MORE THAN WELCOME - Nat HIll Manager East Coast Nature World Part 2 - 14.04.24

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back. It's both this morning, and we're joined by
Natalie Hill, the wildlife a manager from East Coast Nature World.
You've been in the industry of tourism for a long time.
How have things changed over time? Is it all the same?
Have things progressed?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah? I think so. Like look, even chatting to some
of the old timers that used to come on the
True North, they were always like, wow, man, I wish
these opportunities there when I was around, like looking for
jobs and work, and so to think back to the
opportunities that they didn't have and what we are now

(00:34):
going to be moving into, I think the opportunities are
just going to be more diverse and just greater opportunities
in terms of hospitality and tourism. So yeah, I just
think wash this space and the industry has changed a
little bit over time. Because looking back on my career
from when I was young at courumb And Wildlife Sanctuary,
you know, at a seventeen year old, I'd be doing
koala photos, you know, seventy odd people lining up, and

(00:58):
I think now being a manager at Nature were sort
of put a flip side on that and going Okay,
we don't want the masses. We just want to create
connection with wildlife and people, but do it in a
way that supports the animal welfare side of things and
also creates exclusiveivity. People want to do something that no
one else gets an opportunity to do, so I think

(01:21):
rather than you know, snorkling the Great Barrier Reef with
two three hundred other people, you are looking for tourism
things that are smaller, unique, bespoke, something that maybe you
could even create yourself. So with that gives rise to
like so many different opportunities. And you know, if people

(01:41):
think up an idea of a cool tour or something
that they think is really cool, even in their local area,
they could be like, people might want to see this,
Let's give it a go.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Have you found over time that people's attitudes towards things
like zoos or like how animals are treated has changed
and progressed.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
One hundred percent? So I think the perception of zoos
is still pretty poor. There's a lot of education that
still needs to be done in terms of I suppose
reputation of zoos because most people think it's just an
animal stuck in a cage, where nowadays with the industry,
the industry body is called CZAR, which is Zoos Association

(02:20):
and Aquaria and they sort of govern a lot of
the zoos and they basically manage people's perceptions as well.
Most of the wildlife that are in zoos now are
a part of a breeding program too for educational purposes.
Most of the time too, it can't be released back
to the world, so they have had an injury of
some sort and the only other option for them would

(02:42):
be to be euthanized. So instead of being euthanized, they're
there for educational purposes to really tell the story. And
that's where Nature World where sort of that bridge between
the scientific community. You know, people that are in science.
There's amazing science out there, and majority of the people
that do come to Tasmania still don't even know what's

(03:03):
going on with the Tasmanian Devil and why they can't
see it out there in the wild. And I think
we sort of break it down for them and put
it in Layman's terms of what's actually happening. So that
educational side of wildlife parks, sanctuary zoos, it's really important
for tourism and so Nature World we see ourselves more
as an educational facility for Tazzi wildlife and connecting people

(03:26):
to nature and that way they're more likely to conserve
them in the future.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, excellent. We're going to pop a pin in it
for there for the moment. We'll come back, we'll talk
a little bit more. We're talking with Natalie Hill, the
wildlife manager for East Coast Nature World. This is your
more than welcome