About Us
The Zoo of Queensland (ZOQ) is a not-for-profit conservation and educational charity organisation and the forefront of a new era in global conservation, environmental education and sustainable operations.
ZOQ is more than just a zoo. Carefully crafted for over 20 years, this global movement was created to stop the current mass extinction, restore the world’s biodiversity and conserve the future.
Our time is running out. We are in the midst of mass extinction and nearing the collapse of life on our planet due to human exploitation. Our vision propels us to be a leader in integrating advanced conservation strategies, pioneering educational initiatives and sustainable operational practices.
ZOQ’s unique, sole focus on globally threatened species of fauna and flora sets us apart, making us not just a sanctuary for threatened wildlife, but by using the full potential of zoos and aquariums as biobanks of threatened species, fundraisers for global conservation programs, leaders in environmental education and ambassadors for the health of our planet; truly a zoo of a new generation.
At the heart of our organisation lies the Urgent Priority Management (UPM) program. This groundbreaking, smart program updates itself accordingly to achieve and maintain the highest efficiency in our mission.
To stop the current mass extinction, restoring the world’s biodiversity and conserving the future is a monumental, if not the greatest mission of all. But even the most advanced, successful and effective organisation cannot achieve this alone. In this utmost crucial time, we need to unite as a species and pull together. We have gotten so far in our existence because of our intelligence. However, to keep existing, we require wisdom. Thus, ZOQ’s mission is everyone’s responsibility because we are all in this together!
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It is highly professional scientific conservation, educational, and non-profit organisations that do vital work in saving the world.
The Thylacine
Thylacine was the one of the largest marsupial carnivores and the last remaining species of the Australian megafauna. A truly magnificent, breathtaking yet, mysterious and secretive animal. Thylacine greatly suffered due to human invasion that eventually ended up in its incredibly sad extinction. Firstly, the colonisation of indigenous Australians introduced dingoes around 5 000 – 10 000 years ago. The solitary, ambush hunter could not compete with highly successful pack-hunting of the dingo. And so, Tasmania became the last refuge for the Thylacine. The arrival of first settlers, deforestation, livestock and persecution settled the fate for this incredible predator. And so, the 25-million-year history of the Thylacine family came to the end. Africa has their big cats, Europe and North America have their bears, South America their jaguars, Asia their tigers and Thylacine was the apex land predator of Australia. The human-induced extinction of the Thylacine is one of the worst crimes in human history. Only amplified by the supposedly last wild Thylacine that was captured and put in a cage in a zoo, where it died from stress and weather exposure. Hence, we chose Thylacine as our emblem animal to represent the mistakes of the past, wisdom of present times and a better future!
Gastrolobium coriaceum
This strikingly beautiful Australian shrub from the pea family, has most probably the most incredible story of all plants in the world! Gastrolubium is an extremely toxic plant containing monofluoroacetate, a building block for the 1080 poison. In the time of early settlers, this plant was abundant across southern parts of Western Australia and where it grew too densely, farmers didn’t often clear the land for their livestock. Thus, this plant helped to establish protected areas. This beautiful plant is extremely poisonous to any introduced species, however, the native wildlife developed high levels of immunity. And if that wasn’t enough, any introduced predator such as the fox, cat, dog, etc, can eventually die from feeding on the native wildlife that has been feeding on Gastrolubium. And so this “deadly protector” has been creating a safe haven for Australian native wildlife against introduced animals such as rabbits, livestock, humans, foxes, cats, etc. Sadly, this plant has found itself on the list of threatened species. This incredible success conservation story of an ongoing battle is the reason why we chose Gastrolubium to be our emblem plant to represent our flora conservation efforts. Many zoos and other conservation organisations focus predominantly on conservation of animals but we cannot have fauna without flora. Hence, The Zoo of Queensland will equally focus on conservation of fauna as well as flora.
