2016 Annual Report
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Annual Report 2016 Contents Page Reference and Administrative Details of the Charity, Its Trustees and Advisers 3 Chairman’s Statement 4 - 5 Trustees’ Report 6 - 7 Infastructure 8 - 11 Visitor Information 12 - 13 Volunteers 14 - 15 Fundraising 16 - 23 Education 24 - 33 Conservation 34 - 48 Group Strategic Report 49 Trustees Responsibilities Statement 51 2 Zoological Society of East Anglia Reference and Administration Details of the Company, It’s Trustees and Advisors For The Year Ended 31st December 2016 Trustees and Directors T W Stevenson M O Brown J C Pearson R J Chaplin Miss W A Fenwick F E Barrelet G Smith The Trustees are also Directors of the Company. Company Registered Number 08250951 Charity Registered Number 1150158 Registered Office The Grove, Kenninghall Road, Banham, Norfolk, NR16 2HE Chief Executive Officer M Goymour Senior Management Team K R Ward, Chief Financial Officer G Batters, Director of Conservation and Education M D Dupée, Director of Operations K Griffin, Chief Financial Officer Designate Independent Auditors Larking Gowen, King Street House, 15 Upper King Street, Norwich, NR3 1RB Bankers Lloyds Banking Group Plc, 3 Queen Street, Norwich, NR2 4SG Zoological Society of East Anglia 3 Chairman’s Statement For The Year Ended 31st December 2016 The Chairman is pleased to present his statement for the period. As a charity we depend on our Trustees to take responsibility for the overall operation and conduct of ZSEA. I am proud of our Trustee body (see photograph page 3). All of the Trustees give their time freely bringing a range of skills and talents to bear that, were it to be paid for would cost many tens of thousands of pounds yearly. Their devotion to ZSEA and the support that they give me is a testament to their enthusiasm for the charitable causes that we champion and support. From a starting point at which we had nothing we have built an asset which at the end of 2016 showed on its balance sheet an asset comfortably exceeding £1 million. This is only as I hope to explain the beginning but after 4 years of operation is a considerable achievement! Over the past four years a great deal has been invested in the infrastructure of our parks – approaching £1 million. Banham Zoo and Africa Alive! are two wonderful parks where our visitors can see animals and gain insights into nature from around the world. We have continued in both parks to work tirelessly to improve and enhance the welfare of the animals in our care as our visitors will readily see. To that end can I thank all our keepers and those responsible for our animals. At Banham we significantly enhanced the seating area in our Bird of Prey display arena in which so many people are able to see wonderful birds demonstrating their natural skills. The birds fly freely and anybody who has attended one of these displays needs no persuasion of our commitment to their welfare. Our new sea lion pool is beginning to take shape and came about because the old facility did not meet our high standards for the care of our animals. At Africa Alive! we continue to develop and extend our plains paddock for the giraffe, rhino, antelope and ostrich. It will be almost twice the size and hold a larger collection of animals. We spent over £100,000 on general maintenance projects to keep the park in first class order. During the year we welcomed just under 342,000 visitors across the two parks. That illustrates and reinforces the interest our visitors have in their environment, the animals of the world and their welfare. We continue to be touched by the numbers of volunteers coming forward to help out in the parks and with our outreach activities. Almost 16,000 hours of time were given this year by our volunteers whose ages range from 18 – 80. Please, if you have time and an interest in what we do, do not hesitate to come forward. We need your help and you will join a happy and devoted team doing valuable work. There are all manner of opportunities at our two parks to help promote our objects – no particular skills needed!. We have wonderful flora and fauna. That needs to be kept tidy. We have a huge array of buildings, roadways, plant and equipment all of which needs to be maintained, repaired and kept serviceable. There are opportunities for every skill and none. 4 Zoological Society of East Anglia In the year to the end of 2016 we raised and donated almost £40,000 to various overseas conservation projects targeting snow leopard, lion, lemur and many other species. A number of our staff gave significant amounts of their own time and I would like particularly to mention Terry Hornsey’s work with the Saola Working Group and to congratulate Gary Batters on being appointed president of AEECL the Lemur Conservation Association. During the year we were pleased to welcome Guy Randriatahina, AEECL Madagascar Director, to speak to us about their work in Madagascar. We have extended the invitation to others involved in similar projects and I would like to think that we can establish an annual ZSEA lecture to highlight our outreach and conservation work as part of our education endeavour. During the year over 14,000 students were taught directly by our education staff and a further 14,000 made self guided educational visits to the two parks. We continue to support research and provide a wonderful opportunity for students up to post graduate doctoral level. We continued to build relations with local universities and other higher education establishments, most notably the University of East Anglia and the University of Suffolk. Work experience opportunities are also offered, particularly to those studying animal or veterinary care. We are anxious that our collections should be available for the training and education of the next generation of professionals. As part of our native species education and to support the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) “Let it Grow” campaign, we held two Bioblitz events in 2016, one in Africa Alive! in June and one in Banham Zoo in September. It was Africa Alive!’s third such event, and took the number of different wild species recorded on site to 704. Banham Zoo’s event was its first Bioblitz and recorded an amazing 550 species. These events provide ZSEA with the perfect opportunity to engage our guests about native wildlife through a number of hands-on activities. Our fund raising is led by a newly appointed full time head of fundraising supported by three other members of staff. We place considerable importance on the fundraising and in early activities have raised modest grants to support our education outreach and to enhance facilities for the disabled. A focused campaign is being formulated to target legacies and in the long term these will become very important. We recognize that this is a long term project. We have continued to raise the profile of ZSEA in our first major external project a sponsored climb of Kilimanjaro which successfully concluded in January 2017. Our dinner party weekend did not get the momentum that we had hoped for but I believe that with the wealth of goodwill that we have we can tap into this movement in future years. I was particularly delighted that during the year we managed to hatch at Africa Alive! two Verreaux’s owl chicks. This was the first breeding of this species for Africa Alive! which is the largest species of owl in Africa. At Banham we welcomed Columbus our rhinocerous Iguana who takes us back to pre-history. We are intending to raise our profile locally on the issue of sustainability. Our staff have identified the issue of palm oil as being particularly important. Palm oil production is one of the main causes of the destruction of the habitat in South East Asia, West Africa, South America and even Madagascar, affecting the home ranges of many of the species that you see at our parks particularly our lemurs. For a convenient but certainly not unique food additive this is not an acceptable price paid for by our wildlife. I welcome these moves by our staff. We have much to do in improving our green credentials and this is a wonderful area in which we can start. As we look forward 2018 will be the 50th birthday of Banham Zoo and 2019 the 50th for Africa Alive! – we are planning lots of celebrations and hope you will join in. Finally I must acknowledge the engine room of our operation. We have gardeners, cleaners, cooks, cashiers and guest services and retail assistants. We have buyers, builders, electricians and plumbers. We have security staff, HR professionals, accountants, engineers, teachers and researchers. A whole community that is very important to our parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Zoological Society of East Anglia is a major local resource, a major local employer and a regionally a very significant tourist attraction. I am proud of our parks of ZSEA and what we achieve and thanks to all of those who make it possible. Tim Stevenson Chairman The Zoological Society of East Anglia is proud to be a member of: Zoological Society of East Anglia 5 BRITISH & IRISH ASSOCIATION of ZOOS & AQUARIUMS Report of the Trustees For The Year Ended 31st December 2016 The Trustees are pleased to present their annual directors’ report together with the consolidated financial statements of the charity for the year ending 31st December 2016 which are also prepared to meet the requirements for a directors’ report and accounts for Companies Act purposes.