Adelaide Zoo Old maps of Adelaide Zoo
- Thread starter Shirokuma
- Start date
It was good to see Branco, the zoo’s melanistic Jaguar. He was born 1978 at Rotterdam Zoo and was a littermate of Ali at Taronga Zoo. His mate is behind him, Jasmin, who was born 1978 at Melbourne Zoo.
It was interesting to see the monkey cages, baboons crammed into cages that are inadequate by today’s standards; and ample opportunities for the visitors to cross the safety barrier to interact with/feed them.
It’s a shame there was no shot of the chimpanzees. Sanda (1985) would have been an infant at the time of this video.
Samorn (1950) the elephant looked depressed in her cramped stall. She was transferred to Monarto five years later in 1991.
Awesome video!!! What was the context? I assume it's just a zookeeper taking his family to the zoo and they are filming it with a camcorder? That was the era of Alby Mangels (and his World Safari films) - so those camcorders were popular back then.
I that the zookeeper was smoking a cigarette right next to the big cats!
I also noticed around the 28.40 minute mark that they seemed to have a Purple Faced Leaf Monkey (a species endemic to Sri Lanka). Correct me if I'm wrong but is that monkey the species I think it is?
I don't see any difference between those baboon cages and the cage Tasmania Zoo currently houses its mandrill in - unless things have changed in the past 5 years of course. Pretty poor in any case...
Yes, that’s correct. They zoo had two Purple-faced langur (a male and a female). They were still there in 1991.
@Grant Rhino
Yeah that's what I assume the context of the video is (just found it on ytube)
Yeah Adelaide and Perth both had PF Langurs in that era, like ZooFan mentioned Adelaide's individuals were still there in 1991, still not sure what year they were gone except was before 2001 as weren't on a species inventory for that year. Perth's last two were sent to Edinburgh Zoo in mid 2005 (having been kept in an off-display enclosure since mid 1999).
Yeah that's what I assume the context of the video is (just found it on ytube)
Yeah Adelaide and Perth both had PF Langurs in that era, like ZooFan mentioned Adelaide's individuals were still there in 1991, still not sure what year they were gone except was before 2001 as weren't on a species inventory for that year. Perth's last two were sent to Edinburgh Zoo in mid 2005 (having been kept in an off-display enclosure since mid 1999).
Any idea why they were kept off-display? They are beautiful monkeys - I saw them in the wild in Sri Lanka.
@Grant Rhino
That's so awesome that you've been to Sri Lanka and seen PF Langurs in the wild, really really cool.
I 100% agree with you about it being a travesty that they were kept off-display at PZ for so many years. I couldn't fathom why the heck they chose to keep them away from public viewing in the end.
Tetrapod explained on another thread about why they were phased out of the zoo: rapid loss of individuals (think initially was just a pair) and the remaining two were an elderly female and young male (the ones who were exported to Edinburgh Zoo in mid '05) and the region wanting to focus on Francois Langurs (though Perth has never acquired that species, and Adelaide has continued with Dusky Langurs which am very impressed with).
I agree with you, passionately believe that PZ should of still kept their last two PF Langurs on display prior to export (in fact they may have even gone off public display earlier than mid '99, I mentioned mid '99 as latest time possibly on public display still as that was when 'Gibbon row' was closed off to the public but remained as holding pens for off display primates until its demolition in '04, but some primates were perhaps also kept in another off-display area that was already away from public-eyes in the '90s. There also was Tonkean Macaques, B+W Colobuses, **Vervets, White-Fronted Capuchins and White-Fronted Lemurs held in staff-access only areas of PZ at various times in that era of late '90s and first decade of '00s (think so frustrating that public couldn't see some of them in their final years at the zoo).
**do have memories of still seeing some of the Vervets in the Lesser Primates precinct
in early-mid '00s, perhaps some of the Vervets were separated from the main group and help off-display. One of our ZC comrades mentioned that the Vervets at PZ had just had a new baby born in their group in early '06..but later that year were all sent to Gorge Wildlife Park in South Australia regardless.
That's so awesome that you've been to Sri Lanka and seen PF Langurs in the wild, really really cool.
I 100% agree with you about it being a travesty that they were kept off-display at PZ for so many years. I couldn't fathom why the heck they chose to keep them away from public viewing in the end.
Tetrapod explained on another thread about why they were phased out of the zoo: rapid loss of individuals (think initially was just a pair) and the remaining two were an elderly female and young male (the ones who were exported to Edinburgh Zoo in mid '05) and the region wanting to focus on Francois Langurs (though Perth has never acquired that species, and Adelaide has continued with Dusky Langurs which am very impressed with).
I agree with you, passionately believe that PZ should of still kept their last two PF Langurs on display prior to export (in fact they may have even gone off public display earlier than mid '99, I mentioned mid '99 as latest time possibly on public display still as that was when 'Gibbon row' was closed off to the public but remained as holding pens for off display primates until its demolition in '04, but some primates were perhaps also kept in another off-display area that was already away from public-eyes in the '90s. There also was Tonkean Macaques, B+W Colobuses, **Vervets, White-Fronted Capuchins and White-Fronted Lemurs held in staff-access only areas of PZ at various times in that era of late '90s and first decade of '00s (think so frustrating that public couldn't see some of them in their final years at the zoo).
**do have memories of still seeing some of the Vervets in the Lesser Primates precinct
in early-mid '00s, perhaps some of the Vervets were separated from the main group and help off-display. One of our ZC comrades mentioned that the Vervets at PZ had just had a new baby born in their group in early '06..but later that year were all sent to Gorge Wildlife Park in South Australia regardless.
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Is it possible that some of these primates were kept off-display because the cages/enclosures were deemed inadequate? The idea being that for PR purposes zoos decided to keep them off-display instead of building more appropriate enclosures. I'm guessing there also may have been some possible legal issues if the public could hand-feed the monkeys through the bars and the monkeys could potentially grab at people through those bars.
I personally don't like seeing monkeys in cages - so I don't mind them being off-display if that was the reason for it. And I can imagine building a nice primate enclosure (like the ones for the dusky langers and gibbons at Adelaide Zoo, or the vervets at Werribee) would've cost a lot more money than the zoo deemed realistic.
@Grant Rhino
Yeah totally understandable. And to be honest the row of enclosures they were kept in towards the end was not of a modern acceptable standard (less than 100 sq m each pen).
Yeah totally understandable. And to be honest the row of enclosures they were kept in towards the end was not of a modern acceptable standard (less than 100 sq m each pen).
...And one from 1984:
This map is another fascinating one..sorry old news I know, saw it when you first shared it, came back out of intrigue. Did some rough measurements and essentially the pathway which
begins with the Przewalski Horse pen to the Fallow Deer pen is about 150 metres, the pens average about 12m depth from the visitor path and about 16-17m wide on average it seemed.
It never ceases to amaze me how many ungulate species our region’s zoos crammed into a small space. Though it appears most had it better than the elephant, which typical of most zoos of that era, had an elephant house and yard. Auckland and Wellington had the same set up, with their elephants walked across to a pool and bath respectively each afternoon to cool down.