Adopt a lion cub for $500

Press, 22 September 1977, Page 19

Adopt a lion cub for $500

For $5OO a year you could become the proud “parent” of a lion cub. You could have la camel or a water buffalo (for a little less. ■ If you had got in quickly on Orana Park’s “adopt an animal” scheme you could have taken into your family a Barbary sheep, but it is now too late, as the sheep has gone to a good home. The animals remain at Orana Park but their adopters pay a yearly fee to help towards their feeding costs. While $5OO for a lion cub, $3OO for a lion, $250 for a camel, $l5O for a donkey, or $75 for a wallaby might j seem steep, the director of the park (Mr P. Garland) said it cost $4OO a week to feed some of the animals.

The adoption scheme had become popular overseas. One Australian wildlife park was charging up to $5OOO a year for certain animals. Mr Garland said the per-

sons, firms, or organisations adopting the animals were named on a plaque placed on the animal’s enclosure. The public was unable to feed the animals as they were all on specialised diets — some of the special pelleted food cost $250 a tonne — but this way the “parents” could contribute and help develop the park. Since the park was a charitable trust all donations were tax deductible, said Mr Garland. The park’s good breeding record showed the animals were being fed well. “So far all the adoptions have come from individuals,” said Mr Garland. “The Barbary sheep and some lions have gone.”

Animals which would be

I available for adoption soon included kangaroos, emus, I axis deer, ostriches, otters, j spider monkeys, gibbons, and •I cockatoos.