Adelaide Zoo Old maps of Adelaide Zoo
- Thread starter Shirokuma
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I hope this works. It's a scan (using the iPhone notes app) of a hard copy that I had printed off the internet around the time that the pandas moved. Excuse the faint lines, I think I had redesigned it at one point.
My first visit wasn't until 2011 and by then the panda enclosure and new entrance had been built along the top where the bongo and zebra are marked.
My first visit wasn't until 2011 and by then the panda enclosure and new entrance had been built along the top where the bongo and zebra are marked.
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This is great, thank you!
In contrast to the abundance of Taronga and Melbourne maps, there don't seem to be as many Adelaide maps around.
Some of my observations:
- It certainly is an interesting aspect - and different to the current map. I suspect the change took place upon the construction of the new entrance, as upon my visit in July 2010, it was around the opposite way (as it is to this day).
- I'm gathering that the reference to 'Education 2008' infers this map pre-dates the Envirodome (which ultimately didn't open until April 2009).
- Therefore, this would have been after the chimps left for Monarto (although the exotic mammals thread says they didn't leave until 2009, so perhaps they were off-display for a time - someone else would know more than me)
- There are no less than three meerkat symbols near the giraffes, but some animals are missing, such as Persian Leopard and Dwarf Mongoose, both of which I believe would have been at the zoo at the time (the leopard near the lions, and the mongoose near the otters).
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The chimpanzees (two males) left 04/05/2009. I believe they’d been held off display since December 2008, when one of them arrived from Taronga Zoo and they began the extensive process of introducing them. The mother and sister of the Adelaide bred male had been exported the previous month in November 2008.
Four female chimpanzees were quarantined at Adelaide Zoo in late 2010, but held off display. They joined the males at Monarto.
I would say this was printed in the mid to late 2000's but couldn't put an exact year on it. 2008 could be correct.
Another clue could be the bears and beavers near the nocturnal house. In 2011 the bear exhibit held ring tailed lemurs, as it does today (I visited in April this year), but the Beavers were still signed (and unseen at the time).
Another clue could be the bears and beavers near the nocturnal house. In 2011 the bear exhibit held ring tailed lemurs, as it does today (I visited in April this year), but the Beavers were still signed (and unseen at the time).
Well done ZooChat detectives!
Thanks for letting us know about the mongoose. I might have been misremembering them being housed (in 2010) opposite the sea lions (where meerkat are housed now).
Speaking of the beaver, my only visit to Adelaide Zoo was in the same month the last beaver died (July 2010). I recall an empty exhibit, so I might have just missed him. Is this the exhibit which now holds capybara?
It was mentioned in December 2010 that Gippsland water dragons, Macquarie turtles and Eastern long-necked turtles had moved into the old beaver enclosures.
It was mentioned by @WhistlingKite24 last year that Obi moved into the hyena exhibit when they were trasnfered to Monarto; with the plan being to move the two Capybara into his old exhibit.
Thanks for this! Interesting to see what Adelaide looked like prior to the SEAR/Immersion development in the mid 00s.
Here is an Adelaide Zoo map from 2007:
And one from 1984:
And one from 1984:
Re. The mongoose they very well may have moved to opposite the Seals as that row of enclosures was predominantly empty by 2010/2011.
I was quite surprised to learn beavers were in Australia last just over a decade ago. Apparently they only 1.2 in the early 2000’s though. Offspring of a previous our I’m assuming. They were notoriously hard to spot despite being in quite an open enclosure.
The previous beaver enclosure isn’t the one with the Capybaras. That whole area was redeveloped I believe, the enclosure is new.
It was mentioned by @Chlidonias in another thread that two pairs of Beaver were imported by Adelaide Zoo in the 1980’s. They still held two pairs at the start of the 2000’s, which were likely the descendants of these pairs. These had dwindled to 1.2 by 2008, the last of which (a male) died in July 2010 as mentioned by @Abbey.
They can live into their 20’s in captivity, so I’d imagine the original founders would’ve all been deceased by the early 2000’s. Adelaide last breed their beavers in the 90’s; the last 1.2 were possibly related hence the stop in breeding, although I’m not entirely sure.
The last beaver died at the age of 20 in 2010, so would have been born either 1989 or 1990 to one of the original pairs.
I don’t know whether both imported pairs bred to produce the four animals at the zoo in the early 2000’s or whether they were from a single pair. I imagine it was an intentional phase out so they could concentrate on other species.
The 1980’s maps represent Adelaide as a typical Australasian zoo of it’s era - a diversity of species we can only dream of (all arranged by taxonomy) and crammed into exhibits a fraction of the size we’d consider acceptable by today’s standards.