TARONGA Western Plains Zoo has been suspended from selling animals after it misled the public about the sale of endangered antelope to a member of the Shooters' Party lobbying for the right to hunt them.
Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show the zoo made none of the contractual safeguards it claimed to have implemented to protect the 16 blackbuck antelope from being hunted on Bob McComb's proposed game reserve. Instead, the sale contract stipulated the zoo accepted no responsibility for the animals after they left Dubbo.
Internal correspondence shows the animals were sold to Mr McComb for less than half their value and had been bred for the sale after the zoo's population dropped to a historic low. While the zoo maintains that a senior veterinarian inspected Mr McComb's property before the sale, there is no mention of the assessment in the zoo's correspondence and no record of a report being prepared.
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