Merging two thriving educational wildlife parks is not a job for the faint-hearted. Fortunately Chewton’s Tehree and Hamish Gordon are anything but faint-hearted and over the past six months that’s exactly what they’ve been doing.
Following an earlier decision to sell their long running Jirrahlinga Dingo Conservation Wildlife Education Centre property at Barwon Heads, the couple and their enthusiastic team have spent the last few months overseeing the physical merger of the popular coastal sanctuary with Chewton’s own Dingo Conservation Centre, which they also own.
“It’s been hard yakka,” Tehree told the Mail this week.
Shifting the entire merged operation to Chewton, they’ve relocated both animals and staff to the local educational sanctuary, and are now keen to show off recent renovations and share details about their new program of educational tours and work placement opportunities.
Supported by state government funding during COVID, the local centre has a wide range of native wildlife and a strong focus on education including a junior ranger program.
It now annually receives hundreds of requests from wildlife conservation and veterinary science students from around the world, keen to do work experience placements on site to learn more about Australia’s unique wildlife.
“We get hundreds of requests each year from places like the UK, Canada, China, Japan, the US, as well as national students,” Tehree says.
“It’s an amazing opportunity for us to work with students.
“We also work with people with special needs,” Tehree says.
“Due to personal health circumstances we decided to amalgamate and we have sold the Barwon Heads site and over the last six months we have relocated everything to Chewton.
“Some of our animals from Barwon Heads have come here (to Chewton) and some have gone out to other wildlife parks until we are ready to have them here as well.”