New Taronga Wildlife Hospital to Help Heal, Protect and Teach

Construction on Australia’s first ever wildlife specialist teaching veterinary hospital has now begun at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo.

The new $80-million state-of-the-art hospital is set to replace the current facility, which has been playing an important role in wildlife care since the 1970s.

The new Taronga Wildlife Hospital will expand the zoo’s critical rescue and rehabilitation work by delivering new surgical, rehabilitation and recovery facilities to cater for hundreds of animals per year.

According to Cameron Kerr AO, Taronga Conservation Society Australia Chief Executive, Taronga’s wildlife hospitals in Sydney and Dubbo already treat a variety of animals, now they are just getting facilities to help them even more.

“Taronga’s Wildlife Hospitals in Sydney and Dubbo treat approximately 1,500 sick, injured or orphaned native animals for treatment and rehabilitation a year, caring for a range of wildlife from marine turtles to echidnas, possums, sea birds, snakes and everything in between,” said Kerr.

“The new Taronga Wildlife Hospital will allow our expert veterinary team to care for and protect even more of our precious, native animals, and inspire future conservationists and veterinary practitioners to protect Australia’s unique species,” Kerr continued.

Taronga Wildlife Hospital to be “a truly unique facility”

The new facility is also going to be a dedicated specialist teaching hospital, which will further enable widespread training of wildlife carers, students, and veterinary practitioners.

“Taronga’s new wildlife hospital will be a truly unique facility as Australia’s first wildlife specialist teaching hospital,” said NSW Premier Chris Minns.

The facility will also work to provide even more protection of Australia’s unique biodiversity against increasing natural disasters. The Black Summer Bushfires of 2019-2020 affected billions of animals, including koalas, platypus, and critically endangered amphibians, all of which were treated by Taronga’s hospital team. The fires and their devastation demonstrated the need for a new wildlife hospital.

“As natural disasters become more common, veterinarians and vet nurses are increasingly being
called upon to rescue and rehabilitate severely impacted wildlife,” said Penny Sharpe, Minister for the Environment.

“This facility will not only give us the tools we need to rehabilitate our wildlife, it will also allow for us to share critical knowledge with wildlife carers all over the state,” Sharpe states.

Some of the things included in the new facility are a pathology lab for onsite analysis and testing, Australia’s first Zoo Nutrition Centre dedicated to managing the diets of the zoo’s animals, public viewing galleries through which zoo guests can safely watch animal health checks and other veterinary procedures, and so much more.

Premier Chris Minns said, “Once opened, this new hospital will allow specialist vets to deliver treatments, surgeries and rehabilitation for our native species – and families will be able to come to watch them in action doing what they do best.”

The new hospital is being funded by the NSW Government through a $40.7 million investment, with another $40 million being raised through philanthropic donations.