Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment Barbara Creecy. Picture: Supplied
Pretoria - The National Zoological Gardens of South Africa is to be repositioned and used more as a site for important scientific research, said Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment Barbara Creecy.
Speaking during her visit to the National Zoological Gardens known as the Pretoria Zoo, Creecy said: “We all understand the historical role of the zoo being a place for edutainment, we have a lot of visitors and schools that visit.”
The purpose of her visit was to review the facility’s contribution to biodiversity, research, scientific services, animal welfare, conservation, tourism, and public awareness.
Joined by board members of South African National Biodiversity Institute and management, Creecy expressed a wish for the facility “to provide research that would support us against our battle with wildlife crime”.
School visits, she said, were used to raise awareness amongst children of the importance of biodiversity and conservation.
She highlighted that edutainment would still be a component for children in urban areas that might not have the opportunity to see animals in the wild.
“What we have to explain to them (learners) is why conservation is important,” she said.
Creecy used her visit to also view the state-of-the-art equipment used for the development of marker-based systems to advance genomic (DNA) research at the Centre for Conservation Science.
The minister also visited the animal hospital and veterinary unit, which handled animal operations and post-mortems using high- technology equipment.
She said: “One of the things I did not know before this visit was that malaria does affect birds. With climate change and rising temperatures, we are facing a situation where malaria zones are going to expand and obviously pose a credible risk to humans.”
Pretoria News