Zoos and other animal collections of New Zealand

Yes we have a new website Pouakai Zoo | NewPlymouth | Get up close with our animals.

We also think that ZooChat is the best thing we have found on the internet...so well done to all who made it happen. I just wish we had internet earlier, we live 13km from the town centre and have only just received internet access from our local supplier.
We are really trying to push our Zoo out there to everyone..and ZooChat is just an awesome way to do that as well as meet other exciting People and Zoos.
Thanks
Fiona @ Pouakai Zoo
 
the initial post - the zoo list - has now been updated to include all the zoos and updates mentioned in the thread (courtesy of ZYBen :)).
 
another couple of new facilities that have opened in 2010:
1) Salmon World Salmon World - Salmon World Experience - Home
its not far from Christchurch but I haven't got down there yet. It looks interesting.
2) and a new kiwi house at Franz Josef on the West Coast. I don't know anything about it, not even the name and I can't find anything on the internet yet, but it opened about two weeks ago. Its owned by the guy that owns the Antarctic Centre in Christchurch.
 
Chlidonias said:
2) and a new kiwi house at Franz Josef on the West Coast. I don't know anything about it, not even the name and I can't find anything on the internet yet, but it opened about two weeks ago. Its owned by the guy that owns the Antarctic Centre in Christchurch.
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the kiwi house in question, called the West Coast Wildlife Centre, now has a website: South Island New Zealand| Welcome to West Coast Wildlife Centre
 
The Southern Encounter Aquarium and Kiwi House in Christchurch closed its doors for good (probably) in February this year after a devastating earthquake that destroyed most of the CBD

The grandly-named Turangi National Freshwater Aquarium opens for business this month (tomorrow in fact) at the Tongariro National Trout Centre - basically a trout hatchery - at Turangi (near Taupo). Newspaper article about it here Turangi aquarium snubs trout - Taupo - NZ Herald News and an earlier article from March last year stating it would be open by August 2010 Little fish set to make a huge splash: Media Releases 29 March 2010
 
They were also building a blue duck exhibit at the Turangi Hatchery last time I was there (Nov 2010-ish). Next time I head north I will check it out.
 
I'm saddened Orana Trust isn't planing on rebuilding SEAKH...
 
the original list has now been updated to include changes posted in the thread, and I've also tidied up the website links because some of those for the smaller establishments no longer worked (so I've either replaced them with the new websites, or just deleted them for those zoos that no longer maintain websites).
 
well I was holding off updating this thread just in case it proved to be a rumour of sorts, but yes Franklin Zoo has definitely closed and the animals are in the process of being rehomed. Yet another collection gone.
 
I have discovered a collection I had never heard of before, until I visited on the 2nd of November this year, the Frankton Zoological Gardens by Queenstown (more a tiny backyard bird collection than an actual zoo). It doesn't have a website or anything fangle-dangled like that, but I wrote a bit about it here: http://www.zoochat.com/17/visit-november-2012-a-296876/#post610740

Another little collection newly-found is the Fyffe View Ranch Adventure Park which zooboy28 made a thread about here: http://www.zoochat.com/17/fyffe-view-ranch-adventure-animal-park-290662/
Their website: Fyffe View Ranch Adventure Park - Farm Park
 
hi, does anyone have any information and/or photos of the Moana Zoo? I went as a kid and can only remember there being a capuchin monkey. What other animals did they have and when did it close?
 
simon12 said:
hi, does anyone have any information and/or photos of the Moana Zoo? I went as a kid and can only remember there being a capuchin monkey. What other animals did they have and when did it close?
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there were a variety of reptiles, brown kiwi, peafowl, and capuchins. I think small-clawed otters as well. I don't know any others but no doubt there were things like wallabies and so on. I do know one of the capuchins escaped into the bush and was never found again.

The zoo was owned by Jacquie Grant (previously Jack Grant, before "the operation") and from all accounts I've heard was a disgusting filthy hovel of a zoo.

After selling/closing the zoo in c.2000 (?), she moved to Hokitika with the kiwi and reptiles and opened a kiwi house called the National Kiwi Centre (after a "trust" she had set up at Moana Zoo called the National Kiwi Trust), which by all accounts was also a disgusting filthy establishment. In about 2001 or 2002 she teamed up with Westland Water World (an aquarium which had opened in Hokitika in 1995), moved the kiwi to the aquarium and became manager, and the name of the aquarium changed to Jacquie Grant's Eco-Centre (and variations of this: it has been through numerous name changes). After a few years she was kicked out, and the name was changed again (for publicity reasons, to attract tourists) to the National Kiwi Centre. And that's the origin of the current misleading name of the aquarium!
 
Chlidonias said:
there are over 240 pages on that document. Can you say which page it is on, or quote what it says?
Click to expand...

On P.18 it says
HERITAGE
Heritage Park (extinct)
Auckland, New Zealand
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P.87 An elephant called Prince was transferred there in 1926
P.206 An elephant called Toto was also transferred there in 1926.
 
okay found the elephants, they were both in the Heritage Brothers Circus in 1926. This was an American circus. I don't know if that circus ever came to NZ (I doubt it did) but in 1926 their schedule was definitely entirely within the USA and Canada.

In short, there were no elephants transferred to any place called Heritage Park in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1926 or any other year.
 
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