Wednesday, 16 August 2023

Ministers statements: Healesville Sanctuary

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Early Childhood and Pre-Prep, Minister for Environment) (12:39): I feel confident that everyone can get around this issue. It is about the Healesville Sanctuary’s new world-class purpose-built raptor rehabilitation centre, which will give injured native birds – I am looking over to my right – a second chance at survival in the wild, assisting in the recovery of a variety of raptorial birds, including wedge-tailed eagles, hawks, falcons and owls. This has been made possible through a $3.2 million investment by the Andrews Labor government, including from the Regional Tourism Investment Fund, and the very generous support of the zoo’s anonymous donors.

Flight fitness is an essential part of rehabilitation processes for raptors as they need to be able to catch their prey midair and swoop down onto the ground. The raptor rehabilitation centre is an incredibly impressive piece of infrastructure, and it will replace a temporary flight tunnel to provide a safe, peaceful environment for birds to build up their flight fitness with a continuous flight path so that they not only survive but thrive once they return to the wild.

I am really proud of the incredible work that the whole team at Healesville Sanctuary’s Australian Wildlife Health Centre do every day to support our precious native bird species. This is just one of the amazing conservation works that Zoos Victoria do across the state in addition to their wider wildlife rescue and response work, captive breeding programs, threatened species recovery programs and research projects. I cannot wait to see the raptor rehabilitation centre – it is a tongue twister – in action.