I visited Taronga Zoo in September 2007 and had arranged a meeting with the keeper to discuss 'Brooke', the female that had been there for a decade or so. 'Brooke' died one or two years ago but was stunning and I must have spent three hours in total watching her in the old pinniped pools. 'Great Southern Oceans' only opened in January 2008, where this photo is clearly taken. At the time of my visit they had two leopard seals in the zoo hospital, one that had been rescued only one week earlier. I was not allowed to see them, but I assume these are they? They look splendid and I eagerly await my next visit to Taronga to see them. Let us hope they will live even longer than Brooke did!
It would be great to have leopard seals in germany, we have to many humboldt penguins in german zoos, some of them isn't allow to breed anymore penguins, but this is unnatural, so I would say, allow them to breed to feed leopard seals with the surplus penguins....
Oh, I can hear the screams of a lot of people here, eating cattle, pigs, chicken, lambs, calfs, fish and much more....By the way, copenhagen zoo is feeding the tasmanian devils with benett wallabies and the lions with zebras and antelopes...
I support carcass feeding in zoos. Those who watch lions kill and eat a zebra on the television and then visit a zoo and become shocked to see the lions there dining on a zebra that died from natural causes in that very zoo need to think for a moment. Lions do not get a chuck of meat prepared for them in the wild, they have to work for their food, and allowing them to rip an actual carcass down and dine on it stimulates them. Copenhagen Zoo has my full support on the carcass feeding policy.
I am not very often proud of any of my native zoos but I am very proud of the fact that we in Denmark can (and do) feed with whole carcasses. No zoo in Denmark has any problems with feeding their surplus hooftstock to their carnivores. Ree Park has a huge population of blackbucks and many are used to feed their cheetahs, wild dogs and lions. However, it does not often happen that the lions get zebra or antelope since we don't produce enough surplus of those
A positive new trend has also developed by people owning horses here in Denmark. Many now donate their old and used riding horses and ponies to the zoos. Especially the polar bears enjoy when a whole horse-head is tossed into their exhibit and it is not an uncommon sight to see a polar bear in Copenhagen playing with a horse head.
