Hamilton Zoo's half century a happy birthday for founder

Thursday, 4 April 2019

Folks couldn't get enough of Murray Powell's pheasants.

Hundreds of people from Hamilton and surrounds would flock to his Rotokauri property to marvel at his bird-raising operation.

There's something in this, he thought.

That was fifty years ago.

He's now 88 and lives in a retirement home but his life's work just a short drive out of the city remains an immeasurable source of wonder to children across the region. He doesn't get to Hamilton Zoo much these days on account of poor health. His mind is still sharp though and he has no trouble telling the stories that gave rise to one of Waikato's favourite attractions.

THE BEGINNING

In 1969 Powell and his late wife Gloria were sharemilkers on DV Bryant Estate in Te Rapa, when that came to an end the Hamilton couple pondered what they were going to do. With four kids, they needed to stay local for their schooling.

Hamilton Zoo's salmon-crested cockatoos Murray and Gloria - with Murray Powell who breed them. They are named after Powell and his wife.

While milking, Powell had continued with his childhood his love of birds and started a pheasant raising operation, so they sold off their herd of the dairy cows and brought 77 acres at Rotokauri - the land that Hamilton Zoo now sits on.

They progressed the pheasant raising operation from 1000 birds to 17,000 adult pheasants in a year along with 54,000 chicks that were transported to Christchurch for meat purposes.

Around that time, Hamilton City Council conducted a survey of what facilities ratepayers most preferred.

'At that stage there was very little for people to do in the city,' Powell says. 'It was amazing as people had come from a phase of entertaining their kids to wanting to be entertained.'

The survey results revealed that a zoo was a major thing the kids of Hamilton wanted. It opened a door for the Powells who were already having hundreds of people visit their property to see the pheasants.

'One weekend, in particular, we estimated that over 800 people went through our house and gardens and even came and sat in the lounge. At one stage I went inside and there were two old ladies in our lounge having a rest in there. The public virtually took us over as they wanted to see these masses of pheasants. That prompted us to think that maybe there was a chance we could do something.'

Powell sold off 20 acres to create some cash flow as they just had a donation box for those visiting their property - now they were able to start putting their plan into practice.

Hilldale Game Park

On December 1, 1969, Hamilton zoo was born.

It was named Hilldale Game Park after the contouring of the land it was on.

'It was hard doing it as a private enterprise,' Powell says, it wouldn't be possible today. But in those days it was possible because we won by negotiation with the council bureaucrats and government bureaucrats and a few others thrown in. We could always get there in the final. We set our goals and that is what we went for.'

The admission price for the zoo was 40 shillings.

'When we first opened the park we had an honesty box to try and get something out of it.

Murray Powell's influence on the Hamilton Zoo remains to this day with some of the birds he bred still living there.

'From the house we could watch the public come in and see them try and avoid the honesty box. Then one day we saw a lady come in and she had three little kids, she came halfway up the drive saw the honesty box and turned around and walked out. I thought there is something strange there - so in my socks, I walked down the drive and called her back and asked her what was the problem? She said we can't afford to put anything in the box so I said it doesn't matter go in free of charge.

'It was two or three days later the same lady turned up at the house with the same kids again and they had gone out on the street and sold orange drink and some of their Christmas toys. And they came to us with two pounds five that they had collected and given us as a donation.'

The Powells opened with very few animals - they had a lot of birds as they were able to obtain them easily and they were Powell's passion.

Their first foundation animal followed: a young red deer called Angus. He was a wild fawn hunters dropped off to the Powells. It was a beautiful creature yet deer were classed as a noxious animal.

'We weren't buffing the laws, we didn't exactly abide by them all the time but we never stepped right out of line. We were adamant in our beliefs that things had to change and that is what we were asking for them to look at their rules and regulations.

'We wanted to be licensed to keep that deer and be able to show the public as most of them would never have had the chance to see a deer, in those days they weren't around.

'The forestry wanted to come and shoot him and I had the backing of the deerstalkers association, so we were going to man the gate but they never turned up.'

The Powells got their way and Angus lived out the rest of his life, the next 14 years at the their property, always making sure his presence was known.

'He entertained the public the entire time, and when I say entertain he entertained, with a real roar and putting on a performance so he was quite a character.'

Murray and Gloria Powell raised cubs in their home until they were old enough to be in an exhibit.

Powell recalls another instance where he had to put Angus in place.

'We had a deer that always had fawning problems and I saw her starting to have her fawn so I got down to her in the paddock and Angus thought this wasn't a good idea. So he came to have a talk to me about it, and so I watched him coming over, and you can see in their eyes what's going to happen, they will front-foot you.

'I didn't wait to be front-footed I smacked him straight on the nose - he was shaking his nose for quite a while - my knuckle is still down - and Angus walked off and she had her fawn - it was all ok.'

The Powells' long-term aim was to obtain a full collection of wild New Zealand animals because they could not import creatures from overseas. That changed when Auckland Zoo started sharing their surplus exhibit animals.

'We did get quite a number of different species of the smaller type to start with - it was the likes of peccary and kunekune pigs - they were a good exhibit for us.

'Then along came the opportunity to get puma and jaguar cubs. They were still wet in our hands when we got them. We had quite a few of problems rearing them. We had a few sad losses in the start as we had a problem with the first milk we had for them. It wasn't sufficient as we didn't have the colostrum. So we went to the then dairy company, which is now Fonterra, we approached their lab to see what they could do and they went to work and came out with a formula for us - that formula did work.'

The cubs were reared the Powells' house, came to the zoo during the day and travelled in the car. When they were old enough they were put on show.

'It would be impossible to do today,' Powell says, 'but it worked for us and gave us an exhibit - the pumas temperamentally were all right to handle - you could go in their enclosures and they would be ok - they may scratch but they didn't attack you in any way.

'The jaguars were probably the maximum security we could keep - they were in keeping with the tigers at the zoo now - the same type of temperament - they could kill you on sight. They would get to four-months-old and that was it, we couldn't go in with them anymore. So we used trapdoors to handle them that way - but they were a great exhibit and put us up another category of a zoo - but not the top level by a longshot.'

Along with the cubs, the Powells added to their collection with giraffes, black buck, zebra and even a camel. Their early vision was to keep the zoo as open-plan as they possibly could - they didn't want to a concrete jungle.

In with the lions

Powell couldn't resist adding to his big cat collection when fate gave him an opportunity. A small family circus closed down and three lions needed a new home.

A rare day at the zoo now days allowed Murray Powell to feed the lemurs for the first time.

They found one at Hilldale.

'We were unloading them into the enclosure,' Powell recalls, 'they had been in a van-type-thing that got carted around with the circus and they never had got to leave it. So when we let them out they were looking up in the air and we wondered what the heck was it all about - but it wasn't until we realised that there were white clouds moving over the sky.'

Powell was told that it would be okay to be in the enclosure if he was quiet and just stood there.

'The two females came past me and then the lion came out, did a bit of a smell and nipped me on the bum - but that was my introduction to lions.'

The trust

By 1979, the Powells had created a registered zoo.

It had also outgrown them. The family didn't want to carry on the legacy and it was too much for the pair to handle alone. The answer was to turn it into a charitable trust.

The Powells sold the land to Hamilton City Council and gifted them the animals and chattels.

Gloria Powell's health also contributed to the move. She was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 45 years old. She beat it then; 20 years later it came back and was too strong.

Giraffes enjoy the open plan of Hamilton Zoo - especially the savannah during the day.

Powell continued to manage the zoo under the trust when he could - while helping to nurse Gloria until she died.

'I think that the best year we had before the council took over was 78,000 people through in one year - it would be double that now. '

Hamilton Zoo

The Council bought the zoo outright in 1981 - but the Powells were still involved until 1983.

It almost came tumbling down a year later. Closure looked imminent, but in April 1984 the council resolved to continue its operation in response to a large public petition. The Department of Recreation and Welfare took over Hilldale's management.

It was then recognised the zoo required a clear direction to continue. A concept plan was drawn up and as a result of this, the Zoo Education Centre opened in 1987. The plan saw the upgrading of zoo facilities with new exhibits, paved paths, boardwalks, and intense planting.

A zoo director position was also created in 1989 to provide better leadership.

Powell continued to have an interest in the zoo and would help out around the place - he was on hand when the first rhinos arrived in 1999, for example.

'I was there with Sam [Kudeweh] when they introduced the rhinos - I patted the first one in the enclosure - he was quite happy to have me talk to him.'

Murray Powell was there to see the first rhino arrive at Hamilton Zoo in 1999.

He had a close relationship with curator Samantha Kudeweh who was killed by male tiger Oz in 2014.

'She had a terrible lot to offer wherever she would have gone. She could have gone to another zoo which might have happened but I don't think she would have as she was pretty loyal I think she would have still been there now. I can never understand what happened, it's one of those things that did happen.'

Today

These days Powell lives in a retirement home. His room is decorated with images of his days at Hilldale Game Park yet he hadn't been to the zoo for some time due to ill health. This week, he walked back through the gates and caught up with a pair of salmon-crested cockatoos - Murray and Gloria - that he bred. They seemed to remember him and flew over for a pat.

He's looking forward to the 50th anniversary celebrations on April 19.

Nowadays, Hamilton Zoo has more than 600 animals ranging from rhinos to reptiles.

Last year they had nearly 140,000 people through the gate.

Zoo operations director Catherine Nichols has known Powell for some time having herself worked at the zoo for the past 17 years.

'Murray was a visionary of his time to want to build much larger areas for the animals and I think it's quite neat that as a zoo we have continued that in wanting to build larger habitats for our animals,' Nichols said.

'We are always looking to develop and I suppose looking back I've seen prints where Murray got a bit of baking paper out and drew up the zoo plan many years ago and it's quite neat to see those developments and where we got to from there.'

The zoo is continually looking to improve and grow and work out what to do for the community.

'Obviously our native species is big - we want to keep developing that in a breed and release programme.

'But also we want to grow our exotic species. I think it's important we continue to look at what we can do to engage our future conservationists in the world and engaging with animals is a way to do that. '

Artists impressions of the proposed Hamilton Zoo redevelopment

There are some developments on the cards with a new parrot aviary to be built and also the development of the weka/weta walk through area.

The future

Big plans for the zoo were put to the city councillors in 2017.

The Hamilton Zoo Master Plan would cost about $15.7m and include glamping with giraffes and an improved cafe and entrance.

Last year the council agreed the zoo's tired facade needs a revamp with the council agreeing to spend $2.2m over the next three years on a new shared entry precinct for the zoo and the Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park.

Councillors also voted to spend $350,000 on a new interactive lemur walk-through.

Powell couldn't be happier with the zoo as it is today. 'It has become professional, we weren't professional - we were amateur, absolutely - but that is the way these sort of things start usually.'

He never set to start a zoo and couldn't have done it without the support of his family, a notion that will be at the heart of the Zoo's 50-year anniversary on April 19.