actually, i have mentioned this before on this forum, but it is an interesting story regarding the gorillas. melbourne zoo and taronga both had pairs of gorillas in the very early days of the zoo. eventually, due both zoo's having no success in breeding them (in those days they didn't think to keep them in natural groups) - it was decided to send the taronga pair to melbourne as melbourne had much better facilities for great apes. for many years melbourne exhibited all 3 genus' of great ape and taronga just had the orangs and chimps. of course melbourne started to have results with breeding their gorillas and then built a fantastic exhibit in 89 and have ever since been world famous for them. eventually melbourne decided to send it's chimps to taronga - who had equal success with that species, and the two zoos struck an agreement. melbourne would breed gorillas, taronga would breed chimps. but of course chimps (for reasons unknown) have never had quite the public interest gorillas have and taronga in 96, decide to import a family from a primate park in holland. this was all told to me by a zoo volunteer at melbourne and she said a degree of animosity has existed ever since, regarding gorillas, between the two zoos. i personally think the taronga exhibit sucks and it's a pity they didn't focus more on the chimp park (please render those ugly brick walls!) because that was something taronga was world famous for and it is actually more interesting watching the chimps at taronga than the gorillas - who live in an altered giant panda exhibit.
i don't have any actual objections to taronga having gorillas - i just think they seemed to half-arse it somewhat. apparently melbourne zoo staff think it was all about the olympics....