they were unaware that damage to the Belizean rainforest threatened the populations of Belizean animals. With the blessing of the Government of Belize, which could not offer financial support, she began raising money from environmental groups to build and support the zoo. By 1996 the zoo was home to