Taronga Zoo buys farmland to create an ecosystem for endangered species

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Taronga Zoo has successfully bred endangered native Australian animals for years but it now has a new vision on how to make them at home in the wild. The Taronga Conservation Society has bought more than three thousand hectares of old farmland in northern New South Wales and plans to transform it into a safe haven for threatened species - including koalas, platypus, quolls and regent honeyeaters. It's the first time Taronga's expanded its footprint since it established the Western Plains Zoo 50 years ago.

Transcript

00:00This parcel of land in the Nandewal range near Bingara is more than a hundred times

00:07the size of Sydney's Taronga Zoo and was once pristine habitat for wildlife.

00:14Now in a world first, the Taronga Conservation Society wants to restore it to its former

00:19glory.

00:20We're really creating an ecosystem, an ecosystem that can support over 35 threatened

00:25species.

00:26Up to a million seedlings will be planted to re-establish critically endangered box gum

00:31woodland decimated by land clearing along the east coast.

00:36Protecting what's left is simply not enough.

00:39Right now we're seeing species decline despite the protected forests that we've got in place.

00:46So we need to create forests, we need to create habitat.

00:50Animals born through Taronga's breeding programs including koalas, platypus and regent honey

00:55eaters will eventually find a home in the wild unfenced site.

00:59What we're doing is thinking about as we restore the habitat, what species have the potential

01:05to naturally recruit to come back to the site versus what might need some help that we might

01:10actually bring from one of our zoos.

01:12There are only about 300 of the critically endangered regent honey eaters left in the wild, but the

01:17breeding program here at Taronga has been hugely successful.

01:20Just a few months ago keepers released almost 70 of the birds into the bush in the Hunter.

01:26Australia has one of the most shameful records in the world.

01:28We have the highest level of extinctions.

01:31What this does is turn this around.

01:33It gives us hope that we can do better.

01:35Taronga hopes it's a blueprint for future sites that could eventually restore two million

01:40hectares of habitat.

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