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:
■ 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.
■ 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.
■ Parrots kept in small, pet shop-style cages.
■ An eclectus parrot, Princess, decapitated by a wedge-tailed eagle when they were kept in the same open-flight enclosure.
■ Four feather-tailed gliders escaped from their enclosure, found dead in a rubbish bin.
■ 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.
