Australian Collections in LA and SD

M

Meilimonkey

Well-Known Member
I don’t know if this has been mentioned recently in some of the threads, but I recently visited the LA Zoo, San Diego Zoo and Safari Park within three days and I was especially looking forward to the Australian collection at San Diego.

I was utterly disappointed, San Diego closed their indoor Australian Outback exhibits so they didn’t even display the wombats or echidnas (no signage, exhibit or anything). All they had enclosures for were aviaries, the Tasmanian devils, a few wallabies, a brush-tailed bettong (not sure if this was a diamond in the rough), and the koalas. The Safari Park’s new Walkabout only held a few species of wallabies (none of which were anything special). Although, the one bright spot is the platypus pond was still going forward.

However, I found my saving grace at the LA Zoo. I visited on a whim and saw just as many species of wallabies, an echidna, wombats, devils, a cassowary, and koalas.

My main surprise was how many Australian animals I saw at LA that were absent from SD. What happened to the amazing collection of Australian animals at San Diego? Also, did anyone else have this experience or was it just bad luck for me?
 
I saw the wombats on exhibit at SD earlier this year in an outdoor enclosure. I saw a wide variety of Australian birds in the aviaries, plus the devils, wallabies, and koalas. I recall seeing signed exhibits for bigger kangaroos but didn't see them. There were several Australian reptiles on display over in the reptile area, including Shingleback Skinks, Woma Pythons, and some others. I had no clue they even had the bettong.

The Walkabout at the Safari Park hadn't opened yet, and have not been to LA so cannot voice on that. However, I have seen photos of tree kangaroos, cassowaries, echidnas, frogmouths, etc in the Safari Park gallery recently.
 
I enjoyed LA’s Australian exhibit. Definitely one of the stronger areas of the zoo. The nocturnal house was my first and although I only saw the wombats sleeping in a corner, I thought it was an amazing concept and I don’t know why zoos in this side of the world don’t do them more often (nocturnal houses)
 
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