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Speaker 1: Now, the Irana Wildlife Trust Board has hit back against

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Speaker 1: the claims that some animals that are run a wildlife

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Speaker 1: park have been poorly treated. You will be aware of.

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Speaker 1: In the last few days, former staff at the zoo

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Speaker 1: have raised concerns about a number of animal deaths and injuries.

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Speaker 1: Gary Or from MPI spoke to us yesterday. He told

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Speaker 1: us that the park hasn't always been totally upfront with

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Speaker 1: them about the animal deaths.

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Speaker 2: The matters that have been raised have not previously come

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Speaker 2: to our attentions from the zoo, which ones in relation

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Speaker 2: to the giraffes, the gorilla and the auto that were

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Speaker 2: raised in the television story.

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Speaker 1: Emeritus Professor Ken Hue is on the board of the

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Speaker 1: Irana Wildlife Trusting with us.

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Speaker 3: Now, Hey, Ken, hi, Heather?

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Speaker 1: Is that fair? Did you not tell them about all

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Speaker 1: the deaths?

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Speaker 3: No, it's not fair, Heather. In fact, we have told

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Speaker 3: them about all of those deaths. We report annually to

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Speaker 3: MPI and we do that as part of pre preparation

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Speaker 3: for their annual order, and every one of those deaths

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Speaker 3: was recorded. I have had that confirmed me me personally today.

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Speaker 1: Who confirmed it to you?

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Speaker 3: That was confirmed by one of our senior staff. I

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Speaker 3: don't want to name names at the moment. You can

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Speaker 3: understand why, but I am absolutely confident that we have

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Speaker 3: reported those deaths to MPI.

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Speaker 1: Why would MPI say you haven't.

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Speaker 3: I think what happens is there's probably several parts to MPI.

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Speaker 3: They're a very very large organization, so we don't report

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Speaker 3: to the compliance part. And so you were talking to

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Speaker 3: Gary from compliance. We report to another segment of the

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Speaker 3: organization that's in a big leader or a big spreadsheet,

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Speaker 3: and it's possible he did not see them there or

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Speaker 3: he was not told about them, but certainly I have

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Speaker 3: checked and they are reported.

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Speaker 1: Ken, are you totally confident that every single one of

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Speaker 1: these deaths are not deaths that were preventable or as

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Speaker 1: a result of negligence from staff or yourselves.

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Speaker 3: Well, to me, there's I guess two main types of

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Speaker 3: death that occur at Arana. There's the accidental death, where

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Speaker 3: things occur which at the time might have been out

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Speaker 3: of our control, but with the benefit of hindsight and learning,

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Speaker 3: we may have prevented. So a good example of that

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Speaker 3: might be the recorded death of an otter that drowned,

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Speaker 3: and we know from our learning and review from that

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Speaker 3: experience that there is something that we could have done

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Speaker 3: with the gorilla under the water, and we have taken

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Speaker 3: remedial measures. So those sort of deaths, often with the

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Speaker 3: benefit of hindsight, may be preventable. We absolutely accept that

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Speaker 3: and we learn as we go. We are a learning

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Speaker 3: based organization. Then there's the other deaths through illness. Now

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Speaker 3: some of those deaths may or may not be preventable. Actually,

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Speaker 3: as you know, we have over a thousand animals there.

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Speaker 3: Many get sick from time to time and we treat

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Speaker 3: many many of them absolutely successfully, but some do die. Mahli,

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Speaker 3: the gorilla it died. We tried really hard to treat

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Speaker 3: Mahe properly and we used all of the best available

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Speaker 3: evidence at the time. What we didn't know was that

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Speaker 3: Mahale had a bacterial infection which was absolutely one hundred

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Speaker 3: percent new to science. We could not treat Mahali at

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Speaker 3: the time because we did not know that was the situation.

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Speaker 3: So there are always those sorts of incidents, and we

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Speaker 3: work really hard because animal welfare is absolutely paramount to irana.

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Speaker 1: Are you guys getting blowback.

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Speaker 3: Yes, we are, and you know it's hard to take

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Speaker 3: and we've got nothing to hide that. We work really

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Speaker 3: hard with MPI, with the general public, and with all

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Speaker 3: of our sponsors and others to do a really fantastic job.

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Speaker 3: And as a member of the board, I have absolute

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Speaker 3: confidence in senior management and staff of Irana to do

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Speaker 3: the right thing. And so, yes, we are getting some pushback.

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Speaker 3: We accept that, and what we're doing is being absolutely

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Speaker 3: open with what's happened in the past. We've always been open,

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Speaker 3: but we're just reiterating the process that we put it

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Speaker 3: put in place to make sure, to the best of

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Speaker 3: our ability that unavoidable deaths are avoided.

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Speaker 1: Ken, thank you for your time. I appreciate you coming

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Speaker 1: to have a chat to us as Ken Hue a

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Speaker 1: run a Wildlife Trust board member. For more from Hither

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Speaker 1: Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks.

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Speaker 2: It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio.