Adelaide Zoo Adelaide News 2014

Sunbear12

Sunbear12

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Made my first trip to Adelaide in 2 years yesterday. It appears that the new director, Elaine Bensted and her team are doing a magnificent job of turning the zoo around. 2 years ago I was disappointed with the number of repeat species and empty enclosures. Now the zoo is looking refreshed with a range of new species and renovated enclosures. Here is some notes from my visit yesterday.

-Mara have gone on display next to peccaries.
-Capybara are on display in the former Pygmy hippo yard. The enclosure is quite nice with new grass and they have rendered the brick wall at the back.
-The otter exhibit next to the capybara has been renovated with new mock rock pools and plantings, looks much better than the small pool they used to have.
-The Asian aviary along the boardwalk has had the birds removed and the doors were open. It's also not on the map anymore. Not sure if it's under renovation or being removed.
-South American Coati are on display in the former red panda enclosure across from the lions.
-Elongated tortoises are on exhibit in the enclosures on the front of the nocturnal house.
-Chinese three striped box turtle are on exhibit in reptile house in former mata mata enclosure.
-A common wombat is being hand raised and was out walking on a leash when I was there.
-The enviro dome is overflowing with stick insects and many more eggs are on display in a hatching enclosure.
-A fake rhino is on display in one of the old mongoose enclosures to advertise Monarto Zoo.
-As always it was a treat to Australia's last flamingoes and also got very excited when I found an African grey parrot on display across from the nocturnal house that has been confiscated by customs.

Will post a review of the dinosaur display later today. Unfortunately I can not post any photos as my internet is being a bit dodgy at the moment. Please feel free to ask any questions.
 
Thanks for bringing us up to date, Sunbear12.
I haven't been to Adelaide zoo for a long time. Must try to get there this year.

Although Taronga is my local zoo, Adelaide is among my favourites, because they persevere with such animals as maras, which the other mainstream city zoos have abandoned.

Do they still have any sloths, or have they died out?
 
2 sloths are still on display in the nocturnal house.

After the panda import and the massive loss of diversity at Adelaide I did get rid of my membership and stop visiting but now that Adelaide is improving they are back to being one of my favourites. It is great to see Mara and capybara back in the country.
 
Continuing on with my notes on Adelaide Zoo from yesterday I am going to do a review on the dinosaur exhibit currently on at the zoo called dinosaurs alive. It is located across from the reptile house and is entered through the picnic area.

The exhibit is rather well done with new plants. Each dinosaur is set back from the path and has an A-Frame sign with the name and some information for each dinosaur. It features 9 dinosaurs which roar and can breathe. There were always volunteers there throughout the day to answer questions as well. There's only one major problem and that is that the pathway is rather narrow so with the holiday crowds it can be rather hard to move through the exhibit.

The 9 dinosaurs on exhibit are
-stegosaurus
-ornithomimus
-velociraptor
-ornitholestes
-tyrannosaurus
-apatosaurus
-pteranodon
And a triceratops with eggs and a baby

All up I quite enjoyed the exhibition and judging by its popularity it looks like this should be quite a good year for zoos SA.

Also a piece of news I missed yesterday is that 3 Barbary sheep baby's are on exhibit that we're born last November.
 
World's Oldest Sloth Celebrates birthday at Adelaide Zoo.

Story & photos here: Birthday celebration for world s oldest sloth in Adelaide - Yahoo!7

Time moves slow for a sloth, especially for the oldest Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth in the world.

Adelaide Zoo is today hosting birthday celebrations for Miss C, who is turning 40.

It is especially remarkable because the normal life expectancy for a sloth is just 20 years.

Gayl Males from Adelaide Zoo said: “Celebrating one’s 40th birthday can, in some cases, come with a sense of mixed emotions for humans, but for Australia’s only female sloth this milestone is certainly cause for celebration.”

“Time definitely moves a lot slower for sloths, but to double the life expectancy of any animal is a true testament to the stellar care provided to Miss C over the years.”

Miss C was born in 1974, with records indicating she was only the fourth or fifth sloth to be born at the Adelaide Zoo.

Hoffmann’s Two-toed Sloths inhabit parts of Central and South America including Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia.

They also spend most of their life – including eating, sleeping, mating and giving birth – upside down.

The zoo said celebrations will continue throughout this weekend, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to wish Miss C a happy birthday.
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Mara Babies Born

First births of this recently re-established species in Australia, reported on Adelaide Zoo's Facebook page:

Meet Adelaide Zoo’s newest arrivals, two Patagonian Mara babies! These cute little critters were born last Friday and join two other babies born a month ago to the other adult pair. The unusual South American rodent is unique to Adelaide Zoo as the only zoo in Australia to house this animal. The best time to see these frisky rodents is from around 2pm as they spend time with their parents enjoying the afternoon sun in the main habitat.
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As I understand it, this more than doubles the national population from 1.3 to 1.3.4 (so saying - or implying - two adult pairs is a bit rich). While I'm glad that breeding success has occurred, I hope other zoos import new blood too rather than relying on offspring from this tiny founding group.
 
zooboy28 said:
First births of this recently re-established species in Australia, reported on Adelaide Zoo's Facebook page:



As I understand it, this more than doubles the national population from 1.3 to 1.3.4 (so saying - or implying - two adult pairs is a bit rich). While I'm glad that breeding success has occurred, I hope other zoos import new blood too rather than relying on offspring from this tiny founding group.
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Especially with only one male founder. Good news though
 
I guess it would not be too difficult to import more mara into ARAZPA region. But I suppose you have a long list for some others … too!
 
Adelaide Zoo has been in the headlines today with plans revealed today to remove giraffes and lions from the zoo.

No Cookies | The Courier-Mail

It suprises me that this is such a big thing now since I first learnt of the plan in about 2006. I also don't like the idea of attempting to manage another a big cat program in Australia since we currently have 4 which keep gaining holders and which need them. We also have 2 or so other species floating around taking up spaces.
 
I think it is about time that the giraffes and lions are moved on to Adelaide, would benefit all parties I believe.

I do like the idea of leopards, and i think that with renovations a decent exhibit could be built for them, and I think there would be enough space around Australia to have another species of big cat if a few zoos got on board (which I don't think will be too hard, demand is generally pretty high for species like this).
 
A portion of the old front gate is currently undergoing renovation ready for some poison dart frogs to go on display.
 
Sunbear12 said:
A portion of the old front gate is currently undergoing renovation ready for some poison dart frogs to go on display.
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Is this likely to be one of the brick ticket booth/kiosk like things inside that gate that had a pile of posters about reptiles in the windows and I think a small Freshwater Crocodile exhibit recently?
 
Sunbear12 said:
Adelaide Zoo is celebrating the birth of a white cheeked gibbon.
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Couldn't this please have its own thread so that this particular piece of news doesn't get lost in a very long thread and so is easier to find again.
 
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the zoo's latest newsletter has a short uninformative section on the new frog house, as follows:
Hop into Adelaide Zoo to visit our newest exhibit! The Froggery is a vibrant display of frogs including the Dyeing, Blue and Splashback Poison Dart Frogs where you'll learn about these intriguing amphibians and their stages of life.
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I'll go have a look what else I can find in way of press releases.

EDIT: and I can't really find anything, except that it opened in time for the school holidays (which are already happening).
 
Adelaide's female cassowary died suddenly last week from a ruptured blood vessel. She was hatched at the zoo in January 1995.

The zoo still has a young male, hatched at Perth Zoo in December 2012.
 
4.0 Bolivian Squirrel Monkeys have arrived from Auckland and are now on show following quarantine (zoos Facebook)
 
this was on the facebook page about a week or so ago (August 21):
Last week Adelaide Zoo received a special delivery all the way from Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in the ACT, three Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby joeys! The one-month-old joeys were sent to meet their new surrogate mothers, three Yellow-footed Rock-Wallabies.

In a careful procedure the brush-tailed joeys were attached to the teats of the yellow-footed females, who will raise the joeys as their own. Removing the Brush-tailed Rock-wallabies from their mother’s pouches allows them to give birth again in thirty days. The cross-foster program was developed to essentially double the breeding capabilities of the brush-tailed wallabies breed and in turn boost their dwindling population.
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It ties also into this Zoochat thread about Monarto, which mentions the same technique but for black-footed (aka black-flanked) rock wallabies: http://www.zoochat.com/24/black-footed-rock-wallaby-release-205541/
 
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