Melbourne Zoo Melbourne Zoo visits...

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The Melbourne Aquarium doesn't have any single amazing exhibit like the other 5 aquariums that I mentioned above. It actually pales in comparison to those others.

But I really do think that occasionally a smaller sized zoo or aquarium can be quite successful. I've already posted other replies in regard to the Denver Zoo's 4,000 animals at that large organization, but antiquated buildings and poorly designed structures dominate there. That is an example of a large zoo with several outstanding newer exhibts and a whole lot of older, aging enclosures. Seattle's Zoo has only 1,100 animals but is much nicer, and it shows with all of its exhibit awards.

I agree that there are instances where bigger is not better. I just was really disappointed with Melbourne's fairly new aquarium, and am hoping that the penguin display will add to the facility.
 
Chlidonias, I'm sorry you were disappointed with Melbourne Zoo on your visit.

I'm not sure which otter exhibit you were referring to. There are two. The original exhibit was modified to hold binturongs, one of which escaped, and is being used for otters again. The other otter exhibit was holding the pygmy hippo until a couple of months ago. It's not an excuse but I think at the moment any changes are considered temporary or 'band aid'. We currently have two otter groups in two enclosures.

The tree top monkeys had the new glass put in last week.....I agree the perspex was awful but it was only ever temporary (and it's been there for about six months). It looks a lot better now.

I'm glad you liked Oz Bush. A lot of people complain about the distance they need to travel to get around it. (And there are no toilets!) The wombats look great....they're like that every day....they look stoned to me!

Unfortunately you can't please everyone and there are lots of people like the 'frog family' you mentioned. The poor little kid missing out on his frogs.

I spend a fair bit of time with the gorillas and am sick to the bone of people saying "look at the monkeys" and "hey, what's your mum doing in there?". Also, comments on how aggressive the gorillas are and that they're killers....

Unfortunately, unlike the people on this forum, most of the people out there don't really care or understand about nature.

I'm glad you enjoyed the aquarium. I've been twice and I enjoyed it both times. I've been to Sydney aquarium once and I love that, too. But then I'm easy to please......I get excited looking at the goldfish in the local pet shop, too. (And, yes, I am that pathetic.)
 
aw chilidonas, i think you have been a victim of "mood-judging" :)

thats when you think a zoo is great or bad depending on how you the mood you wre in at the time. i do it all the time. some visits i am convinced melbourne is the best zoo in australia others i am disappointed things aren't happening fast enough or i dislike changes they make (usually becuse my very vain personality thinks that i could have designed something better)..

i'm not going to argue with you on your crits of melbourne beacause many of them are valid points that we have all made on various occasions but have probably learnt to live with. the place is looking particuarly "shabby" in parts at teh moment but like zookiah said this is due to a lot of "band-aid" solutions to problems, things will improve dramatically over the coming years.

however, the fact that you liked melbourne aquarium leaves me dumbfounded. putting aside teh fact that the first (and only) time i went i was exposed to legionella fungus that killed a bunch of peoples nanas, i thought it was tacky, small and had absolutley not one exhibit that was anything more than mediocre at best. it may have changed since, but i have never had even the slightest inclination to revisit. on theother hand i often re-visit the aquarium when i am in sydney.
 
don't get me wrong, I did enjoy Melbourne Zoo and I wasn't really disappointed as such. Its just that the part I enjoyed most on the first visit many years ago was the rainforest section and it now looks so run-down. As for the windows in the treetops I was wondering why I hadn't remembered them as looking that bad so them being temporary explains that nicely. The otter enclosure I was talking about was the original stream-bed one which I thought was fantastic (in the first visit it had both otters and binturongs apparently, although the latter were hiding somewhere asleep) but now looks really sad.
 
i don't think the original otter enclosure ever held both species at once. and although it has been somewhat refurbed with climbing logs for arboreal binturongs (which will hopefully be reversed now) i think it still looks great. in fact the "rainforest" around it has grown more than ever!!

not disgreeing, but would be intersted to hear a more detailed explaination of what it is about it you think schanged. was it just the binturong additions that put you off?
 
there was definitely signage for both otters and binturongs on the enclosure (remember this was about 15 years back). The otters were obviously in there and there was a climbing structure of some sort in the middle presumably for the binturongs.

With regards to the Melbourne Aquarium, I judge aquariums on what they display, not on big flash tanks that are there to appeal to the tourist masses. Its irrelevant if the aquarium is big or small when it comes to judging its quality. To illustrate, in Thailand I visited the Pattaya Underwater World and the next day the Bang Saen Aquarium in Chonburi. The Pattaya one had a big ocean tank with a tunnel and various other small tanks but all much like any other Underwater World in Asia. The Chonburi one is in the University and only has quite small tanks, many of which are best described as water-filled concrete boxes dressed up with coral rock. But I rate the Chonburi one much higher because it was far more interesting and had many more interesting local species. I considered the Pattaya one to have been a bit of a waste of my money. Now most visitors would look at it the other way because Pattaya had a big tank and they could go "Oooooooh! We're in a tunnel", but those people are idiots.

Also, just to reiterate, I DID like Melbourne Zoo on the whole and spent many hours there. There were just some bits that looked run-down.
 
The Melbourne Zoo is a decent zoo, but like all zoos there are some horrible little enclosures. The syrian brown bears have the typical all-concrete grotto, and the baboons are forced to eke out an existence in an atrocious, ancient cage. The Hamadryas baboons at Adelaide have a much nicer exhibit.
 
Chlidonias said:
Now most visitors would look at it the other way because Pattaya had a big tank and they could go "Oooooooh! We're in a tunnel", but those people are idiots.
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personally, when it comes to aquariums, i'm more of a tunnel kinda guy who's not so concerned with what kinda fish i'm looking at. but i didn't know that made me an idiot!! ouch.
 
I've been looking at the photos I have from Melbourne Zoo first time I went. I think the problem I have with the otter enclosure is probably just that I'm directly comparing the enclosure in my head between how it looked 15 years ago (when it was probably fairly new) and how it looks now, whereas all you Melbourne guys would have been seeing it regularly during that time and not noticed the wear of time. Does that make sense?
 
they're prints from my old film camera. I have no scanner or anything like that. The mandrill enclosure looks much more leafy than it does now!
 
Chlidonias said:
The mandrill enclosure looks much more leafy than it does now!
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... probably because the Mandrills have eaten all the leaves...

Actually I sort of agree with you that zoos go through phases when they seem to look very 'tired' - such as London Zoo did when it nearly closed in the early 1990's- yet nowadays its popularity is soaring and there is plenty of new building /design going on again. Howletts and Port Lympne also had a similar 'dip' around the time of Aspinall's death, but which now seems well past.

I think part of it is what's happening at the zoo at any time, the other part of it is our conception of it, particularly if we only visit at long intervals.
 
the last three gorillas to grow up in the troop really gave the vegetation in the enclosure a thrashing. they killed a large peppercorn tree. i agree it shows.

the mandrill enclosure looks not as good as it used to in my opinion largely because the water level in the is so low. i suspect it was lowered intentionally as a mandrill drowned years ago due to poor landscaping. a large portion of the monkeys climbing deadfall sits over water, thus a slip-up is potentially fatal. looked great, but for years now it seems the water has been lower, showing more of the mock-rock bank which has been draped in netting, i presume to give any unfortunate drowning mandrills something to grip onto.

of course for years they left one hippo pool drained and full of weeds as well. (but i will try not to get started on my anger about poor pygmy hippo management!)

hopefully a bit of effort will go back into teh "african" rainforest when the zoo decides to refurb the ape grottoes into the new gorilla batchelor exhibit. no doubt they will construct a new entrance at that stage. hopefully by then we may have a hippo or two back on display as well!
 
on melbourne aquarium...
i visited the aquarium last year and was disappointed to find such a shabby, poor excuse of an aquarium in such a vibrant exciting city, particularly when you consider that the much smaller city of Perth can produce an aquarium as amazing as AQWA. i think it has alot of potential, being centrally located and incredibly close to the Yarra, but in comparison to Sydney and Perth it rates a very poor third.
i love Melbourne Zoo, but the piecemeal funding it gets from the State Government does show...some of the worlds best exhibits sit literally next to antiquatated strucutres and second rate exhibits-in just a few years such a huge portion of Taronga has recived an extensive overhaul, reflecting the different funding arrangements.
admittedly, in design terms Melbourne has always led the way in Australia with immersion exhibits, and the landscaping is superb, but empty hippo exhibits, run-down mandrill enclosures and mice infrested pheasant aviaires, as well as the run-down appearance of the Treetop Monkey exhibits all combine to lower the standard.
and then there is the other side of the road! you can practically draw a line through Melbourne Zoo and divide the good and bad evenly. sadly, a history of poor animal population planning etc has left Melbourne with some of the worlds best zoo exhibits sitting either empty or potentially empty exhibits (think pygmy hippo and mandrill and various other primate species, with many species listed as being only potetnially viable or phase outs).
an increase in funding, refurbishment of existing exhibits, opening of new exhibits and the importation of new stock are some of the few key ingredients that will set Melbourne Zoo on a more solid path to the future.
 
led the way they have indeed. and to be fair you have to remember that some of melbournes immersion exhibits, such as the gorilla rainforest are almost 20 years old!

thats not just leading australia-wise, thats leading globally. they built one of the first and for a long time arguably the most naturalistic gorilla exhibits in the world.

as glyn said though, taronga got such a cash-injection that it managed to play catch-up in just a few years.

but just a reminder that i think we are being a little hard on the supposed "shabbiness" of melbourne, if we are comparing it to other zoos. last i visited, taronga had its fair share of shabby out-dated exhibits itself. i'de be certain adelaide would too as i'm sure does perth.
 
There are other zoos in the world that are spending massive amounts of money on lavish new exhibits, such as the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, U.S.A. Over 100 acres (40 hectares) are being added to an already large zoo. Big-name zoos like the Bronx and San Diego either build or renovate an exhibit every single year. The list is lengthy as far as rapidly expanding zoos across the United States, and there are also a number of zoos in Europe that are raising funds for huge expansions (like Chester Zoo).

My point is that Melbourne Zoo, which has a highly regarded set of exhibits, has to change with the times. I really enjoyed the zoo on my only visit and it's one of the better ones that I've been to, but it does not rank as one of the all-time best in the world. Not even close. There are many zoos that simply don't have the dollars to construct improved exhibits, and therefore can easily be surpassed by neighbouring wildlife institutions. Taronga Zoo built the Aussie backyard section, has splashed out something like $40 million on Wild Asia, and another $40 million on Great Southern Oceans, and suddenly it is arguably just as good if not better than Melbourne.

I predict that ten years from now Australia Zoo up in Queensland will have blown both Taronga and Melbourne out of the water. Crikey! With a massive amount of financing from the Irwin family bankrolling a gargantuan expansion, Australia Zoo will go from its current tiny collection of exotic animals to one of the leaders in the field of zoology.

I've never been there, but with an African safari to be constructed it sure is tempting to take a trip to Queensland. Savannah exhibits, a hotel, railway, madagascan island enclosure packed with lemurs, huge gorilla and orangutan exhibits...all of this will more than likely be accomplished within a decade. Will other zoos be able to keep up with such a ferocious pace? The zoo is determined to construct extra large exhibits that are amongst the biggest on the planet...and the expansion alone will probably quadruple the size of the existing location.
 
snowleopard,

australia zoo have gorillas in ten years? not if the EEP won't give them any! ;)...

they will also have to source a new herd of elephants, since their current animals are very old, and then import them into australia (and trust me, thats not going to be easy at all!!)

i have heard that australia zoo has not at much money as most people expect, but who knows. certainly from lengthy converstaions here, they are fantastically generous with enclosure sizes (which, believe me - i hold in very, very, high regard) but they do all their exhibit design and construction in-house to save money and it shows. they recntly passed on a massive opportunity to aquire a big collection of african hoofstock recently and it would be supprising if they managed to get another option like it in the next ten years as we currently have import bans on artiodactyls in place and thus our collections have shrunk considerably (though white rhino, giraffe and zebra seem very likely to come from other australian zoos)...

so "best zoo in australia" in ten years seems pretty unlikely to me, but they will grow into a major player i'm sure. :)
 
The Australia Zoo provides huge enclosures for the elephants but from what I have seen there is very little enrichment in them. And it looks like a giant dustbowl. Mind you the eles are very manageable and are taken for walks etc. The herparium(is that the right word for a place with lots of snakes?) is very poor and certainly is not above standard. The glass boxes are the typical small size where the snake couldn't stretch out its full length, have very poorly painted backdrops and little in the way of any sort of enrichment. Don't know what snakes need but it certainly is boring to look at. A walk through aviary seems designed to get as many people through in as short a time as possible with a large, very straight walk way from one end to the other, taking up much of the room in concrete. Tarongas Wollemi Pines and Melbournes great bird aviary are extremely superior. Currumbins aviarys are mucg better.
There just doesn't seem to be much imagination provided but I haven't been for a couple of years so hopefully the tigers and cheetah are better and the elephants aren't isn't as boring as it looks.
 
yeah well since then jay the "elephantasia" exhibit would have opened right?

so its presumably much better.

i dont know what stage in the process they are at with aquiring new elephants (if at all) but with such old females (50+) the liklihood of having an empty exhibit in a years time is very unlucky, but entirely possible.

the cheetah share the tiger exhibit do they not? so they must only be brought out for shows.

but to pull it back on thread to melbourne again, i think it seems a bit silly to say that they have to change with the times since i think they in part, have pioneered "the times".

have we foregotten;

trail of the elephants - melbournes 15 million dollare asian elephant facility? most zoos around the world (including san diego) are still playing catch up there.

or the new oranguatan sanctuary? taronga hasn't one of those.
or an immersion-style sumatran tiger exhibit.

what about the gorilla rainforest and neighboring pygmy hippo/mandrill exhibit? all over ten years old, but still looks as naturalistic as well designed as anything being built today in my opinion. no need to "catch up" there..(taronga ain't got that either)

the australian bush section may not have a barn (and i do like the barn) and suburban house incorperated like tarongas, but its all spanking new and all in all a proper modern, immersion trail.

the wombat exhibit is the best i've seen (and waaaay better than tarongas). simple is often what works best. i'm not a fan of the taronga mineshaft themed exhibit!

glyn mentions you can split the zoo down the middle between old and new. well have we forgotten that the melbourne equivalent to GSO is under construction at present? on the OLD SIDE?!!

its such a big development it will make roughly a third to 3 quarters of the zoo modernised. thats pretty good by international standards. most of the worlds zoos would love to be in that position.

its got a few smaller issues that need adressing, i hate that baboon exhibit as much as anyone. but overall you must remember that not only has melbourne largely modernised, its tackled some of the largest and most expensive developmenst first.

it may have a lot of mediochre exhibits for big cats and a crappy baboon cage. but at least it hasn't got a crappy exhibit for elephants, gorillas and orangutans (or soon to be) seals...

cos they are the ones that cost the big bucks...
 
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