Monarto Safari Park, the Zoo where the program is taking place, has a fun history. You might ask yourself, why is one of the world's largest safari parks locate

Monarto Safari Park, the Zoo where the program is taking place, has a fun history. You might ask yourself, why is one of the world's largest safari parks located in South Australia? In 1973, the South Australian government started buying up huge swaths of land from farmers, with the goal of creating a satellite city for the state capital of Adelaide. They felt Adelaide was growing too fast, and to stop it from becoming a sprawling congested mess, they wanted a discrete satellite city for the burgeoning blue and white collar industries to expand into. That never happened. The population growth stagnated in SA, and after a long tenure the politicians who had backed the scheme finished their time in office, and the planning department responsible was abolished. This left the government with over a thousand hectares of land in the middle of nowhere, with no plans on how to use it. So in 1982, the Planning and Environment minister announced that 1,000 hectares of Crown land would become an open range zoo, and it has been developed into one of the world's leading conservation parks. More recently, they've gotten more funding from the government and are developing the park into a more accessible location, which overall should help the park grow and help develop their conservation efforts. I was put on to this story by this excellent youtube video, which contains some wicked footage of 70s and 80s Australia, and dives in depth into the urban planning aspects of this story and what the government had hoped to achieve with a satellite city, equally fascinating! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RW6-pw16dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RW6-pw16dg