THE Ballarat Wildlife Park will be hosting an easter event with a difference this long weekend.<\/p>\n
Held over three days from Good Friday until Easter Sunday, the event aims to promote palm free products and animal conservation.<\/p>\n
As part of the weekend, kids are asked to use clues to locate the names of animals at the park, and then they\u2019ll receive a treat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about getting kids out and about how to identify animals,\u201d said zookeeper Meryem Zeryek-Hallam.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would love to do something like an easter egg hunt but obviously that doesn\u2019t make sense because we\u2019ve got animals around and we don\u2019t want any to eat too much chocolate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoever wins will get a palm oil free egg for easter.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is part of the event Ballarat Wildlife Park is aiming to have a completely palm oil free cafe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Sumatra, an island in Indonesia where out tigers are from, almost 50 per cent of forest has been lost in 20 years due to palm oil plantations,\u201d said Ms Zeryek-Hallam. \u201cIt causes so much destruction.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnimals lose their homes and Sumatra is a place with so much diversity it needs to be protected.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso animals that tigers eat can\u2019t live there any more so the tigers can\u2019t eat and end up quite close to human populations which can cause conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Zeryek-Hallam said the park wants to encourage people to go palm oil free in their everyday lives and that there are easy to find alternative products.<\/p>\n
\u201cPalm oil is not something that has to be labelled legally and it is often hidden as vegetable oil, so we want to bring awareness to what it is and how its easily missed in a lot of our everyday products,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She encourages people to go palm oil free this Easter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith easter of course we all buy chocolate but brands like Darrell Lee are 100 per cent palm oil free,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE Ballarat Wildlife Park will be hosting an easter event with a difference this long weekend. Held over three days from Good Friday until Easter Sunday, the event aims to promote palm free products and animal conservation. As part of the weekend, kids are asked to use clues to locate the names of animals at […]<\/p>\n