About the Zoo & Wildlife

Pearl Coast Zoological Gardens, also known as Pearl Coast Zoo, or simply Broome Zoo, was a 64-acre (26 ha) zoo founded by Lord Alistair McAlpine in the Cable Beach suburb of Broome, Western Australia. First opened in 1984 as the Pearl Coast Wildlife Park, by 1988 the zoo had more than doubled in size. It was one of a number of developments of McAlpine's in the town credited with transforming Broome from a "derelict" place into "an international tourist destination". The zoo ran into financial difficulties in the early 1990s, ostensibly due to falling visitor numbers, and rebranded itself as the Wonderful World of Birds for a period. McAlpine's attorney, however, revealed in late 1992 that the zoo had been running at a loss ever since it had opened. The zoo closed at some point after December 1992, by which point most of the animals had already been sold. At its peak, the zoo consisted of 75 acres, of which 35 acres were built upon. In 2012, The West Australian described the former zoo as "a lush, tropical oasis ... filled with weird and wonderful exotic animals and a cacophony of bright, colourful birds".