Native animal deaths at sanctuary
January 27th, 2008 Posted in Pets Guide SEVERAL deaths and staff complaints about the neglect of animals
at the Healesville native fauna sanctuary have raised serious
concerns about its management.
An investigation by The Age has uncovered many troubling
incidents at the 74-year-old sanctuary, amid claims that commercial
imperatives were too often placed ahead of animal welfare.
The revelations follow the weekend’s disclosure by The
Age of allegations of abuse and neglect at Melbourne Zoo,
particularly the stabbing of an elephant.
Among incidents raised by Healesville Sanctuary staff was the
death of a four-month-old short-beaked echidna that was taken to
Phillip Island by a keeper attending the V8 Supercars meeting last
month.
The echidna was kept in a vehicle and a hotel room as
temperatures rose above 30 degrees. It died the next day.
An autopsy by Zoos Victoria attributed the death to heart
failure and an existing condition, but the RSPCA said the echidna
should never have been removed from the sanctuary.
“Why was an echidna taken to a motor race? It’s not a domestic
animal, for God’s sake,” Victorian RSPCA president Hugh Wirth
said.
Zoos Victoria senior veterinarian Helen McCracken said keepers
often took animals home at night to maximise care.
Ms McCracken said the animal was left in an air-conditioned
hotel room in a climate-controlled Esky.
In the past four years, concerns have been raised by staff about
the welfare of animals and the acquisition of animals for marketing
and public relations purposes.
These included:
%26#9632; Karak jnr, a red-tailed black cockatoo and Commonwealth
Games mascot that was removed from the nest and hand-reared for
media opportunities. The practice of taking dependent chicks from
their parents is opposed by the Bureau of Animal Welfare
guidelines, except in extreme circumstances.
%26#9632; Several other dependent chicks, including three eclectus
parrots and a yellow-tailed black cockatoo, were purchased from
private breeders to be hand-reared for the Parrots in Flight
attraction.
%26#9632; Parrots kept in small, pet shop-style cages.
%26#9632; An eclectus parrot, Princess, decapitated by a
wedge-tailed eagle when they were kept in the same open-flight
enclosure.
%26#9632; Four feather-tailed gliders escaped from their
enclosure, found dead in a rubbish bin.
%26#9632; Fifteen finches starved to death after being denied
access to food.
When former prime minister John Howard announced in 2004 that
the endangered south-eastern red-tailed black cockatoo would be the
official Commonwealth Games mascot, Healesville Sanctuary was quick
to recognise a marketing opportunity.
Leaked documents reveal sanctuary management planned to take a
four-week-old cockatoo from the nest, to be hand-reared for media
opportunities around the Games.
But concerned staff notified the Bureau of Animal Welfare, whose
guidelines oppose the practice of taking dependent chicks from
their parents.
The documents reveal that former Healesville curator and now
Zoos Victoria acting chief executive Matt Vincent assured the
bureau that the chick would not be removed.
But about a year later a second chick was taken from its nest
and named Karak jnr. The bird was claimed as a success story for
the sanctuary’s breeding program for the endangered cockatoo and
photographed with numerous athletes and dignitaries.
But documents show that, in fact, the Healesville red-tailed
black cockatoos are not an endangered Victorian bird but a separate
subspecies from central Australia.
Mr Vincent confirmed this, but said education about conservation
was more important than being purist about a subspecies. “Karak jnr
was and still is to this day an ambassador for the
environment.”
He said he could not recall giving the Bureau of Animal Welfare
a guarantee that the bird would not be removed from the nest. Mr
Vincent said it was common practice to take young chicks from their
parents in zoos and it was not unethical.
He confirmed staff had contacted the Bureau of Animal Welfare
over the eclectus parrots kept in small cages.
“We did discuss that issue with the bureau and we all agreed
that those birds would benefit from additional space, and they were
moved.”
Mr Vincent described the decapitation of the eclectus parrot by
a wedge-tailed eagle as a terrible and tragic accident and said the
sanctuary had taken steps to ensure it would not happen again.
He confirmed four feather-tailed gliders escaped from their
enclosure and were found dead in a rubbish bin. Mr Vincent
attributed this to human error and said a keeper had forgotten to
close a hatch, which led to the animals’ escape.
Dr Wirth said he believed management at Healesville had gone
badly awry in the past decade. He said domestic animals received
more legal protection in Australia than native fauna.
“It’s about time the whole issue of wildlife and cruelty were
sorted out. Australian animals need to be protected rather than
gawked at,” Dr Wirth said.
Mr Vincent said the sanctuary had never been in better
shape.
He said it had built a new wildlife health centre for injured
animals, platypus enclosure and had expanded its commitment to
protecting endangered animals such as the helmeted honeyeater and
mountain pygmy possum.
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