Susan Hunt, as CEO of the Perth Zoo, has brought outstanding personal skills to her role by continuing to keep the Zoo exhibits and programmes up to date and achieving balance in what could appear to be conflicting arenas.

Considering where the Zoo sits in the context of family life with over 600,000 visitors each year; balanced against being a major centre for research, breeding and securing endangered species and implementing environmental programmes such as the new solar power generation grids means her experience and skills have to meet all those challenges for the Zoo to continue to prosper.

The Perth Zoo is an iconic institution that continues to meet the growing needs of its users and Susan Hunt is to be congratulated on managing this very well. Her stewardship will allow Perth families and its visitors to continue enjoy the educational excellence of the Perth Zoo, in an atmosphere of fun and activity, while maintaining the Zoo’s worldwide reputation for outstanding success in its breeding programmes. The Zoo’s latest success is the birth of Nakai, a white-cheeked gibbon, which is a critically endangered ape species on the brink of extinction. He is part of an Australasian breeding program for the species that Perth Zoo supports. The zoo currently has two breeding pairs of white-cheeked gibbons.

Current Zoo programmes are well integrated with the reintroduction of earlier activities like the Zoo Train – which appeals greatly to parents and grandparents of earlier generations, helping to maintain the Zoo’s popularity. You can visit the Zoo website here: http://www.perthzoo.wa.gov.au/