Coffs Harbour’s Dolphin Marine Conservation Park enters voluntary administration

An iconic Coffs Harbour tourist attraction and marine rescue service is on the financial brink after being whacked by a perfect storm of challenging conditions. Here’s what we know.

HAPPIER TIMES: Dolphin Marine Conservation Park managing director Terry Goodall.

A fundraising campaign is gearing up to help save a Coffs Harbour dolphin theme park and wildlife rescue and rehabilitation service which has gone into voluntary administration.

Dolphin Marine Conservation Park, in its various guises, has been something of an institution since the 1970s.

It’s been a go-to for Coffs Coast tourists, along with The Big Banana Fun Park.

But the fairytale has taken a grim turn this week with the organisation taking the reluctant steps to enter voluntary administration.

Park managing director Terry Goodall, whose uncle Hec Goodall started the venture in 1970, said the business had been rocked by the Covid pandemic, natural disasters and interest rate rises, which have stifled discretionary consumer spending.

Students from Sandy Beach Public School watching three turtles being released at Sandy Beach.

The park has also had its critics, who have argued about the facility keeping wildlife in captivity.

However, since day one a core focus of the operation has been helping animals like turtles and seals which have come to grief on the North Coast, as well as educating people about marine life.

A shot of the attraction previously known as Dolphin Marine Magic.

Mr Goodall said the board decided to enter voluntary administration in a bid to get professional help to restructure the business.

“We asked the administration to come in. It’s not something that’s been forced on us,” he said.

“The fact is we are asset rich, but cash flow poor.”

A historic photo of Pam Ryan from Armidale at the Pet Porpoise Pool.

A community fundraiser set to be launched on Friday hopes to raise sufficient funds to keep the doors of the park of five decades open.

Melbourne liquidator Dye and Co is handling the process and the first meeting of creditors will be held at Coffs Harbour on July 25.

A small group of activists celebrated the 2021 ban on captive-dolphin breeding outside Dolphin Marine Conservation Park.

Closure of the park is a possibility and in that worst case scenario Mr Goodall said Coffs would lose a facility which brings in “$15 to 20 million tourism dollars every year”.

Coffs Harbour MP and NSW Tourism Shadow Minister Gurmesh Singh said it would be “a great shame” if the city lost a valuable animal rescue organisation and a tourist attraction.

A hawksbill turtle at the park called Dolphin Marine Magic at the time. Grant Willis and Greg Pickering, 2017.

“If you haven’t been there for a while I would encourage people to get down there in the next couple of weeks to show your support,” he said.

Mr Goodall said the park had 45 people on the books for the park, and for rescues and rehabilitation.

“There’s nobody else who does it,” he said.

A team from Dolphin Marine Magic inspect a dugong found at Stuarts Point, south of Nambucca Heads.

Mr Goodall said he remained optimistic the park could be turned around in the administration process.

“Hopefully we will come out the other end okay,” he said.

The park had its genesis in the 1950s, when The Jack Evan’s Pet Porpoise Pool was established at Tweed Heads.

Hec Goodall and brothers Greg and Spencer Pickering were among the volunteers there and had the idea of creating a similar facility on the Mid North Coast – the result was the Coffs Pet Porpoise Pool.

Hec and the team began construction on the pool in 1968 and the park first opened on Boxing Day 1970, featuring a semi-trained dolphin named Droopy, two emu chicks and four kangaroos rescued from floods.

The park has rescued many marine animals and notably staff from the Pet Porpoise Pool attended a mass whale stranding at Crowdy Head in the mid-1980s, helping National Parks and Wildlife Services and other volunteers to successfully save numerous animals.