$300 million Plan to Replicate Australia Zoo in Las Vegas

Terri Irwin's Australia Zoo is pushing ahead with a $300 million plan to replicate the famed Sunshine Coast wildlife park in the gambling mecca of Las Vegas.
Terri Irwin told Brisbane newspaper The Sunday Mail that she hoped to buy the land this year and was on the lookout for investors, stating âit's hard to predict how the economy is going to recover but we'd hope by next year we'd have the investors so we can look towards a date for breaking ground.
"But it's very much on the go-ahead and it'll be such a brilliant icon for Australia. It's going to be so much about Steve and his dreams, and his philosophy and his message."
Terri Irwin said the zoo would be "spectacularly Vegas" while respectful of the animals, adding âthere'll be nothing jumping through a hoop of fire but there'll be incredible effects instead.
âInstead of the Crocoseum, you'll be in, like a rainforest, with waterfalls and they can make the water levels change height so the croc rises out of the water.
"It'll be an incredible experience without compromising the animals' needs."
The late Steve Irwin raised the idea of building an Australia Zoo in Las Vegas in 2004. Now his widow says that the Las Vegas project will employ close to 900 people - many of them would be Australians working in tandem with projects being planned for the 135,000 hectare Steve Irwin wildlife reserve on Cape York.
The Queensland Government sets aside land for a wildlife reserve in honour of Steve Irwin at the end of last week.