As the heavens opened, Premier John Brumby today unveiled Melbourne Zoo's newest addition and largest ever exhibit, Wild Sea, a world class home for seals and penguins.
w3.jpgAt the Melbourne Zoo with Environment, Climate Change and Innovation Minister Gavin Jennings, Mr Brumby said Wild Sea was the largest development in Melbourne Zoo's 147-year history.
The Melbourne Zoo is one of Victoria's greatest tourist destinations attracting more than one million visitors every year.
This new facility is a marine exhibit that brings together fur seals, fish, invertebrates and penguins.
The exhibit is among the best seal and penguin sanctuaries anywhere in the world and will attract even more visitors to the Zoo and boost tourism for our state.
The new seal pool is more than five metres deep and more than three times bigger than the previous pool.
Visitors can watch the seals from a viewing area or see them swim, dive and interact with each other in the underwater display.
The exhibit also features a new penguin pool surrounded by sand dunes that replicate the coastal habitat of Phillip Island and is the first time ever in the zoo's history, that penguins can be viewed swimming under water.
The penguin and seal pools have state-of-the-art equipment to create waves and currents for the animals to enjoy. The exhibit also includes a series of aquariums that house a number of Victorian fish species offering an insight into Victoria's marine life, including Port Jackson Sharks and Fiddler Rays.
Visitors to the exhibit get a unique taste of the Victorian coastline, entering via sand dunes and a pier built from recycled wood from the iconic Portsea Pier.
The Wild Sea Project was an extremely challenging build of a technical complexity superior to projects five times its $20m cost.
The Kane Team consisting of Project Manager Steve Theisz, Contract Manager Shane Harders, Site Manager Daniel Glanfield, Contract Administrator Chris Backman and Foreman Damian Burns did an tremendous job in working closely with the design consultants, Zoos Victoria and the many other stakeholders to deliver this world class exhibit.