Thanks for sharing, @Abbey. This was fascinating viewing.
A few notes:
The documentary appears to have come out in 1996 as it’s mentioned Rigo (1970) is 26 years old and his son Mzuri has just become a father. Mzuri’s first offspring was a male named Mapema, born 1996.
Note also, the shot of the sign advising the zoo is without giraffe following the death of Rosemaree. She died 19/05/1995 and the zoo was without giraffes until December 1996.
However, it does include earlier footage including a Polar bear, Bono and Suma, Mzuri (of course) and to my interest, the Sumatran tiger twins, Calang and Selatan. They were born at Melbourne Zoo in November 1990 and are shown here as adolescents, probably shortly before Selatan’s transfer to Taronga Zoo at the age of 18 months.
There’s also several clips of Melbourne Zoo’s original breeding pair of Sumatran tigers, Frank and Poetry, who are looking quite old in this documentary. Frank is seen at 3.42.
An interesting mention of the use of media names at 10.41.
New male Pygmy hippopotamus Timmy at 13.32. Timmy was born 1980 at Honolulu Zoo and was imported by Taronga Zoo in 1981. He arrived at Melbourne Zoo 05/07/1995.
Some nice footage of the gorilla troop around 15.42 - five year old Buzandi chest beating and two year old Bambuti riding on Betsy’s back.
At 19.37, it’s mentioned three female Common hippopotamus cohabit. They are Beatrice (1981-2001), Brindabella (1990) and Primrose (1990).
For some reason I've always called her Barbara. I recall seeing a photo of them together in a pool and for some reason the name 'Barbara' was there leading to my association, but come to think of it it might've just been the keeper who took the photo!
