Wild Life Sydney Bens View on Sydney Wildlife World

ZYBen

ZYBen

Well-Known Member
Well i didnt really enjoy my day there, but god was it a learning curve.

The first that that had me saying um... was the fact that the zoo is open until 10pm was the first thing wrong, but that wasnt the half of it.

for those of you who have been (i think it was just Glyn...) you will know the layout, but i will talk it anyway until i get around to scanning the guide book ($4, an okay investment)
When you walk in the first thing you see in an interactive display of a 'Keeper', with very little knowledge on english. here you can see a variety of insect and arachnids up close and pat some insects, this very had very little knowledge of the bugs she was handling trying to convince me that a spiny leaf insect was a female goliath stick insect. she wlso seemed very un aware at the flying habits of rhinoceros beetles or anything in general, afdter talking zoos for about 5 minutes i had to tell her what an Open Range Zoo was.

you continue along to the butterfly exhbit, which they could have put something in, even a wallaby would have added some more interest to this HUGE space (huge in the size of SWW)the to great, well awesome insect exhbits including a giant bull ant colony and a huge spider window.

after that you continue to the reptiles also great exhbits. Including Thorny Devils with a live food colony in their exhbit.

After these exhbit i was very happy. they made SWW look great. THen came flight canyon, now some of you might know i am a bit of a birdo, lol. well this whole exhbit annoyed me, the exhbit was tall, with little ground room, with most of it taken up by the ponds. I was expecting a great variety of birds, but was dissapointed, there were Emerald and Rose Crowned Fruit Doves, QLD Brush Turkeys, Rainbow and Musk Lorikeets, Doubbled Barred Finches, Red Browed Firetails, SATIN Bowerbirds and an Eastern Yellow robin, oohh and i think i also saw 1 peacful dove. because the aviaries tallest trees are plams that offer nearly no perching opurtunities. all the birds where crowded in the bottom.
THe GUide book and postcards show photos and say that the following birds are also in this exhibit. Noisy Pitta, Button Quail (I presumme black breasted) Regent Bowerbirds, Eclectus Parrots, Honeyeaters (thats as specific as the book says) and Bush Thicknees (Curlews). now anyone with a basic knowledge of Birds knows that Thicknees cannot be kept with other ground dwelling birds as they will kill and eat them, a brush turkey would be okay. plus the robin and most of the finches wouold not last long.

I am really tired to i will just do the nocturnal area then talk about the most appauling exhibits.

Nocturnal house was good, except i was told tha potoroos were bettings, but it was a nice area, liek any nocturnal house, they are all pretty uniform.

Pics aswell tomorrow
 
ben i am really sorry to hear you did come all the way over from adelaide and missed out on taronga and instead went to the aquarium ;)
im 100% sure you would have liked taronga alot better
 
already home, only had a week there and was camping in the Lower Barrington Tops Nat'Park for half that week, but that was great seeing Wild Lyrebirds, Eastern Yellow Robins, Golden Whistlers and Eastern Whip Birds.
 
and how nice are the lyrebirds. did you see any wild scrub turkeys? im not sure if they are indigenous to that park but they are found as far south as sydney and are definitely around. the park also is the southermonst limit for a riflebird species, and theres also ground parrots and bristlebirds.
but i would have been more than happy with a golden whistler ;) or robin, they are both so beautiful
 
I am a cub scout leader, but was just camping with my freinds. There were Turkeys would have been nice to see a bristlebird aswell, but if i saw a ground parrot i would have been in awe. they are beautiful birds i have inly ever seen a mounted specimen and pictures, its a pity no one holds them, but i believe there is someone in NSW who is being granted to take some from the wild to breed, we was involved in handraising some that were released.
 
i wish that happened. ground parrots, along with freckled ducks, orange bellied parrots, firetail finches and a few other threatened species are species i would like to see become more established in mainstream aviculture. im not suggesting for a second that youll walk into a kitchen and see a ground parrot histling in a cage, but a simplification of the current licensing procedures which differ so much state-to-state into a better, more effective national approach could see these species held by more people.
i feel that avicultralists in this country represent an 'untapped resource of knowledge and skill, and could really benefit the future of these species (what i think is the govt should use licenscing fees to establish breeding centres for these species, build up numbers rpaidly then get them out into the main industry within a few years) a pipe dream i know
 
i like yellow robins. whats the birdlife in SA like? i know you have plenty of endemic species but you guys also have alot of the same bird types too, dont you?
 
Ohh indeed glyn, Freckled Ducks and Beautiful and Red Eared Firetails are also held in captivity, i beleive in WA, SA and VIC. NSW laws are very very strict, fancy keeping only Hopping Mice and Plains Rats!

Yeah we are pretty bird filled, bu tit is the same species everywher, hills is all Red Brows, Diamond Firtails and Noisy Miners. with a few parrots thrown in.

At teh St Kilda mangroves there is a large variety of water birds. Including Red Capped Dotterals, a great little species
 
lol. i know weve had this discussion before, and weve all agreed to disagree on some points on this forum but i honestly think the rarer a bird species is, the more reason for making it available to mainstream aviculturalists...or at least a bit easier to obtain.
and i mean, whilst feral populations of birds like red browed firetail have been established in perth, no one is going to be liberating orange bellied parrots in sydney are they?
 
yep
i think all exotic birds would have been better off in private hands if Flamingoes where originally in private hands there would not be 3-4 left in the country now, same with curasows. But with Peacock pheasants that was a different story one guy had the whole population he went on holidays they all died in someone else care! so they need to be spread out. no hoarding of species, which zoos do all to ofetn and people too
 
what? we had peacock pheasants here? well i guess when it comes to private aviculturalists zoos have to thank them in part for many of the exotic species we actually do have.
on the other hand, private aviculturalists in this country would benifit, particularly in regards to managing exotic species, from the establishment of a more aggressive regulatory body that could foster communication between private holders. many exotic species are in such low numbers that they continiue to go extinct. we need a body to coordinate this, though participation in this scheme would obviously be up to the individual, as they are not bound by law or other professional aggreements.
 
yep, there are people doing this though privatley, with Grey Singers, and Green Avadavats.

But i think private aviculturalists woudl have more luck breeding any Endangered species of birds, the main reason is, if a species need privacy they give it to them, not put them on display, with so many people walking past and just ignoring the little finch or Fly Catcher
 
alot of the time when big institutions get involved with these collaborative breeding plans they seem to fizzle out after a while. thinking of the freckled duck in particualr, the main breed and release work is being done privatley now by an individual who used to work for the CSIRO.
the regent honeyeater program is another one that, once the initial captive breeding, release and research stages had been finalised, could have been continued on for a little while to enable some birds to be established in private hands. if private aviculturalists managed to secure a population of 2 to 3 hundred of these birds nationally, any future zoo involvement because of a sudden decline in wild numbers, etc, would be greatly advantaged. i get the feeling its not easy to complete a recovery program at times, ecspecialy with all the eggs in one basket...
 
Don't forget Glyn, that the native recovery programs are almost always run by the state wildlife agencies, not the zoos, and although the zoos have one or more representatives on the recovery teams, the programs are very much driven by the wildlife department, not by the zoos.
 
AT the moment i have Purple Crowned lorikeets, Red Billed Hecks Longtailed finches and Clarences Star finches all pure birds with no mutation blood or hybrids. When the next Aviary comes it will have Crimson Chats and Gouldian Finches (Both from Adelaide Zoo) all pure again, from the Kimberley.

I also have a flight up the back, that is waiting on a pair of Little Lorikeets. In the Purple Crown Aviary i am also going to add some Superb Blue Wrens

All pure my birds are, bred from wild caught or rescued stock
 
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