19/10/09

2008-09: Looking Back on the Financial Year of Milestones

It was a year of milestones for Victoria's three great zoos in 2008/09.

Healesville Sanctuary celebrated its 75^th birthday with a bumper threatened species breeding season. The most successful season on record, the Sanctuary welcomed new Tasmanian Devils, Mountain Pygmy Possums, Helmeted Honey-eaters and Orange-bellied Parrots.

On 8 February 2009, nearly a quarter of the animals at the Sanctuary were evacuated because of the Black Saturday bushfires. For the first time in its history, the Sanctuary closed its doors to visitors. The Sanctuary served as a triage point for injured wildlife during the bushfires with the Australian Wildlife Health Centre treating thousands of injured native animals.  

Werribee Open Range Zoo welcomed its 300,000^th visitor and nine African Wild Dogs became part of the Zoo family as they moved into a new award winning African-themed exhibit.

Melbourne Zoo celebrated 40 years of education excellence by welcoming 154,000 students through its gates. On the 23 December the Zoo gave a very special Christmas present to some of Victoria's most disadvantaged with the Mission Australia Family Day. The Zoo threw open its doors to 2500 people from migrant, refugee and disadvantaged backgrounds. There was also very happy news from the Zoo's elephant family with the announcement of Dokkoon and Kulab's pregnancies.

To find out about the 2008/09 year in review, take a look at Zoos Victoria's latest annual report. 

Zoos Victoria Annual Report 2008 - 2009 ( 4.5 MB )

Zoos Victoria Annual Report 2008 - 2009 Financial Addendum ( 3.4 MB )

Zoos Victoria Annual Report 2008 - 2009 Life Sciences Addendum  ( 1.3 MB )