Animal exhibits at the new Sydney Zoo.
Conservation and Profit
Karen Sweaney welcomes the opening of the new Sydney Zoo and its commitment to support wildlife conservation and education
W
estern Sydney is going through a period of significant industry developments with the Bankwest Stadium in Parramatta opened last April and the Sydney Coliseum staging its first performances before Christmas. As the region booms, the new Sydney Zoo, the first major zoo to open in the NSW capital in more than a century, welcomed its first visitors as of early December. Aiming to attract one million guests each year, the new Bungarribee Park attraction features 30 habitats across four precincts, and is home to more than 2000 exotic and native animals. Visitors to the new attraction can view more than 95 species from across Australia, South East Asia and Africa, including wombats, emus, baboons, spider monkeys, lions and zebras. It also features an aquarium and the largest collection of reptiles and nocturnal animals in Australia. Located on a 16.5 hectare site in the suburb of Bungarribee, for which it has a 50-year lease from the NSW Government, the new attraction is just seven kilometres from the Raging Waters Sydney waterpark and four kilometres from Featherdale Wildlife Park and has excellent transport links being sited close to the M4 and M7 motorways. More than six years in the making, cornerstone investors in the $45 million Sydney Zoo include former Hoyts cinemas Chief Executive Peter Ivany and the Hammon family who operate the Scenic World attraction in the Blue Mountains in NSW and BridgeClimb Sydney. The Burgess family are also major shareholders with John Burgess, who founded the Sydney Aquarium at Darling Harbour in the late 1980s, in the role of Executive Chairman while his son, Jake, is Managing Director. 28 Australasian Leisure Management Issue 137
Celebrating the achievement of the “phenomenally difficult project”, Jake Burgess commented at the time of the Zoo’s opening, that “no one has gone from a paddock to a major zoo, in the centre of a major capital city the size of Sydney before. “And having just been through it, I now completely understand why.” Committed to supporting Australian and international conservation efforts with the housing of a number of endangered species from around the world, Burgess said the new Zoo aimed to inspire change by “creating a sense of wonder and appreciation for the amazing and diverse creatures of the world”. Advising that animals around the world are experiencing “almost unprecedented species decline”, Burgess went on to say “it is the responsibility of institutions like zoos and museums to educate. “We need to promote behavioural change. We need to do what we can to try and save us from ourselves.” Populating the Zoo has included animal transfers from Singapore Zoo, the Czech Republic and zoos around Australia, which Burgess added had also been a massive undertaking. Committing to the highest standards of animal welfare, he noted “we have completed the largest single animal collection exercise ever undertaken in the world at one time, with over 2000 animals, 95 species and five international importations, including the first ever animal transfer from the Czech Republic to Australia.” With zoo attendance in Australia steadily increasing, confidence in the sector is not only seeing the opening of Sydney Zoo but the launch of the Elanor Wildlife Park Fund with the Featherdale Wildlife Park and Mogo Zoo as its initial assets. However, while attendances rise, so does the public’s
