By Victoria Stone-Meadows
MOONLIT Sanctuary in Pearcedale celebrated 15 years of native animal conservation and attracting a booming tourist trade to the Casey area.
Director of the animal sanctuary Michael Johnson said he has always loved caring for native animals and is looking forward to many more years of operation.
“This is our 15th year and we had our anniversary in September,” he said.
“It’s been tough work to do what we do but it’s also a fantastic thing to do.”
Moonlit Sanctuary is located in the bushy terrain of Peacedale away from main roads – and while it is a bit tucked away, it is in the perfect location for the type of operation.
“We wanted to be local to the south-east suburbs, Phillip Island and so on and we were looking for somewhere there was a reasonable tourism business,” Mr Johnson said.
“We looked around the peninsula for bushland but there wasn’t a lot of bush available and we weren’t finding that something a bit interesting and convenient we were looking for.
“We made our pick and it turned out to be a good option and has been very beneficial for the business to get people from Melbourne as well as to be in a growth area with a lot of young families which is important for this type of attraction.”
Mr Johnson acknowledges he made some rookie business mistakes when he first started the sanctuary 15 years ago.
“My problem was, looking in retrospect, I didn’t know how to get the name of the place out into the public. We didn’t really understand what we needed to do.”
“We didn’t put enough money and time into marketing early on, but now we put lots into marketing and going to overseas trade shows few times a year as well as targeting the local market.”
Moonlit Sanctuary keeps, breeds, and cares for exclusively native Australian animals over about 25 acres and the business attracts tourists and visitors from far and near.
“Last financial year we had 84,000 visitors come from everywhere in the world,” Mr Johnson said.
“Half our visitors were internationals from every country you can imagine; UK, North America, Asia and Europe.
“The other half were Australian and a vast majority were locals from Cranbourne, The peninsula, Frankston and so on.”
Mr Johnson said it was no small feat to get an entire animal sanctuary up and running for both conservation and tourism but it has been a worthwhile experience.
“It was very hard for the first 10 years; getting set up and getting our name out there but it is a bit easier now and we have a good number of visitors.
“It has been a lot of hard work and as it turns out, overnight success takes 15 years.”
