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Katie Woolf spoke with Former Territory Wildlife Park Zoo Keeper Greg Mayo · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And now there has been quite a bit of discussion
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: in recent days, you'd have to say about the Territory
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Wildlife Park and claims by the Country Liberal Party that
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the current government is looking at selling it off and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: making changes out there which would eventually see it either
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: sold or moved. Now joining me on the line is
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: a former zoo keeper, as I understand it, out there
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: at the Territory Wildlife Park, Greg Mayo is his name.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Good morning to you, Greg.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning to you.
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  Speaker 1: Listen, Greg, thank you very much for your time this morning.
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  Speaker 1: I understand that you worked out at the Territory Wildlife
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  Speaker 1: Park well for quite a long time.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, twenty twenty years. I retired two years ago, but
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  Speaker 2: certainly a big chunk of my life was a Territory
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  Speaker 2: Wildlife Park.
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  Speaker 1: Mate, what are your concerns at the moment or you know,
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  Speaker 1: what do you think is happening at the moment? Is
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: this political game playing or are there serious concerns about
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: changes out there at the Territory Wildlife Park.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: As far as the park is concerned, it's about it changes.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: The Territory Wildlife Park has really struggled to be effectively
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  Speaker 2: budgeted for at least the last fourteen years. I can't
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: speak about last two years accurately, but certainly before then,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: every year we would have a budget allocation and because
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: of the size of the operation and the significant staff
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: would put that's required, it was very hard to ever
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: meet budget, and conpark managers tried very hard to meet budget,
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  Speaker 2: but it was always topped up. But what's happened is
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  Speaker 2: it's never, as far as I know, Treasury has never
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: effectively looked at the cost of running the Territory Wildlife
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  Speaker 2: Park and actually given it a suitable budget. So for
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  Speaker 2: fourteen years the budget hasn't changed. Now, there can't be
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: too many organizations in the country with staff costs going
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: up slightly certainly consumables and contractors prices all going up
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  Speaker 2: to still be able to meet a same budget in
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  Speaker 2: fourteen years. And so then when I've heard that they
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: were shutting down significant part of the park, I thought
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  Speaker 2: the community needs to know about this because there is
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  Speaker 2: a huge amount of community support for the Territory Wildlife Park.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: People feel it as their own. You know, there's a
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: yearly path available so people can pay once and then
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: they come and visit. And over the years that people
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  Speaker 2: would come ten fifteen twenty times a year just to
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  Speaker 2: enjoy a certain part of the park.
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  Speaker 1: Great and so greg from your perspective, what changes are
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: underway at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: What I've been caught is there's several areas that are
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: going to be closing. The Buffalo Trail. An interesting thing
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: about the Buffalo Trail is about three between three and
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  Speaker 2: four years ago, significant investment was put into upgrade it
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  Speaker 2: because historically it had been closed before for budget cups,
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  Speaker 2: and there was a huge effort to return it because
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  Speaker 2: they felt buffalo was such an iconic animal at the
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: top end, even though they're introduced, people love to see buffalos.
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  Speaker 2: So that's been closed and I think it was somewhere
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: around one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was spent on
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  Speaker 2: that exhibit, say around four years ago. Wow, the Rocky
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  Speaker 2: Ridges and other area that's closed. It's a large rock
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: mountain that has the news, although I may have heard
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: from somebody else that they've actually gone already. And some
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: black waller rooes, which is actually the only place in
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: the world that you can see black walllerories. It's one
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  Speaker 2: of our iconic macropod species. It's endemic just to the
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  Speaker 2: Northern Territory. INGOs is also closing, you know, certainly an
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  Speaker 2: iconic animal of Australia, and the one that concerns me
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  Speaker 2: most though because of my association with it, is the
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: entire monsoon forest. Now that includes eleven walk past Avery's
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  Speaker 2: which are world class. There Averies are built thirty years
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: ago and they still are world class. They've got elevated
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  Speaker 2: floor last viewing people can see the birds that are
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  Speaker 2: great view. It's sheltered so they're out of the sun
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  Speaker 2: and par After you walk past those eleven averys, you
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  Speaker 2: enter a huge dome Monsoon Avery, which as I understand,
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  Speaker 2: is actually the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. And inside
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: that Avery, which is about twenty meters high and fifty
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  Speaker 2: meters in diameter, there will get an experience of being
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  Speaker 2: in the monsoon forest with all the birds that live
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  Speaker 2: in the monsoon forest. But once you leave that avery,
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  Speaker 2: you've got seven hundred and fifty meters of elevated boardwalk
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  Speaker 2: which takes you through a patch of monsoon forest. And
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  Speaker 2: Mom's Forest is so important. It's actually the only habitat
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  Speaker 2: that is specific to the top ends. So northern Northern
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  Speaker 2: Territory in northwestern Australia. The other habitats that have depicted
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  Speaker 2: wetlands and they're found in many other areas of Australia,
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  Speaker 2: and also tropical savanna which is found right across the
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  Speaker 2: top of Australia. Though monsoon forest is the most specific
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  Speaker 2: habitat that should be so important to be interpreted up
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  Speaker 2: here in the Northern Territory.
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  Speaker 1: Great, what's going to happen with all of those birds
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  Speaker 1: in that monsoon forest?
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  Speaker 2: Listen? So there's certainly techniques in zoological institutions to dispose
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  Speaker 2: of surplus birds, but we're talking potentially several hundred birds
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  Speaker 2: now the first instance, that normally offer to other zoological
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  Speaker 2: institutions around the country, and some of them will probably
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: be taken up there. There may be some that are
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  Speaker 2: considered possible for release and that will be the best
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  Speaker 2: options for that hat to happen.
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  Speaker 1: But so could some of these birds be put down?
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  Speaker 2: Listen? I don't know. I'm not sort of involved in
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  Speaker 2: that management part of the park anymore, obviously, and certainly
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: that would be an absolute last resort. The people there
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  Speaker 2: love their animals. Territory Wildlife Park is like a family,
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  Speaker 2: and certainly with a family to meet for twenty years
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  Speaker 2: and even when they pop in every now and again.
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  Speaker 2: Now the people want to have a chat to you know,
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  Speaker 2: it's a real family and they're so dedicated to delivering
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  Speaker 2: a quality experience for the visitors, from the guides to
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  Speaker 2: the zoo keepers that apparently a lot of the talks
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  Speaker 2: have been cut back to and that was one of
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  Speaker 2: the things that made Territory Wildlife Parks so different to
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  Speaker 2: most other parks in the country. They love to engage
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: with visitors and I'm sure you've been there over the years,
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  Speaker 2: Katia and then enjoyed some of those presentations and people
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  Speaker 2: for really important when a keeper or a guy is
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: standing there talking to them and making them feel special.
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  Speaker 2: And the keepers and guys love interpreting their animals. They
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  Speaker 2: want to tell them everything special about these animals.
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  Speaker 1: Great. That must make you feel incredibly sad that it's
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  Speaker 1: changing in this way, and like you said, it is
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  Speaker 1: a real territory icon.
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  Speaker 2: This is absolutely Katie, and that's why I've come forward,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, I'm not bound. Unfortunately, the people at
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: the Wildlife park are and been gagged if they can't
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: say anything. I feel very passionate about the Wildlife Park.
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  Speaker 2: I gave twenty twenty of my years to it. I've
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: been in the zoo industry for forty years. I'm rarely
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: experienced in it, and to do the last twenty years
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  Speaker 2: a Territory Wildlife Park, it was a culmination of a
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: very enjoyable work life.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I am going to have to get ready to wrap up, greg,
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  Speaker 1: but I know that the Northern Territory government has allocated
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: five point four one two million to the Territory Wildlife
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  Speaker 1: Park in the twenty twenty one twenty twenty two budget.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Is that enough?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. This is what you've got as a park
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  Speaker 2: that's thirty years old, so a lot of the infrastructure
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: like air conditioners and that type of thinging. They're starting
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: to see the end of their life, maybe even to
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: the second time in their life. And in order to
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  Speaker 2: I've been in the zoo industry for a long time
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  Speaker 2: now with zoos, what they need to do is they
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: need to bring on a major exhibit about every two years.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: This is well documented in the zoo world, and about
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  Speaker 2: every year they should be doing two or three major upgrades.
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  Speaker 2: Long time since sinner things happen. The Territory Wildlife Park
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  Speaker 2: shoots well above its weight the reality because they have
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  Speaker 2: a very limited budget and people they scround. They do
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  Speaker 2: everything to try and make it the best possible thing
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  Speaker 2: they can. But it's time for the government to look
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  Speaker 2: seriously at what a cost to run the Territory Wildlife
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  Speaker 2: Park effectively, and by shutting a third of the past
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  Speaker 2: is not the way to do it. I sort of
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  Speaker 2: thought if they were more proactive and said listen, we're
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: going to do this, this, this, this at the park,
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  Speaker 2: you know, and fixing up tall at blocks and pars
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  Speaker 2: and that type of thing is important, but that doesn't
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: bring visitors in. They're worrying about getting more visitors, but
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: what brings visitors in is bringing on a major new
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: exhibit and not shutting them down. And you know, the
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  Speaker 2: Monsigne Forests, I know for a fact there's actually still
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: in a good state of repair. It doesn't need a
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  Speaker 2: lot of work. There's a few trees that need to
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  Speaker 2: be removed for the safety of the visitors walking along
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  Speaker 2: the path. But the reality is all the facilities were
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: built very sound years ago when they were built, and
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  Speaker 2: it's still in a good state of repair. And that's
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  Speaker 2: how they need to do it. They need to the
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: proper funding yep. To fund it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Greg Mayo, we are going to have to leave
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  Speaker 1: it there, mate. I really appreciate you having a chat
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: with us this morning. I think that it is absolutely
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: essential that Territorians know exactly what's going on and the
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: fact that it does sound as though it is underfunded,
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  Speaker 1: and also you know, the closure of some of these
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  Speaker 1: phenomenal exhibits and areas that so many people listening this
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  Speaker 1: morning will have such fond memories of. I think it's
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  Speaker 1: really important that you've come forward and had that discussion.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Yep. And what we need is the community out there.
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  Speaker 2: The community've always strongly supported the Territory Wildlife Park. Well,
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  Speaker 2: here's the time where they really need to step up,
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  Speaker 2: so you know, talk to the people you need to
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  Speaker 2: talk to make sure that this doesn't happen. And Territory
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  Speaker 2: Wildlife Park, it's a funding it deserves to become once again.
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  Speaker 2: All still is the iconic terrorist attraction of the Company
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  Speaker 2: of the Northern Territory.
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  Speaker 1: Greg Mayo, thank you so much for your time this morning.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: We'll talk to you again soon.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: A pleasure, Katie, thank you, thank you.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: That's Greg Mayo. There a former zoo keeper out there
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: at the territory wild Live Park Well for twenty years,