Injured or sick animals at Aussie Ark have a new place to rest and recover thanks to the team at Bayswater Power Station. The official opening of the new vet block celebrated months of hard work put in by AGL staff to bring the vision to reality.
“It’s amazing for Aussie Ark, it’s been a real game changer for us,” said Dean Reid, Operations Manager.
“Before we only had two little vet blocks up at the HQ, which is the same place our team stays when they’re working up here. The dedicated vet block means we can do things like bring koalas in and have them chlamydia tested without disrupting what is happening up at HQ.
“We can hold animals here in the new vet block for as long as we need to. Again, before we had this that was something we couldn’t easily do – it’s a key and pivotal piece of infrastructure.”
Taking animals back to HQ was far from ideal as transporting them was stressful and often impractical. The team at Aussie Ark are ecstatic, they can keep the animals separate in a safer, purpose-built area.
Aussie Ark is in the remote Barrington Tops, where access to power is very limited so the vet block has been fitted out with solar, battery and a backup generator to ensure the animals are comfortable year round.
The partnership between Aussie Ark and AGL is not a new one, and as Dean explained they help get a lot of big jobs done.
“AGL have been amazing supporters for many years, in addition all their staff get paid each year for volunteer work. They come up two weeks at a time with 10 people a day – it’s like 600 man hours of work that we would never get done.”
Mitch Seears, Head of Maintenance and Outages at Bayswater Power Station, shared that the idea to do something bigger grew from these volunteer days and realising that while the on the ground support was vital, they had the opportunity to do so much more.
“We have fitters, boilermakers, electricians, engineers, We’ve got a fair range of people that could contribute a little bit differently than just coming up and spending their volunteer days here,” he explained.
“We were speaking with the Aussie Ark team, and said, ‘how do you think we could contribute a little bit more with the skills that we have?’”
It evolved into quite a significant project that took around nine months to complete and engaged not only AGL staff but some contract partners as well.
“I think the feeling of contribution to what the cause is up here is rewarding, and to see some of the videos so far of what the team is doing, like having a team of vets come up and treat koalas for chlamydia, and then to be able to release them back to the wild, into the sanctuary, is amazing,” Mitch said.
“It all makes sense once you see the work that gets done.”
