When Halls Gap Zoo owner Mark Treweek learned the Victorian government was promising to build a new wildlife veterinary clinic in his region, he made it an offer.
If the government was serious, he would give it a parcel of land, free of charge on a 99-year lease, where it could build it.
“We basically floated the idea of saying, ‘Here’s a piece of land you can use, I’m not going to sell it to you, I’m not going to charge you to use it, no lease fees, no nothing, there’s some land — build it’,” Mr Treweek said.
It was Easter 2025, and then-environment minister Steve Dimopoulos informed Mr Treweek the government had pledged $4.7 million to build a vet hospital designed specifically for native wildlife in the state’s south-west in the lead-up to the 2022 state election.
Mr Treweek said he made his free-lease offer directly to Mr Dimopoulos twice in person, before being referred to other government representatives.
“There’s been no response since,” he said.
In October 2025, the government announced it would spend $2 million to create a new wildlife hospital at the Kyabram Fauna Park, run by Zoos Victoria, about 300km away from Halls Gap Zoo’s free land offer.
In the same announcement, it offered $50,000 in one-off grants for shelters in south-west Victoria.
At the same time, the government’s online information about the 2022 promise was updated to remove any reference to south-west Victoria.
The Victorian government did not address questions from the ABC about the changed wording on its website. (ABC News)
Wildlife injury hotspot
Mr Treweek said building the veterinary clinic in the state’s south-west was a no-brainer.
“It is not unusual to see a half-dozen carcasses of kangaroos and wallabies in the short drive between any of our close regional towns,” he said.
Halls Gap and the Grampians were also impacted by devastating bushfires in 2024 and 2025, leading to “unprecedented” number of injured wildlife.
When animals were injured in this year’s bushfires in Skipton, they were transported about an hour by road to private practices in Ararat.
“So you’ve got other [private] vets trying to [do] a government job, which is to support the native wildlife from damaging bushfires on government land,” he said.
Mr Treweek said his closest specialist wildlife veterinary care base was 260km away at Werribee Zoo, or 230km away in Warrnambool.
“It’s pretty bad to see some of the animals that get injured, and then they have to travel so far and most of the time they don’t make it,” he said.
The Grampians is the home to the brush-tailed rock wallaby. (ABC News: Rachel Carbonell)
Grampians Wimmera Mallee Tourism, Northern Grampians Shire Council and the Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australasia all wrote to the Victorian government with letters of support for Mr Treweek’s proposal.
Mr Treweek said he had contacted the government multiple times.
The ABC approached the Victorian government this week with questions about Mr Treweek’s offer.
Only then did it reach out to Mr Treweek.
Western Victoria will go without
A Victorian government spokesperson declined to answer the ABC’s questions about changing the wording around building a south-west wildlife hospital facility.
“The Kyabram Fauna Park location offers an immediate opportunity to establish a purpose-built wildlife hospital and meet the current and future needs of a region with no existing hospital services,” the spokesperson said.
“We’re backing regional and rural wildlife carers and shelters in the south west with $650,000 for vet outreach and training to help build skills and capacity and to help carers cover the costs of treating sick and injured animals including for food, medicine and equipment.”
It is not clear why the government reduced the cost of the facility from $4.7 million.
For Mr Treweek, it is simply not good enough.
The Grampians is home to an abundance of native wildlife. (ABC News: Ted O’Connor)
“I don’t know whether they care about western Victorian … native wildlife that are getting injured or not,” he said.
“But it seems like when it gets down to the crunch no one follows through … It’s pretty disappointing.
“It just seems like they’re ignoring everything.”
