Exciting to have a fourth zoo! I wonder if Zoos Victoria will continue to keep Kyabram as a zoo for Australian species, or whether the collection will be expanded to exotics.
Exciting times ahead!
Kyabram Fauna Park Kyabram Fauna Park
- Thread starter Monty
- Start date
Exciting to have a fourth zoo! I wonder if Zoos Victoria will continue to keep Kyabram as a zoo for Australian species, or whether the collection will be expanded to exotics.
Exciting times ahead!
I wonder if the masterplan (linked on the previous page) was created with this development in mind, or to what extent Zoos Victoria will adhere to it. The answer to your question would probably play somewhat of a role in that. The plans for 'flex exhibits' - allowing animals to rotate between habitats - sounded quite ambitious and fantastic for the residents (whether Australian or exotic fauna).
I think they definitely have a lot to work with and a lot of potential. From the looks of it, the masterplan was designed with the addition to Zoos Victoria in mind.
Here’s a list of possible exotics they plan to include in their masterplan:
Entrance
Ring Tailed Lemur
Capybara
Meerkat
Cotton Top Tamirans
African ‘Flex’ habitats
Cheetah
African Wild Dog
Zebra
Ostrich
Antelope (Scimitar Horned Oryx are mentioned)
For the African area, it’s mentioned this will serve as a contrast to the already present Australian animals and exhibits. Glen Holland, director of Werribee, is apparently advising this project which makes sense as Werribee is the main holder of Zoos Victoria for all of those species.
Kyabram's first exotic mammal species has arrived - 2.3 Meerkats have been transferred from Sydney Zoo. They arrived yesterday afternoon and are on show in the park's revamped entrance area which also opened recently - reported on social media.
Great news, Kyabram's growing rather quickly! Hopefully some new species will be imported soon.
No, the master plan was not developed with Zoos Vic in mind, although the processes were going on in tandem.
I visited Kyabram Fauna Park yesterday for the first time in 22 years. Their master plan has already been discussed here, and the Park has already received $2.7 million of funding towards towards implementing the plan.
The first new facility constructed under the master plan is the new entry and cafe, a vast improvement on the old entry building and only opened last week. The meerkats were already in their enclosure at the front of the cafe, and both them and the enclosure looked great.
The shell of the new reptile house, being built on the site of the old one, is complete. Inside, framing is In place for the enclosures, and it should be a great asset when finished.. The reptile collection is on temporary at the back of the Education centre, a building that is itself receiving considerable renovations.
Of course a lot of work done is never noticed by visitors and that included reconstruction of the 3.3km perimeter fence. This was necessary to stop predation by foxes and cats, as well as being required for ZAA accreditation.
It is obvious that Lachlan and his team have been working extremely hard over the last four years revitalising and bringing up to standard the many older enclosures, some of which date back over 40 years. Notable species for me were the two breeding pairs of mallee fowl, and it was great to hear about their intentions to revitalise this program. The grounds also looked great.
Also notable is that Lachlan’s team have grown visitation 2.5 times in the last four years.
It is pleasing to say that Kyabram Fauna Park will be handed over to Zoos Victoria in excellent shape.
The first new facility constructed under the master plan is the new entry and cafe, a vast improvement on the old entry building and only opened last week. The meerkats were already in their enclosure at the front of the cafe, and both them and the enclosure looked great.
The shell of the new reptile house, being built on the site of the old one, is complete. Inside, framing is In place for the enclosures, and it should be a great asset when finished.. The reptile collection is on temporary at the back of the Education centre, a building that is itself receiving considerable renovations.
Of course a lot of work done is never noticed by visitors and that included reconstruction of the 3.3km perimeter fence. This was necessary to stop predation by foxes and cats, as well as being required for ZAA accreditation.
It is obvious that Lachlan and his team have been working extremely hard over the last four years revitalising and bringing up to standard the many older enclosures, some of which date back over 40 years. Notable species for me were the two breeding pairs of mallee fowl, and it was great to hear about their intentions to revitalise this program. The grounds also looked great.
Also notable is that Lachlan’s team have grown visitation 2.5 times in the last four years.
It is pleasing to say that Kyabram Fauna Park will be handed over to Zoos Victoria in excellent shape.
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If the implication of the comment is that Glen Holland was placed in the process to oversee it on behalf of Zoos Vic with takeover in mind, the answer is no. The initiative for the takeover came from Kyabram and at the start of the master plan process Zoos Vic would not have been aware of the possibility.
Zoos Vic do have a consultancy arm so I’m not sure if they charged for Glen’s involvement or it was pro-bono. Certainly Kyabram would have paid Jon Coe, as he is a professional zoo designer (the rotating exhibits are a Coe trademark).
By the way, Glen left Zoos Vic earlier this year.
Kyabram Fauna Park is officially part of Zoos Victoria [https://www.zoo.org.au/kyabram]. The map is also now available with the Zoos Victoria layout and formatting with a Malleefowl on the cover [https://www.zoo.org.au/kyabram/kyabram_map/]. The main animals listed on the website include the following:
- Free-roaming animals: Red Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Kangaroo Island Kangaroo, Emu
- Main Trail: Koala, Tawny Frogmouth, Nankeen Kestrel, Laughing Kookaburra, finch aviary [Double-barred Finch, Star Finch, Red-browed Finch and Long-tailed Finch], Common Wombat, Southern Cassowary, Tiger Quoll, Eastern Quoll, Dingo, cockatoo aviary [Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Major Mitchell's Cockatoo, Galah and Red-tailed Black Cockatoo], Grey-headed Flying Fox
- Education and Conservation Centre: a wide range of invertebrates and I believe this is where the Mitchell's Hopping-Mice are housed.
- Monotremes, Marsupials and Monitors: Short-beaked Echidna, Tasmanian Devil, Lace Monitor, Red-necked Wallaby, Swamp Wallaby, Emu, Sugar Glider
- Birds: walkthrough aviary with Australian parrots, Satin Bowerbirds, Bush-stone Curlews, Banded Lapwings and peacocks.
- Meerkats
- Reptiles and Amphibians [opening soon]: Kybram's new reptile house will soon be open and will contain species like Inland Taipan, Common Death Adder, Red-bellied Black Snake, Tiger Snake, Mertens’ Water Monitor, Black-headed Monitor, Boyd’s Forest Dragon and Green Tree Frog.
Really cool and interesting to see the map now formatted in the Zoos Vic way now.
It looks like the zoo has a lot of space; and hopefully Meerkats aren't their first and only exotic species.
The designs for their new Reptile House also appear amazing; and hopefully Melbourne can supply Kyabram with some intriguing reptiles and amphibians species for it.
I struggle to see what their intended market is. They’re 2.5 hours out of Melbourne and an hour off the main highway (two hour round trip), so they’re hardly accessible. They really need some points of difference (i.e. species you can’t see across Zoos Victoria’s other three zoos) to encourage people to make the trip out there - which will be free if they have an annual pass to Zoos Victoria.
Clearly Zoos Vic wouldn't have founded a zoo there. It is essentially a bail-out for the local council.
The target market isn't nothing, though. There's at least a quarter of a million people living within 90 minutes drive of Kyabram. It will never be more than a small part of the Zoos Vic portfolio but it doesn't have to be.
The Sleepy Hippo
Well-Known Member
I'd see it as a prime location for their priority species breeding programs, and then after that could also house several of its other breeding species.
PaddyRickMFZ
Well-Known Member
And will likely be rotational exhibits. Hopefully they do choose to harness the large property and feature a large range of exotics, something similar to even Mansfield would be greatly appreciated
If there’s space and funding allows, it could definitely provide opportunities to house exotics unable to be housed at Melbourne due to space and deemed to be a poor fit for Werribee (rainforest species). They’re starting small with meerkats etc. but long term, they may choose to diversify Zoos Victoria’s felid portfolio by housing Sri Lankan leopard; while their other zoos focus on Sumatran tiger, African lion, Cheetah and Snow leopard.
PaddyRickMFZ
Well-Known Member
That would be optimal, but I’d still love to see something as prominent as Sri Lankan leopard held at MZ. Whether Kyabram breeds them and MZ houses excess or Vice Versa, I think it could work out nicely. Just wondering, how rare are melanistic leopards? There don’t seem to be too many, but they are certainly prominent in other subspecies
Though that would be nice, by housing them exclusively at Kyabram, it’d encourage people to visit. If they can see them at Melbourne Zoo, they’d be unlikely to make the trip for the purpose of seeing a Sri Lankan leopard.
Sometimes having the same species across multiple zoos can support a breeding programme, but in this case, they’d benefit from having a point of difference.
Melanistic Sri Lankan have been reported in the wild, but none exist within the captive population. Melanism in leopards in a recessive gene and is less prevalent than in Jaguars, where melanism is a dominant gene. Nonetheless, it’s more common within the Indian and Indochinese leopard population.