Popular kangaroo petting zoo outgrows site in Lake Country
Kangaroo Creek Farm hoping to move to 4-hectare property in northern Kelowna
The Kangaroo Creek Farm could be hopping out of Lake Country to a Kelowna area farm. Operators of the popular tourist attraction and petting zoo, now located in Winfield, are eyeing a new fourhectare site at 5932 Old Vernon Rd.
Directors of the Central Okanagan regional district board have given their conditional support to the move, but the final decision rests with the Agricultural Land Commission.
“Unfortunately, the farm is so successful they’ve outgrown their current location,” said Lake Country Mayor James Baker. “I wish them all the success at their new location.”
Open to the public for the past six years just off Main Street in downtown Winfield, the farm is visited by more than 2,000 people daily during the summer.
“Our animals are carefully looked after, and to a very high standard, not only physically but also with consideration to their mental well-being,” Kangaroo Creek Farm director Caroline MacPherson writes in a letter to the regional district.
“Essentially, (we are) a petting zoo that is modelled after an Australian wildlife park where visitors wander amongst tame animals, both domestic and exotic, and interact with them under the supervision of trained guides,” MacPherson says.
“The farm is kept natural and quiet. There’s nothing noisy, smelly or circus-like going on,” she says. “We do not promote exotic animals as pets and do not sell any as such.”
The farm’s proposed new location is on the Eldorado Ranch, owned by the Bennett family. The ranch would provide a long-term lease for the kangaroo farm to operate on land that has not been farmed in many years.
The Kangaroo Creek Farm is closed between mid-October and mid-March.