Sydney Aquarium Sydney Aquarium

Simon Hampel

Simon Hampel

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20+ year member
I finally got to visit Sydney Aquarium last weekend.

It was quite impressive - some very good displays there. Not a lot of exotic fish, mostly focussing on Australian fish - not that this is a problem, there were a LOT of tourists there who I'm sure would love to see our local marine life.

Quite a good platypus display, some excellent tropical fish displays and the seals and sharks are pretty impressive.

The only negative comment I would make is that the underwater viewing areas in the shark and seal areas should have moving walkways which forces people to move along rather than block the walkway - especially when it's busy.

We made the mistake of going in to town after lunch on ANZAC day, after all the parades, and naturally a lot of families who had come into town for the parade decided to make a day of it and many visited the aquarium, so it was quite busy and crowded in places. This was worst in the underwater viewing areas.

Overall, I was quite impressed, and it is in an excellent location there on Darling Harbour, so is ideal for tourists to go and visit.
 
Big news is that Waner Brothers Movie world have placed a bid to buy out Sydney Aquarium. What this basically means is that the aquarium will be linked to sea world and if it goes ahead Sea world would be very eager to send Dolphins down to the aquarium. Sources in the aquarium say that it would be possible, they would just build a tank and stage for shows in the current car park area out the back. if this does happen which is likely the zoo is in a lot of troble becuase even with GSO they cant match dolphin and seal shows with Sydney Wildlife world next door offering australian natives. so it will be interesting to see how that all pans out over the coming months.
 
the current company has been losing prfit for a while i belive, and just imagine what a non-profit driven (or less profit driving) more animal focused company would do. the aquairum in my opinion would be totally redone, as my visit, just over a week ago showed me its very taccky, new paint is needed, new interp, just a whole over do. it would be great to see it done over. taronga should be worried.
 
I'm not being realistic, I suppose, but i HATE animal shows, whether they be dolphins and seals or tigers in Queensland.

Animal shows are just updated circus and no matter how well the animals are supposedly looked after, the whole attitude to animals is, "do some tricks and amuse me."
 
Ara said:
Animal shows are just updated circus and no matter how well the animals are supposedly looked after, the whole attitude to animals is, "do some tricks and amuse me."
Click to expand...

Clearly, it's a long time since you visited any of the larger zoos and sat through any one of the many high quality educational presentations - Taronga's Free Flight Bird Show comes to mind. Either that, or the educational, conservation, and environmental messages that are passed on during the shows are wasted on you. Either way, it's about time that you took time to work our what many of the modern presentations are about.

It's a long time since I saw 200 kids (or adults for that matter), crowded around some static interps featuring educational, conservation or environmental messages, yet most presentations in zoos and aquariums these days are packed with people, and they all walk away having taken on board a bunch of information that they otherwise would very likely not have bothered to read.

(In most cases) high quality animal presentations in zoos are not about amusement Ara, they are about engaging the visitors, and educating them at the same time.

And I'm guessing you have loads of first-hand experience with some of the keepers that work with these animals, so you can confidently comment on what their attitude to animals is????
 
i have to agree with zoopro, everytime i visit taronga,. the bird show is packed, thats probably 200 300 people, and the seal thetre once sat 700, now the new 1 seats 1000. and the eduational messages are great. the last bird show i went to was about the dreaming, and how the birds shaped the land yadda yadda. the seal show was about pollution, and how seals die with things aorund tehre neck. animals often are taught trcks that are advances on natural behaviour- birds fly- ok lets see if they fly A to B witha food reward. togers jump. a huge pole in the middle shows the power big cats have to get up trees for food. all these things may be 'tricks' but they allow a more personal experience with visitors. look at tiger island, in the past 2 or 3 years - close to half a mill for tiger conservation through persoaally interactinga nd engaging with the public- whats wrong with that- lots of enrichment, and lots on money for in-situ conservation!
 
i agree animal presentations are the most effective way of engaging an audience and thus delivering a conservation message. really only two things need be kept in mind.

firstly, that the aniamls are not asked to perform physical behaviours that are un-natural to them (as it undermines the point of the zoo, that animals are fascinating in their own right) or more importantly uncomfortable, for obvious reasons...

secondly, that the animals used in the shows are trained appropriately

and lastly, that they are treated with teh same respct as all teh other animals and given ample time to behave in natural manner ie; not just used for shows and given proper space for exercise, animal to animal interactions etc..

and before any of aour carny frieneds jump on board here and call me a hypocrite, no, i don't think circus' can provide all this.

my biggest concern with tiger presentations has always been the safety of the tariners. the bird show at taronga is excellent and heallesvilles biggest attraction has always been its very tastefully done free-flight raptor shows (apparently there is a parrot show now also).
 
Zoo_Boy said:
just imagine what a non-profit driven (or less profit driving) more animal focused company would do.
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I'm assuming you were talking about village roadshow there? They are very profit driven, I'd be guessing that they are buying it to add to their vast collection of attractions including village cinemas, seaworld, seaworld nara resort, wet n wild, movie world, outback spectacular, farm show, as well as all of their other investments... MONEY MONEY MONEY. Not because they are more animals focussed. In my opinion anyway. They just have the resources (hundreds of millions of dollars and a whole them park filled with animals) to get the numbers up.. So are Sydney Attractions really interested in selling the aquarium, and does that include the wildlife world?
 
Jarkari said:
I'm assuming you were talking about village roadshow there? They are very profit driven, I'd be guessing that they are buying it to add to their vast collection of attractions including village cinemas, seaworld, seaworld nara resort, wet n wild, movie world, outback spectacular, farm show, as well as all of their other investments... MONEY MONEY MONEY. Not because they are more animals focussed. In my opinion anyway. They just have the resources (hundreds of millions of dollars and a whole them park filled with animals) to get the numbers up.. So are Sydney Attractions really interested in selling the aquarium, and does that include the wildlife world?
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Correct - of course they are a profit-making corporation - they aren't in existance as a non-profit conservation-based corporation!

But they will likely invest considerable resources in modifying and improving both facilities and hopefully, they will soon come up to the standards that we see at Sea World. No doubt that will mean an increased gate price too, but the aquarium particularly, needs an overhaul.

The shareholders of the company are yet to agree on the sale, but it's likely to happen eventually. For the shareholders, it's all about making profits, after all.

Battle for Sydney Attractions increases - Breaking News - Business - Breaking News
 
on the same wavelength zoo pro freaky- but i also add that sea world have invested vast resources into exhibit design and facility development at sea world, and with animals in mind in a fair number of circumstances, and as zoopro said they will bring sww and saq up to sea worlds standards. are we going to soon be like the usa, with heaps of sea worlds across the country! SEA WORLD SYDNEY
 
dolphins in the carpark at darling harbour? are we talking about that pissy amount of space practically under an overpass with traffic roaring past?.....

screw that.

melbourne aquarium is even worse. i went once and will never return (okay i'll go see it when they get the antarctic penguins but i bet i'll hate it)..
 
i dont mind the idea of dolhins, id go see it, especially if done koll with underwater stuff, but pats right, the carpark is virtually under the overpass, and the road that goes to the sydney harbour bridge. to much traffic. maybe a reshuffle of exhibit, i ahve a few old guide books, and all have maps, and there used to once be anotehr floating jetty area with more sharks, next to the seals! (on the left) supposedly now where sww is. but maybe the carpark could become a shark exhibit or what ever, with a car park ontop ? (im thinking space saving) and make a new seal and dolhpin areana and exhibits?

and i ahve to say pat, i agree the melb aquarium was ****! and yea i will see it for the penguins!
 
ide' say its a gibbon that a dolphinarium would have "koll [sic] underwater stuff", since ya know, they can't live out of water.... ;)

if they did dolphins in sydney i can guarentee you the resulting furore would generate so bad publicity, only an idiot woudl consider it....

but i bed theres a few idiots on teh village roadshow board...
 
I visited sydney aquarium recently, and I was impressed by it's collection ( but mainly because of the dugongs), but not much more than with melbourne aquarium however. I was quite annoyed by the overcrowded places which unfortunately included the entire aquarium. Sydney aquarium has nice displays, and 3 large tanks, but the area's for the public are not that great and too cramped. Melbourne aqaurium does this a lot better. And I wonder, why do they have lemon sharks in two tanks, it would have made more sense in my opinion to house the blacktips and whitetips in the reef tank instead of the lemons.

The reeftank and it's tunnel where great however. Their claim to have the largest living coral tank in the world is nor true however ( reefworld has a larger tank as I've heard, but sadly it has no forum or gallery:().

About ten years ago I saw a documentary of a move of a grey nurse shark from sydney to melbourne. Now I wonder, was the shark moved from manly or sydney aquarium? In the documentary, it was claimed that the aquarium where it came from had the largest population of grey nurse sharks in captivity, and had several births. Now I wonder not only which aquarium it was, but also if any of these claims where true?
 
The recognisable whiff of Merlin entertainments has at last reached the aquarium as they open their new exhibit "Claws".
Featuring such species as Darwin prawns, swift-footed crabs, Tasmanian giant crab and Murray crayfish.
But for our Australian cousins, there is a ray of hope in the aquarium's attempt to import a Japanese spider crab for the exhibit.

King Bruce takes crown from giant crab stuck in quarantine
 
kiang said:
The recognisable whiff of Merlin entertainments has at last reached the aquarium as they open their new exhibit "Claws".
Featuring such species as Darwin prawns, swift-footed crabs, Tasmanian giant crab and Murray crayfish.
But for our Australian cousins, there is a ray of hope in the aquarium's attempt to import a Japanese spider crab for the exhibit.

King Bruce takes crown from giant crab stuck in quarantine
Click to expand...

This is not a 'whiff of hope' at all. Sydney Aquarium has always been admirably true to its 'Australian waters' theme. Non-native species like the lemon sharks ought to be phased out, rather than having new species added to the list. Japanese spider crabs have no place there!
 
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