Halls Gap Zoo Halls Gap Zoo

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Cheers thanks for tat Hasani was from the litter of 4 I think 2 of his litter mates were handraised and him and his other sibling were raised by there mother I think?
 
I finally made it back here today after a couple of planned forays got put off. 11 months is a lifetime at Halls Gap. New developments since I had last been include:

- New giraffe yard. Still just the one but the second is expected within weeks, if all goes well. The yard looks great, takes up much of the centre of the zoo and is big enough for a couple of zebra to join the giraffes without turning it into a dust bowl. Probably about the size of Melbourne's giraffe yard (at least before they connected it to the zebra paddock next door), albeit it a different shape. The fence on one side of the main viewing area is a bit higher and more obtrusive than it could be, but that's the only criticism. At one stage we spotted the giraffe sitting down, which is a good sign that it's relaxed and comfortable with its surroundings.

- Two ring-tailed lemurs. Currently in a small-ish, irregularly-shaped enclosure next to the pygmy marmosets which is a temporary enclosure until new larger quarters are built, probably within the next couple of months. The current one will eventually become more housing for callitrichids.

- A new mesh enclosure for the serval mentioned above. This cage is constructed as two separate sections which can be connected through an overhead run. It's currently sealed off and the several is in one half, and the spider monkey in the other. This is near the brush-tailed rock wallabies in the centre of the zoo. The spider monkeys will also have a new enclosure shortly, I believe in the same general area as the ring-tailed lemurs.

- A fair bit of reshuffling has happened with the bird collection. The cockatoos are now in the aviary that once housed the spider monkeys. Their old aviary (the largest of the old run of aviaries) retains the ducks it had previously, as well as a group of superb parrots. The other runs have all been combined into a single aviary for the rainbow lorikeets, rosellas, king parrots and regent parrots, along with stilts and bush-stone curlews. And two large, new aviaries have been built in the same area. One houses the exotic parrots - blue and gold macaws, sun conures, quaker parrots, dusky lories and plum-headed parakeets. A second houses a pair of white-tailed black cockatoos, golden-shouldered parrots and an apostlebird. Other new birds on display include a whistling kite (I think, but now I'm not certain of the species) along with an Australian bustard in one aviary. A pair of nankeen kestrels has another aviary. Awesome little birds.

- The new koala exhibit, which was just a fence when I was last there, has been completed. It's near the Tasmanian devils and looks to also have a wombat at ground level. I saw plenty of evidence of wombat destruction, but not the wombat itself. Of the previous koala exhibit only the round wall remains - it will form the foundation of another enclosure, but don't ask me what for. Adjacent to the former koala exhibit is a new square colourbond yard for an echidna. It came from Healesville Sanctuary, where it ended up after being attacked by a dog in the wild. Presumably it wasn't fit for release. I didn't manage to spot it. The addition of an echidna, though, leaves platypus and numbats as the only native species of particular note that aren't at Halls Gap. Maybe one day, though both species require specialist husbandry.

- When I first went a couple of years ago reptiles were fairly thin on the ground. This has been caught up over time. Much of the entrance building now consists of reptile terraria and aquaria that are similar in size and style to a reptile hobbyist's 'furniture piece' enclosure. They include freshwater crocodile, Merten's water monitor, pig-nosed turtle, ridge-tailed monitor, Victorian carpet python, green iguana and southern angle-headed dragon. In the 'Fossil Cave' building there are exhibits for boa constrictor, black-headed python, diamond python, death adder (forget which species, but I think northern) and central netted dragon. The veiled chameleon is still in its old spot at the entrance to the nocturnal house, which also houses a carpet python. There's a juvenile saltwater croc behind the nocturnal house. The previous lizard pit has been fully enclosed to a height of several metres and houses lace monitors. Another outdoor reptile enclosure next to this has previously held red-bellied black snakes and various goanna species. Not it has water dragons, shinglebacks, blue-tongues and a sand monitor. So reptiles are fairly well represented now. The next project appears to be a larger exhibit for the perentie, which is a good thing - it's certainly outgrown its current housing.

I really like Halls Gap. It struck me today that it's kind of an 'English' zoo tucked out in the Australian bush. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to communicate what I mean by that. I'll return to this post, perhaps tomorrow, and see if I can.
 
It sounds like the zoo is even bigger and better than when we visited a couple years ago. I quite liked the zoo then, as it was probably the best private zoo that we have ever visited in Australia. The owners seemed pretty cool too. I definitely want to visit again. Nice review, by the way.
 
Pumika the giraffe transported from Monarto to new home in Victoria | adelaidenow
20 December 2012

It took seven hours, two vets, a very tall trailer and plenty of leafy greens to move this giraffe from Monarto Zoo to Victoria.

The festive green trailer - complete with red ribbon and giraffe Pumika - was a Christmas present of a different kind. Pumika, 4, who was born at Monarto, was all wrapped up and taken to Halls Gap Zoo in the Grampians yesterday.

It's all part of an Australia-wide zoo animal program, in which animals are swapped across the country, depending on their breeding status.

After a day on the road, happily munching on leaves, a very "calm" giraffe arrived safely across the border.

Pumika was reunited with his half-brother, Sumari, who had been transferred from Monarto this year.

Monarto Zoo senior keeper Mark Mills, who was on board for the ride, said he would miss Pumika - but was proud to see him go.

"He's a good giraffe and has great charm," Mr Mills said.

Zoo staff attend to Pumika after being loaded into the crate for transport. Picture: Dylan Coker

Halls Gap Zoo owner Greg Culell, meanwhile, was full of praise for the work of South Australia's zoos, in particular their work with his two new animal additions.

"South Australians should be immensely proud of Zoos SA ... they're world-standard zoos," he said.
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Halls Gap Zoo joins fight to save Tassie devils, rhinos | The Wimmera Mail-Times
1 July 2013

HALLS Gap Zoo is joining international forces to save rare and endangered animals, including the Tasmanian devil and the southern white rhino.

Deadly disease is decimating the devil and poachers have brought rhinos to the brink of extinction.

The privately-owned zoo is preparing to house about 30 Tasmanian devils.

Director Greg Culell said four free-range enclosures were being built to house the carnivorous marsupials, in partnership with the Tasmanian Government.

"This is a really important cog in the re-establishment of the Tasmanian devils, to help with the facial tumour situation," he said.

Tasmania's Parks and Wildlife Service says devil facial tumour disease has killed more than 90 per cent of the species' adults in high density areas and up to half in medium to low-density areas.

The Halls Gap Zoo enclosures are due to be finished this month, with the Tasmanian devils due to arrive in August.

Mr Culell said the zoo had spent $1 million to care for the animals.

He said that by 2017, the zoo also hoped to adopt three southern white rhinoceroses as part of a breeding program. He is working with three other privately-owned zoos to bring a total of two males and eight females to Australia.

Each of the four zoos will also work with the International Rhino Foundation and the Australian Zoo and Aquarium Association.

"It means a big new enclosure," Mr Culell said.

He estimates he will need at least two acres and an enormous steel fence to house the rhinos.

The zoo director has allocated $250,000 to the project.

"It's going to cost about $50,000 a rhino and about $30,000 to fly them over," he said. "The remainder of the cost will go towards the enclosure."

The zoo is planning to add more than 40 animals to its menagerie before Christmas, including the Tasmanian devils.

Eleven animals will arrive from New Zealand before the year's end.

Auckland Zoo will transfer two female servals and seven meerkats and Wellington Zoo will send two white-cheeked gibbons.

Mr Culell said he intended to employ another five people to help with all the new additions to the zoo in the next 12 months, one of whom started work last month.

Asked how much his plans would cost in total, Mr Culell said he could not bear to think of it.

"I'm too scared," he said.

"This place bleeds money like it's out of fashion."

But Mr Culell said visitation rates were up about 50 per cent on what they were the previous year.

"It's been one wild ride and a huge learning curve, but we're passionate about endangered species," he said.

"Certainly, with the way we're going, we'll have a really major input in regard to endangered species."
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Just found this news from back in October. Greg Cullel owner of Hall's Gap Zoo had applied for permission to house baboons, golden lion tamarins, black and white ruffed lemurs and white cheeked gibbon but was knocked back over noise concerns. Can sort of understand the baboons and gibbons but knocking back the tamarins and lemurs just seems odd.

Full article below

The owner of a western Victorian zoo says he will appeal to VCAT, the state's planning umpire, after plans to exhibit four species of monkeys were blocked by the local council.

The Halls Gap Zoo applied to the Northern Grampians Shire to set up exhibits for a white-cheeked gibbon, a hamadryas baboon, a golden lion tamarin and a black and white ruffed lemur.

Several residents raised concerns about the potential smell and screeching monkey noises disturbing the amenity of the area.

Neighbours were also worried the monkeys could escape in the event of a bushfire, but the Country Fire Authority did not raise any objections to the plans.

At a council meeting earlier this week, the Northern Grampians Shire voted against the proposal.

Zoo owner Greg Cullel is launching an appeal at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) in Melbourne to try to have the council decision overturned.

He has criticised the Northern Grampians Shire for not treating the different animals as separate planning issues.

"When we first applied for these permits we asked for the council, we sent in two separate permit applications," he said.

"We told them that we wanted them kept separate because we were aware two of the species being the gibbons could create some problems with neighbours."

Mr Cullel says there are already seven other primates on display and has questioned why the Northern Grampians Shire has said no to more monkeys.

"One of the species that we were refused for is a golden lion tamarin. The reasons for refusing it were a lack of amenity because of noise," he said.

"Golden lion tamarins are the size of a kitten and make no noise."

But Mayor Wayne Rice says the council received numerous objections from the community.

"We've got a rural living zone," he said.

"If it was in a farm zone it would have been treated very much differently and the fact that the holiday cottages are within a couple of hundred metres of the back fence of the zoo."
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Sounds a bit to me of the typical 'he/she who yells loudest' syndrome that I ran across a lot off when I worked for local council. You get one or two vocal people who constantly hrass the councillors over any little thing and the councillors bow to their wishes simply to shut them up.
 
Jabiru96 said:
-Gila monsters have arrived from Taronga Zoo (number not specified)
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Of all the Australian Zoo news you've posted today this is my favourite. Gila monsters are quite an exotic species for one of Australia's smaller zoos to obtain.

Also, thank you. Sometimes I'll go on an Australian Zoos facebook page binge but you've saved me the trouble :)
 
PAT said:
Of all the Australian Zoo news you've posted today this is my favourite. Gila monsters are quite an exotic species for one of Australia's smaller zoos to obtain.

Also, thank you. Sometimes I'll go on an Australian Zoos facebook page binge but you've saved me the trouble :)
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I though that the Australian section needed a bit of updating considering it has gone downhill with the number of posters.

And also, I think the gila monsters may have come from the clutch bred at Taronga this year: http://taronga.org.au/blog/2013-07-02/taronga-welcomes-four-new-monsters
 
As southern Australia's heat wave draws to a close today, a bushfire has swept through much of the Grampians (a mountainous region in Victoria), so far killing at least one person and threatening a number of small towns. This includes Halls Gap, which is where Victoria's largest private zoo is.

There is concern that a wind change this afternoon, which will bring cooler weather, will move the fire towards Halls Gap. As far as I know, the fire is on the other side of the town to the zoo, so if it doesn't get to the town it won't get to the zoo. Fingers crossed that the fire doesn't get that far.

Story here: Grampians Towns On Fire Alert - australia - world | Stuff.co.nz

The Grampians town of Halls Gap is being evacuated, with fears an afternoon wind change will blow fire directly towards the town.

Hundreds of residents at a community meeting were told they should leave by 3pm today (local time).

"When the wind comes through it is really going to swing around towards Halls Gap," CFA media officer Melissa Douglas said.

Emergency text messages are also being sent to those in the area, although the CFA said not all of them are getting through because of "reception difficulties".

Ms Douglas said police would direct residents and visitors to the safest route to evacuate the town.

Police have been travelling to homes and business around Halls Gap, telling people they should leave.

Stephen and Peggy Odgers said they plan to stay and defend their motel on Heath Street, close to the centre of town.

The Odgers have owned the Kookaburra Motor Lodge for three years and have already endured one natural disaster - floods in 2011.

Mr Odgers said all of their guests have left and they had cancelled their bookings for Friday night.

But, he said, most of his neighbours will ignore the recommendation to evacuate, having successfully fought off ember attacks in the 2006 fire that ravaged the region.

About 11.30am, Mr Odgers said the smoke over the mountains was becoming worse.

"Our last resort is an area of bare land in the centre of Halls Gap but we're hoping we will not get to that," Mr Odgers said.

The fire in the Northern Grampians was over 11,000 hectares in size about 10.30am (local time).The CFA warned that by 3pm (local time) it may be too late to leave...
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The fire is now 2km from the township of Halls Gap, and 8km from the zoo, according to live news just aired on Channel 7 here. The fire is expected to impact Halls Gap tonight, although the zoo itself is thought to be relatively well protected given its position, so will hopefully be OK.

A reporter was at the zoo, and interviewed the owner, who has been clearing breaks and doing all he can to protect the zoo. If the fire does reach the zoo, his plan is to drive into the dam and take as many animals with him as possible, the orange-bellied parrots being a priority he mentioned.

UPDATE: According to some sources (in the UK and NZ), Australian TV news has reported that several animals, including giraffes, have been evacuated from the zoo, but I can't find any evidence of this online from Australian media, so don't know if its actually true.
 
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zooboy28 said:
UPDATE: According to some sources (in the UK and NZ), Australian TV news has reported that several animals, including giraffes, have been evacuated from the zoo, but I can't find any evidence of this online from Australian media, so don't know if its actually true.
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it is from a "tweet" from Nine News Melbourne saying the animals including giraffes are being evacuated. That is the only source I can find and it is where the NZ media is getting it, so it may be a "jumping-the-gun" sort of tweet.
 
The zoo owner was just interviewed on the 6pm news. "A wind change saved the zoo". The fire is still out of control but apparently the zoo is out of danger at this time.
 
As zooman said above, very good news from Halls Gap Zoo's Facebook page this morning:

To all our supporters & friends of the Halls Gap Zoo, thank you for your wonderful support and well wishes. At this stage we're completely unaffected by the Northern Grampians fire.

The fire is approximately 4.5km away, and hopefully today work on containment lines north of Halls Gap begins.

We will keep you updated to when Halls Gap reopens, and when you can come and check up on your favourite animals
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and again this afternoon:

The Halls Gap Zoo would like to say a massive thank you to all the brave CFA & DEPI fire-fighters, as well as the countless numbers of other agencies & volunteers who continue to battle this big blaze in the Northern Grampians.

The fire did not impact the Halls Gap Zoo property, however ended up about 4.5km away.

The fire threat to Halls Gap has dramatically eased with back burning operations under way this afternoon.

We will let you know tomorrow when we can reopen to all you wonderful visitors.
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There were, however, some very negative comments left on the zoo's Facebook page last night after the TV news story. Many people were very angry that the zoo was not evacuating animals and wanted to know why they hadn't all been immediately sent to Melbourne and Werribee Zoos...
 
There is a letter on facebook condemning media reporting and the ignorent public comments. I agree with what the owner has written, particularly the media scare mongering.

We would like to personally thank the public for their messages of support and well wishes during this stressful and difficult time. That being said we would like to clarify some of the issues raised by concerned people.
Most importantly in regards to the TV coverage of Greg (myself) saying that we would select certain animals and go to the safety of the dam.
We were asked by the CFA media controller during the evacuation meeting in Halls Gap to have the media out to the zoo to explain the plans in place at the Zoo. The four TV crews were here for over an hour during which time it was explained to them ON CAMERA that we had an extensive fire plan developed in conjunction with the CFA which included fire tracks, clearing around the perimeter fence of the property to aid in halting the advance of the fire and that all the animals, where needed, have cooling systems which includes having a generator placed down at the supply pump in the event of electricity being lost.
The question was asked if we had plans in place for the worst case scenario that if the fire was out of control in the Zoo what would happen. The response to this was in the unlikely event of this outcome happening and we had to flee to save human life we would take the most critically endangered species in vehicles down to the dam. To our utter dismay the media decided to edit this and portray this worst case scenario as our only fire plan.
I will never go out of my way to help the TELEVISION MEDIA out ever again as this was the most disgraceful case of sensationalism and lies you can imagine, while I was spending all this time with the media my time would have been much better spent with preparations but I was doing the CFA Media Division a favor.

At the time when the media was here on Friday we only had Allison and Jacinta feeding animals and checking water sprinklers etc, Yvonne handling the office and Greg taking the media around on the property as the other staff members had decided to leave due to their own personal fire plans and other staff members that did ring and offer to come out could not do so due to the road closures.
On the day and overnight we had 9 CFA fire trucks patrolling the property as well having a CFA quick fill pump set up at our dam for all the fire vehicles in the area to use to fill up if required. I had spent well over 40 minutes grading a track into the dam for the CFA to use on the day with our Caterpillar loader which was also offered to the CFA incident controller for use that day anywhere in the district for use in fire control.

Some people have questioned as to why we didn't evacuate the animals in the 4 hour window that we had from when the evacuation order was given.
Firstly if we did attempt to catch and box up these animals in 44 degree heat they would have died from heat stress.
Secondly how could we transport them out when the roads were closed by the police and as you all know the advice given is not to travel during a fire event.
Thirdly think seriously of the logistics, how would it even be remotely possible for 4 people to catch and move them and where would the animals go, the other zoos couldn't accept them for quarantine reasons.
Fourthly should I have forced the other staff members to stay against their wishes and then commit a crime by driving on potentially dangerous roads?
And most importantly we have a fire plan developed over many years and that has cost many $thousand to implement that, in this case, worked perfectly and will do so in the future.

There have been a lot of comments in regard to the zoo being located in a bushfire zone. The reason the zoo is successful is due to its beautiful location and can these people tell me where in Victoria there is a 100% safe location. This business has operated for 31 years and has never been directly impacted by a fire so just maybe it is in the correct place.

A big part of our day was also spent constantly patrolling the zoo watching out for ember attack and we had two vehicles equipped with fire carts/pumps to put out fires started by these as well as wet hessian sacks/buckets etc to smother them in case we couldn't get a vehicle close enough.

As I am writing this our neighbours from across the road just walked in to thank me for building a fire break around their home with earthmoving equipment on Friday, they were away in Melbourne at the time and have just arrived home to be surprised by the work that had been done in their absence by other neighbours and myself.

To have read the hate filled and negative comments posted about ourselves and our decisions is incredibly disheartening as between Yvonne, myself and our staff we have dedicated the past 6 years of our life to endangered species breeding and are fully committed to the welfare of both our animals and life on this planet in general.

We fund all of our conservation work out of our pockets and receive NO government funding.

Lastly rather than posting ill informed and judgmental postings why don't you offer support to people going through an incredibly stressful time and who could be faced with having to make heart wrenching decisions at a time that their own life could be under threat.

We cannot express enough our heartfelt gratitude to the CFA and DEPI fire crews who continue to fight these and other fires, as well as being incredibly proud of all of our dedicated staff.

Yours
Greg Culell
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EDIT: Posted that at the same time Monty!

Its good that Halls Gap Zoo has been able to get their message out in the face of all the negativity directed their way. Would be good if this got picked up by newspaper media. I'm very glad that the fire didn't reach Halls Gap and the Zoo.
 
I am glad the HGZ is out of danger's way and am in doubt that at any point during the recent fire scare they did just would needed to be done.

It is most disheartening and a revealing truth upon the media and their reporting of events what crevices they sink to only with sensationalist features / goals in mind. Lo(o) and behold the ignorance of most readers that eagerly digest without making up their own minds first - and not believing every word in print - and than shouting the drivel down the internet highways ..
 
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