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Thrive | Autumn 2018

‘BEST JOB IN THE COUNTRY’ Working for Dreamworld, Al Mucci travels the world working on wildlife conservation initiatives and once shared a joke with Russian President, Vladimir Putin, while wrangling a koala at a photoshoot with world leaders at the G20 Summit. If you ask Al Mucci, he’ll tell you he’s got the best job in the country. Al has worked at Dreamworld for more than a decade and is now General Manager, Life Sciences and Dreamworld Corroboree. Growing up in the Western Suburbs of Sydney, the son of post-World War II immigrants from Italy and Croatia, Al developed a love of exotic animals early in life. As a young boy, Al would roam nearby bushland catching local fauna. “I always had an interest in animals and plants,” he explained. “I used to hang out at the creek a lot and catch animals and bring them home – my mum didn’t understand why I was doing this!”

But it was no surprise for Al’s parents that he chose to study environmental science after high school. Seeking a country adventure, Al moved to Bathurst to commence an Associate Diploma in Environmental Control at Mitchell College in 1987. “I started the first year at Mitchell College (CSU antiecedent institution) and I finished at Charles Sturt University. I had so many great experiences, but the best was probably living on a property on the Blayney Road with the Lenahan family. I guess I wanted to experience the bush. There were four students living on this property and we had so much fun. It was an amazing three years and I wouldn’t swap it for anything. “We used to round up the sheep late at night or early in the morning and you’d cruise around on your ag bike and see a Tiger Quoll running by. I thought that was pretty cool that these animals still existed and I was doing a course that meant I could maybe help animals like this. “I could see that the urban sprawl was spreading out to them and I wanted to protect them. When I think back, I should have done more. I did ask the farmer to fence areas off so his sheep wouldn’t graze in the gullies, which helped, and it probably prolonged their existence, but once the urbanisation reached the border of his property the quolls pretty much disappeared. Now it’s likely they are locally extinct in the Bathurst peri-urban area.”