Zoo Farm Traditional Cache
Riptide: will try to get this fixed soon
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Our 15th and sneakiest hide
Sir Edward Hallstrom was a member of the Taronga Zoo Park Trust from 1941 to 1959, its president from 1948 to 1959 and honorary director until 1967. He believed that animals should have fresh food of the highest quality and to ensure this, in 1947 he purchased 40 acres of farm land at Mona Vale for which he paid 32,000 pounds. The land fronted Bassett Street, Mona Street and Darley Road.
Many of the previous owners – market gardeners – sold out because every time it rained their fields were flooded and in times of drought their crops dried up from lack of adequate irrigation. In a very short time Hallstrom had huge drainage ditches dug to quickly carry away the floodwaters, he added three new wells which never ran dry and installed thousands of feet of irrigation pipe to carry water to every part of the farm. Some of the Zoo Farm paddocks retained names linking them then with their former owners – for instance ‘Blackman’s Block’ and ‘Chinaman’s Paddock’.
The farm each year produced tons of green feed, such as lucerne, corn, elephant grass, banana shoots, clover, oats, sweet potatoes and carrots, all to feed the zoo’s herbivorous animals. Monkeys, tree kangaroos, elephants, giraffes, antelopes, deer, rhinos and apes were among the hundreds of animals fed. Many birds also ate the farm food and the seven gorillas at the zoo had their own banana plantation on the farm. Manure from the zoo was sent to Mona Vale to fertilize the farm.
Sir Edward had his personal sanctuary of animals and birds, the area with many koalas and at one time had nine white kangaroos, all albinos and two rare sets of white wallaby twins.
In the 1960s it became apparent that a daily diet of fresh green lucerne was too rich for many of the herbivorous animals. In addition, when the lucerne was analysed it was found to be seriously and inexplicably deficient in Vitamin E. Most of the hoofed animals and kangaroos would have been better off fed dried lucerne hay mixed with oaten hay but the situation was not resolved until the creation of the Western Plains Zoo and farms at Dubbo in the mid-1970s. Hay was made and stored there for both zoos and once this was accomplished there was no need for the farm at Mona Vale.
…Analysis of the production and transport costs had led to the conclusion that the operation of the farm was uneconomic and farming finally ceased at the end of 1976. The land was sold off in a series of subdivision sales until the final parcels were disposed of in 1984.
Reminders of the farm today are streets on the site named Taronga Place and Hallstrom Place and in Bassett Street near the bridge over the stormwater drain is a stone plinth with a plaque.
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