Wilhelma Zoo New Australia House

The four koalas arrived in Stuttgart on 30 June. The two males Aero and Navy, aged five and two-and-a-half, are half-brothers. They are joined by the two female koalas Scarborough (four years old) and Auburn (two-and-a-half years old). All four are from the Australian Dreamworld Wildlife Foundation, a foundation dedicated to the protection and conservation of endangered native species.

Source: Wilhelma Stuttgart
 
lintworm said:
Wilhelma will import additional quokkas from Australia next year. The current trio is a 6 year old male and females of 3 and 4 years old from Featherdale Wildlife Park.

Stuttgarter Wilhelma hat jetzt die fröhlichsten Tiere der Welt - Land Baden-Württemberg - Reutlinger General-Anzeiger - gea.de
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Featherdale must have a good breeding record considering that they have previously sent a breeding group of quokkas to the Saitama Children’s Zoo in Japan as well.
 
From a photograph on Facebook, the map of the nocturnal area in the new house has a graphic of a bilby! Perhaps a clue/teaser to future species.
 
lintworm said:
Not even a teaser, the zoo has been planning with bilby all along and been quite open about it, but to date not enough animals were available in Australia to start an European program.
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Excellent- fingers crossed for the next few years then.
 
I had the chance to visit the Wilhelma today and was happy to see Terra Australis. I am not 100% convinced by all of the exhibits, but overall this is a very solid house with some of the most spacious exhibits I have seen in nocturnal houses.

The house consists of 3 parts:
- a diurnal room with koala, Goodfellow's tree kangaroo & northern blue-tongued skink
- a nocturnal desert-themed room with kowari, spinifex hopping mouse, golden brushtail possum, rufous bettong & brush-tailed bettong
- a nocturnal rainforest-themed room with eastern quoll, sugar glider, rufous bettong and regular brushtail possums

Then there are outdoor enclosures for quokka, long-nosed potoroo, koala and the tree kangaroo

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As this map shows the skink enclosure was initially planned for echidna & flying foxes. I am glad that didn't happen as that enclosure would be far too small. The spinifex hopping mouse enclosure was planned to be divided in 2, with fat-tailed dunnarts in the other exhibit. This species didn't make it to Europe though... The main desert enclosure was designed for bilby and if/when they will come they will still go there. A planned feather-tailed glider exhibit is now home to sugar gliders and a rufous bettong. Given that the gliders are also in another exhibit, I would imagine it is still possible to add the feather-tailed gliders in the future. Rufous bettong, long-nosed potoroo & brushtail possum don't occur in the original plans.

So some pictures of the house.

This is the diurnal room with koala et al.:
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Goodfellow's tree kangaroo indoor viewing, there are 4 additional cages off-show, though they were now partly occupied by koala.

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One of the 2 koala indoor enclosures

The desert nocturnal room starts with a kowari exhibit:
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The desert room, with the hopping mice on the right and the main enclosure with the bettongs and the possums to the left. It is striking how much larger rufous bettongs are compared to their brush-tailed cousins.

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Spinifex hopping mouse enclosure. Nice and spacious with a large number of mice.

The 3rd room is the rainforest nocturnal section with quolls to the left and possums, bettongs & sugar gliders to the right:
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The sugar glider exhibit, which was planned for feather-tailed gliders

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The Brushtail possum, sugar glider & rufous bettong enclosure.

And finally one of the two eastern quoll enclosures:
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The nocturnal rooms are initially very dark, but once your eyes have adjusted it is bright enough. The challenge is that the visitor areas are completely dark, so when it is busy this house will probably a nightmare to navigate. But on quiet days it is a nice little gem with potential to add extra exhiting species ;)

There are more pictures in the gallery:
https://www.zoochat.com/community/media/categories/wilhelma-zoo.818/
 
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