WESTCOAST NEWS
For sale: Greater Vancouver Zoo -- needs some work
Fraser Valley attraction is on the market for $7.5 million, animals included

Maurice Bridge
Vancouver Sun

Friday, September 02, 2005

ALDERGROVE - All it takes is $7.5 million and you could be the owner of a 48-hectare zoo in the Fraser Valley that is home to about 800 animals.

That's the asking price for the 35-year-old Greater Vancouver Zoo on 264th Street in Aldergrove, formerly known as the Vancouver Game Farm.

Listing agent Michael Kennaugh of Bowmac Realty in Richmond has had the listing for about six weeks, and in that time he's had "three or four" serious inquiries, all of them local, but no offers.

He said the zoo will be sold as an operating business, with all the animals. The property is in the agricultural land reserve, and also has a heritage designation, precluding it from being developed for other purposes under current legislation.

"It's been kind of tough to put a price on it," Kennaugh said Thursday. "The land-price part of it wasn't too bad, that's around five, but I had to phone a few people in North America who are in the zoo business to get a ballpark figure of what animals we have there, and even that's quite difficult because there are a few endangered species on-site."

Kennaugh said there are no regulatory requirements involved in transferring ownership of the animals.

He said the owner of the zoo, retired local businessman Duk-Wan Park, has specified that the zoo be sold as a going concern, rather than selling off the animals separately. He said Park is selling the zoo because he is over 70, and wants to enjoy his retirement.

Zoo general manager Malcolm Weatherston said the zoo has been a major responsibility for Park over the past decade, and he has improved many of its feature attractions.

However, he warned any prospective purchaser would have to view the zoo as a "labour of love" and would need deep pockets.

"[Park] has put more money in than what was the revenue," Weatherston said. "In the tradition of a philanthropist, he's always wanted the zoo to run well."

Julie Woodyer, campaigns director of Zoocheck Canada, a Toronto-based national zoo watchdog body, said Thursday Zoocheck is concerned about the sale of the zoo and the fate of its promise to build a new home for its baby hippo, Hazina, who is currently housed in a barn by herself.

Woodyer also believes the zoo will be difficult to sell as an operating business.

"Zoos don't generally make money," she said. "In fact, most of them lose money, so selling this zoo as a business enterprise in its current form seems fairly ridiculous in my mind."

She said she would like to see the animals placed in good surroundings and said there is a large market for animals for private collections.

Peter Fricker, communications director of the Vancouver Humane Society, said Thursday the society has long had concerns about conditions at the zoo.

"We think they have a terrible record, going back as far as their treatment of Tina the elephant, who was there for 30 years in very poor conditions," he said Thursday.

The zoo's decision in 2003 to sell the aging Indian elephant to a zoo in Ontario prompted public outrage. In the end, Tina was sent to an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, where she died less than a year later of a congenital heart defect.

Fricker said the humane society also has other concerns.

"They've had four hippos die prematurely over the years and there have been a number of promises made to improve things at the zoo, including the hippo facility, and those promises haven't been kept," he said.

mbridge@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2005