Werribee to Disneyland » Werribee Open Range Zoo

08-04-2008

i have always pushed my belief that zoos victorias open-range property of at werribee is absolutely intrinsic to the long-term continued development and evolution of the institutions into a truly active conservation organisation.

to be so shortsighted as to sell-out to commercialism will shatter and irreparably damage my what is left of my faith in zoosvictoria and probably (so be it unfairly) my faith in zoos as a whole. it illustrates perfectly to me that zoos are leaving the "conservation age", before they even fully embraced it and have already headed back down the path of entertainment. to me that makes them a farce and i don't think entertainment is a justifiable excuse for their existence as a whole.

so to say...

would be an understatement...... if this happens, mark my words - im out. i've already got one leg firmly planted in the jungle. it wouldn't be hard for me to denounce all ex-situ conservation work as a whole.

08-04-2008

hmmm . . After patricks comments fancy circus jumps to mind. . .

08-04-2008

Does anyone know how long village roadshow has had this plan in mind???

08-04-2008

zooboy, i dont think the issue here is about designing super dooper new exhibits. the issue is a bit bigger than that. and i think when the whole issue dawns on you and any other proponents of the plan that you will see it is a lowsy idea.

08-04-2008

Do you think it would have been a lousy idea if one of the existing theme parks decided to source their own animals and build it on their own property? I'm not defending them. I'm just cuyrious. werribee should be left as it is. they could afford to do whatever they wanted without disturbing the zoo. . . and using public money to do it.

08-04-2008

sorry Jarkari i dont know what you mean?

08-04-2008

Well personally it wouldn't have bothered me for village roadshow to have an African based theme park, if they did it on their own property and started fresh. they could then do whatever they wanted, and cause less disturbance to the animals, build their rollercoasters and rides first then the exhibits then open with the animals. . . So I'm just wondering if you are dead against them having a theme park/zoo or as I think most uf us seem to be, just against the using of werribee?

08-04-2008

sorry if not making too much sense, been a very long day and week so far

08-04-2008

im opposed to this proposal on a number of levels. the first thing I am opposed to is the Weribee concept, because I feel it would compromise conservation, welfare, education, the precincts heritage, ARAZPA, everything. and there is my whole opposition to the corporate takeover of a public entity.
if VillageRoadshow proposed a new theme park, which I highly doubt would ever happen, then I would still oppose it if it was based upon animals AND it was in an area which would compromise existing State Zoos. for example, in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth or Adelaide. Turns out, yes I would oppose it. it makes no sense for State Governments to subsidise and invest heavily in zoos and then turn around and endorse developments which would threaten their viability.
Happily, the SWW vs Taronga situation has turned out OK. Taronga seems to be winning easily, and rightly so. But what would everyone say if VillageRoadshow opened up an African Safari Theme Park in Sydney which led to a steep decline in visitors to Taronga (in which the Govt has invested hundreds of millions of $) and also accelerated the decline in visitors to WPZ?
The same thing could occur in Victoria if this goes ahead. There are so many problems here, and as I said before, we resent the commercial focus of zoos. But its our State Government's policy's and economic rationalsisation that has backed them into this corner; where they have to pay their own way, educate, recreate, researchreate, conservate and scrape together money for in-situ conservation. should we be stretching them further and screwing their mandate up further by inserting commercial competetion into the market???

08-04-2008

Good points Glyn. . . One article I read that pissed me off was that village roadshow was seeking government funding for the project. . . so not only do they want one of victorias best zoos, they want victorians to pay for them do so. In my opinion it's like the government buying it's own zoo but letting someone else take the profits to spend on their BMW's and private jets

08-04-2008

exactly. and then they talk about job creation and how much money tourism will inject into the economy. but if Weribee continues on its current trajectory and remains in Victorian hands, not foreign share-holders, then it represents a better long-term investment.

08-04-2008

Cheers. . .

08-04-2008

If you were a profit focussed company would you be putting millions of dollars into exhibits that you wanted or that the zee wanted. I' not saying everything would be done village roadshows way, but there would have to be some kind of compromise and at what cost?

08-04-2008

why does Weribee need a theme park in any way shape or form? it doesnt. and it doesnt need any involvement from a Private Company to suceed either

08-04-2008

and zooboy, your take on it is actually seemingly not much different to the corporate sponsorship of zoo exhibits that already exists.....when in fact the proposal is hugely different.
this proposal inserts a profit-orientated company into the management circle of a government organisation. therefore it would change the whole ethic of the institution and i dont agree with it. not one bit. not even if it results in some fancy new savnnah exhibit (and apparently the zoo design at Weribee is already good enough without this sort of outside meddling)