History
The park was founded by Eric Worrell in 1948 at the Umina Beach Aquarium. In 1959, it was renamed Australian Reptile Park and moved to North Gosford.
A second move occurred in 1996, to Somersby, adjacent to Old Sydney Town.
Just past midnight on 17 July 2000, most of the main park building was destroyed when a faulty electrical wiring caused a fire. Park staff helped fire crews, but ultimately the building was lost along with most of the hundreds of reptiles and frogs that had been maintained in the building. With a lot of work from the staff, and support from the city and from other zoos around Australia, the zoo was able to re-open its doors on 9 September 2000, just over seven weeks after the fire.
As of 2010, the Park remains the sole supplier of snake and funnel-web spider venom to the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL) for the nation's anti-venom program. Over its 60 year history the park has assisted in saving over 15,000 lives.
Read more about this topic: Australian Reptile Park
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“To summarize the contentions of this paper then. Firstly, the phrase ‘the meaning of a word’ is a spurious phrase. Secondly and consequently, a re-examination is needed of phrases like the two which I discuss, ‘being a part of the meaning of’ and ‘having the same meaning.’ On these matters, dogmatists require prodding: although history indeed suggests that it may sometimes be better to let sleeping dogmatists lie.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)