Conservation and Profit

Conservation

and Profit Animal exhibits at the new Sydney Zoo.

Karen Sweaney welcomes the opening of the new Sydney Zoo and its commitment to support wildlife conservation and education

Western 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.

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

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expectations of institutions that hold animals. Fuelled in part by the scathing 2013 documentary ‘Blackfish’, about the life of a killer whale at a SeaWorld marine park in the USA (SeaWorld Entertainment is a different entity to Australia’s Sea World), animal attractions have come under pressure to improve practices or cease operations. As a result, cities and nations have banned or restricted wild animal circuses, with notable changes having seen the famous Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus wrap up in 2017 and SeaWorld ceasing its breading of killer whales.

As Henry Harteveldt, a tourism industry analyst for Atmosphere Research Group, explains “overall, people are more aware now of animals as living beings, not just there for entertainment, and there is more respect for animals.

“The travel industry responds to its customers.”

In the middle of last year, British Airways Holidays announced that it would stop selling tickets to attractions centered around captive animals, including zoos, while Virgin Holidays founder Sir Richard Branson said the company was cutting sales to sites with captive dolphins, whales or other cetaceans.

Before Christmas, TripAdvisor, one of the world’s largest travel platforms, announced that by 2020 it would no longer offer tickets to attractions that breed, import or capture cetaceans for public display, saying “the current generation of whales and dolphins in captivity should be the last.”

Responding to this, Dan Ashe, President and Chief Executive of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which represents about 240 major North American sites, including the National Zoo and SeaWorld, said in a statement that TripAdvisor was letting “a radical minority dictate corporate policy.”

Reflecting further confidence in the animal-based attractions and conservation sector, the owners of the Featherdale Wildlife Park in Western Sydney expanded their operations with the acquisition of Mogo Zoo at the beginning of November.

The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX)-listed Elanor Investors Group launched the Elanor Wildlife Park Fund seeded by its existing asset, Featherdale Wildlife Park, to acquire Bateman’s Bay animal attraction.

The boutique investor, known for its innovative real estate funds management business, established the fund following its purchase of Mogo Zoo, which it has renamed the Mogo Wildlife Park.

The Fund has an initial value of $49 million, and is reportedly in talks to buy more zoos and wildlife parks.

Advising that the sector has a lot of room for growth, Elanor Chief Executive, Glenn Willis told the Australian Financial Review “with the acquisition of the Mogo Zoo, we are pleased to be acquiring an iconic tourism and leisure asset with significant growth potential.

Southern NSW’s Mogo Zoo acquired by Western Sydney’s Featherdale Wildlife Park

The company says it consulted “experts on all sides of the debate” to come to its decision.

Jake Burgess is certainly mindful of these issues, but explains “it is not a possibility, it is almost a certainty that the children of today’s children, my grandkids, will not have the opportunity to see most of the animals at Sydney Zoo in the wild.

“At Sydney Zoo our philosophy is to do this through inspiration … to cause people to love, and want to preserve our animals and our ecosystems, to create awareness and then solicit behavioural change.

“Our habitats have been designed with animal welfare as a priority, (for example) we’ve used moats to create a sense of openness and space which improves animal welfare and guest experience.”

He also cites how the Sydney Zoo has invested in climate control technology both to encourage guests to visit and to keep animals cool, noting “any exhibits feature air conditioned back-of-house spaces which allow animals to rest comfortably, as well as misting stations and shade structures.”

Sydney University’s David Phalen a professor of veterinary science, comments “when more countries are becoming increasingly urbanised, zoos make people more aware of the wider environment. They may watch David Attenborough, but that’s no comparison to actually seeing a tiger up close.”

Sydney Zoo’s development has not been without legal complications, starting with its name.

Remarkably nobody at Taronga Zoo on Sydney Harbour had ever thought to trademark or obtain domain names for the Sydney Zoo brand but, threatened by the new arrival it launched legal action in the Federal Court arguing the new attraction’s name could cause confusion with its own facility.

An out-of-court agreement was eventually reached, with Sydney Zoo retaining its planned name.

It has also had ongoing legal battles with Featherdale Wildlife Park, first over its ability to offer ‘animal experiences’ – with a series of conditions imposed under the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act – and, immediately prior to its opening, over its hours of operation.

Locally, Sydney Zoo is already having an economic impact, as well as offering an employment boost.

As Jake Burgess adds “we have recruited, inducted and trained approximately 250 people from a pool of over 10,000 applicants.”

Karen Sweaney is Editor of Australasian Leisure Management.

“We look forward to applying our asset management approach to Mogo Zoo initially and, as the fund grows, to additional wildlife parks across Australia to deliver strong returns.”

Mogo Zoo was sold by Sally Padey who, having established the attraction almost 30 years ago, has built the attraction into Australia’s largest collection of privatelyowned exotic animals including giraffes, rhinoceros, zebra, tigers, two prides of lions and primates.

Well known Featherdale Wildlife Park zookeeper Chad Staples has taken control of the 200 animals on the site, now living at the attraction in Padey’s house.

Staples was also on hand when the attraction was threatened by the catastrophic bushfires of late December, when staff heroically saved it and its 200 animals from the blaze.

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