By JESSE GRAHAM
HEALESVILLE Sanctuary has been an unexpected benefactor of last weekend’s royal birth, after the Federal Government announced a $10,000 donation to the sanctuary as a gift to the newborn.
The Prime Minister’s Office announced the donation on Monday 4 May as part of Australia’s gift to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, to mark the birth of their new princess on 2 May.
The $10,000 donation in honour of the princess’s birth will go towards the sanctuary’s work to save the critically endangered Mountain Pygmy-possum.
Fewer than 2000 of the possums exist in the wild, and the possum is part of Zoos Victoria’s 2014-19 Wildlife Conservation Master Plan, a $30 million plan to save 20 Australian native species from extinction.
“The Mountain Pygmy-possum is Australia’s only hibernating marsupial,“ a statement from Prime Minister Tony Abbott read.
“I hope one day the princess can visit Australia and hold a Mountain Pygmy-possum herself.“
Healesville Sanctuary’s Life Sciences Manager of Conservation and Research, Melanie Lancaster, said that the sanctuary was honoured to be part of the royal gift.
Dr Lancaster said that both the donation and the public announcement would raise the profile of the possum, and help to steer the animal away from extinction.
“I think, naturally, there’s been a lot of national and international interest in the birth of the Princess,” she said.
“Any link that we have to that through the Mountain Pygmy-possum will be really useful.”
She said that the money would be used to improve knowledge of the species at the sanctuary, to help its recovery in the wild and to help fund the sanctuary’s captive breeding program, though details on where money would specifically go had yet to be decided.
The donation accompanies a cot blanket made from Tasmanian merino wool, from Launceston’s Waverly Woollen Mills. The blanket will feature the wattle – Australia’s floral emblem.
