CELEBRATE WORLD ANIMAL DAY AT SUNWAY LAGOON

Wednesday, October 09, 2019 Pooi Yee 0 Comments A⁺ a^-

The World Animal Day is an international day celebrated every 4th of October with a mission to raise the status of animals in order to improve welfare standards around the globe. This annual celebration which dates back to 1925 unites the international animal welfare movement, mobilising it into a global force to make the world a better place for all animals.

To coincide with the special day, Sunway Lagoon’s Wildlife Park – an interactive and educational zoo featuring more than 140 species-specific exhibits of exotic animals and a diverse range of birds, fish, reptiles and mammals from around the world – held a special campaign to urge you to do your part to create a more sustainable world.

In recent years, the Wildlife Park at Sunway Lagoon has stepped up efforts towards being more sustainable. Among these, Sunway Lagoon announced its support towards two of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by the United Nations. The SDG programme contains a total of 17 goals which the United Nations aims to achieve by the year 2030. It is a universal call to action, in a bid to end poverty, protect the planet and to ensure that all people can enjoy the diverse richness which Mother Nature exudes.

Out of the 17 goals, Sunway Lagoon’s Wildlife Park has, without equivocation, committed towards supporting two of these goals. These include Responsible Consumption and Production (Goal #12), aimed at ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns and Life on Land (Goal #15), which aims to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

“For World Animal Day this year, we wanted to create an experience where people of all ages can enjoy the Wildlife Park, while learning more about how they can play a role in protecting our environment. All this ties in with our commitment to be more responsible and sustainable, yet presenting a unique and exciting opportunity for the public to enjoy, especially the younger ones, because they are the future of our planet, and will take on the baton towards environmental conservation,” said Sean Choo, General Manager of Sunway Lagoon.

The World Animal Day celebrations at Sunway Lagoon’s Wildlife Park also took on an exciting yet heartwarming turn this year, when the park announced its latest project of adopting a few river terrapins from Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia as a support towards the conservation works for these freshwater turtle in the country.

“The aim of the society is to bring about the recovery of depleted wild populations of turtles, with particular reference to freshwater turtles. With the same goal in mind, we are extremely honoured to have the opportunity to work with Sunway Lagoon on this project,” said Dr Chen Pelf Nyok, co-founder of Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia.

Paradoxically, Sunway Lagoon will also be constructing a pygmy goat enclosure at Pet Village that is made out of Ecobricks. The theme park targets to produce approximately 1000 Ecobricks, made using mineral water bottles collected from the recycle bins in the park. Each Ecobrick contains about 200g of non-recyclable plastic waste. With that amount of Ecobricks, the project aims to save approximately 200kg of non-recyclable plastics trash from the landfill. The theme park aims to construct and launch the enclosure by World Earth Day next year.

Guests were specially invited to Sunway Lagoon Wildlife Park’s World Animal Day event to enjoy a host of activities and initiatives specially curated to mark this meaningful celebration. These included an Ecobrick making workshop, a take home garden workshop, meet & greet with Bani the Wildlife Park ambassador, a display by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN), and Save the Earth Pledge wall, where visitors can mark their pledge towards reducing single-use plastics.