Taronga Zoo Taronga Taronga Taronga

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It's great that there is open criticism of a world renowned zoo, as too many people are satisfied with every zoo visit and don't dig deep to analyze the problems that are lurking underneath the surface of even the very best animal collections. All of the world's zoos have problems with allocating space to animals, reducing stress and pacing in carnivores, and dealing with the deterioration of newer exhibits. It sounds as if Taronga needs to do some spring cleaning, but I suppose in Australia the fall season is in full swing and the high-profile summer has faded into obscurity. In North America many zoos have a "downtime" in the winter, where admission rates are lowered and exhibits are constructed in anticipation of children being unleashed from school for the following summer. It is a pity that there are a number of empty enclosures, as that is consistently a massive turnoff for visitors.
 
mua ha ha ha haaaaaaaaa!

so the word from glyn is GSO is a disappointment! just wait till i get up there and get stuckinto it! ;)

its a shame - because i thought B2B was a bit fat pile of crappola.

i liked the concept of a farm and domestic animals incorporated into an australian setting. i liked the idea that it told a story about how to live a sustainable lifestyle. the idea of nature living on your doorstep. only it ended up being a house showcasing a fictional kid's pet reptiles. the adjoining "bush" is even worse.

woolemi, on the otherhand i love. i'm thinking melbourne zoo should scrap its lousy platypus house (they have never bred there anyway) and convert its GFA into a woolemi type exhibit.

(oh and i recently got a woolemi pine for my birthday)

but as much as i love a good taronga bashing - thats a shame about GSO. i was really looking forward to it. it angers me when animal space is compromised for nothing but "dead" public areas. being on the harbor taronga was in a unique position to have live fish etc as part of the exhibits.

and i very much agree about a coastal aviary - shame.
 
I wasn't really disappointed as such in GSO, although I agree it was light on animals. It was, however, a massive improvement on the old seal pools and the penguin exhibit was fantastic. I was also curious about the pelicans - I read in Zoonooz there were going to be 20! Maybe I misinterpreted. And by the way, when I went the rhino paddock wasn't empty: the zebras had been moved from the giraffes into there. Utterly agree on the African Waterhole generally, however - looking very uninspiring. (I think they already have finches - Black-headed Mannikins? - in the Palm Aviary too.)
 
lol Patrick. dont get too excited. its still fantastic ;) and better, in the case of the seal pool and penguin exhibit than anything ive ever seen.
however, as I have noted, there are a whole range of ideas they skipped out on which is an opportunity lost. it relies heavily on signage to interpret many aspects of the GSO ecosystem; a job which live exhibit could have done better.
 
Good critics!

Hey, can i just say i am thrilled to see this contructive discussion taking place, Unfortunatly there were a few aspects missed due to lack of money, 54 mil is alot but unfortunatly to to rising costs because of the ele's and the ongoing battle there we had to cut few things.
But the best zoo exhibits take a while to find thier place and mature as modern zoo designs are trying to build ecosystems and ecosystems don't just start, it's a very long ongoing process to mature an exhibit to a full state.
 
well i hope GSO matures into a modern 'eco-system' or 20th century zoo exhibit as put by zooboy, and reaches its full potential. unlike B2B which seems to have fizzled out and now sits forgotten in taronga's lower corner.
 
Am I the only one that thinks pelicans are lame? You can see them driving through the suburbs of Adelaide and all through the Murray River region, I mean they are not really part of the Southern Ocean eco-system.

Am I right in assuming there is only one penguin pool for the 2 species of penguins?
 
Yes, you're right, but it's one huge pool with several different viewing areas. And yes, I can see your point of view with the pelicans. (Surely something a little more exciting wouldn't have been too hard. Tourists may like the pelicans, but most Australians are going to walk right past them.)
 
regarding pelicans i disagree. they are a marine bird and they do live on the coasts of australia so thus are as much a part of the "great southern oceans" as any other animal there. so i'm struggling to see aw101's point about them not being part of the ecosystem.

as for interesting - i think they are. the australian pelican has the longest beak in the avian world. they are quite tame and the feeding sessions are fun to watch.

can i ask - what would you prefer? what australia marine birds would be more interesting to you guys?
 
zooworker said:
.But the best zoo exhibits take a while to find thier place and mature as modern zoo designs are trying to build ecosystems and ecosystems don't just start, it's a very long ongoing process to mature an exhibit to a full state.
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what?...... and in what way does GSO function as an aquatic ecosystem?

if your talking about the size of the trees, i hardly think that's going to improve conceptual flaws.
 
The pelicans arent a bad feature at all. All 4 birds are very tame and were right up next to the boardwalk when I visited-you can see this in the pics. Also, the recent drought in SA and its effect on the pelican breeding colony's underscores the fact that even the most 'common' of birds are, in places, struggling.
I think cormorants would have made a great addition. And in the picture Ive taken of GSO you can see that just up from the pelicans the boardwalk neatly carves out a 'dead zone' which would have made a great exhibit for heathland birds.
I dont really thing this exhibit will mature in any way other than the vegetation. If you take Wild Asia as an example to compare against, this exhibit works well because its focus is on the animals. They are the stars of the show and everywhere you turn there are animals, animals, animals.
Great Southern Oceans is unlikely to receive any significant add-ons in the near future...........guess Ill just have to be happy with what Ive got and lament the dead zones/design flaws.
 
patrick said:
what?...... and in what way does GSO function as an aquatic ecosystem?

if your talking about the size of the trees, i hardly think that's going to improve conceptual flaws.
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No i don't mean just plants, as time goes on more animals will be added. We are going through introductions with many of our seals at the moment. The 3 leopard seals living together will add a lot more life. The seal show seals are starting to be kept in larger groups in the seal habitat pool, and more animals are due to join our old boys in the bottom pool, a breeding group of australian sea lions is on the table so we shall see, as the trees to grow however it will fill out as well. In reply to the comments about Wild Asia not made by patrick but by glyn, it may be animals everywhere you go however it was easier to do that with that exhibit as the species kept are heavily represented in zoo's apart from the Silvery Gibbons and the Francois Leaf monkeys. Unfortunatly when dealing with marine mammals we can't just bring more Australian sea lions from other zoo's as there aren't many in captivity, same goes for australian fur seals and new zealand fur seals.
 
zooworker, whats the deal?

why do you always contradict yourself? you said this....

zooworker said:
....a breeding group of australian sea lions is on the table so we shall see........
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which i was about to point out completely contradicted your arguments made in earlier posts about the importance of retaining californian sea lions in australia.... but as i read on, you even manage to do contradict yourself a paragraph later with this...

zooworker said:
Unfortunatly when dealing with marine mammals we can't just bring more Australian sea lions from other zoo's as there aren't many in captivity, same goes for australian fur seals and new zealand fur seals.
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so like i asked, whats the deal?

either you don't really work at the zoo. or you don't really know much about what your talking about, which unfortunately for you is your profession...
 
patrick said:
which i was about to point out completely contradicted your arguments made in earlier posts about the importance of retaining californian sea lions in australia
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Just because it's on the table does not mean it will be easy, Wild asia has been around for a few years now and is still not exhibiting it's full range of species.

We can't just pull marine mammals from no where easily, but if we set a plan for the future it can happen, just not over night. This plan thats in the process of going through requires many institutions across Australia to get breeding programs into full swing. This program will then need the offspring to be introduced and then that form the breeding group.

And before you jump in claiming another contradiction, as i said the leopard seals are not planned to breed at this point due to lack of space for this species in Australiasian zoo's, i remind you of this fact, a large true seal such as a leopard seal requires very different facilities to australiasian eared seal species. Number 1 haul outs cannot be as step and cliff like as alot of the current marine mammal facilities are. Number 2 holding facilities must be increased in size but a large amount, current holding facilities in marine mammal facilities are not big enough. However the facilities currently in place would enable a large scale Australian sea lion breeding program across the country, we previously did not have the numbers needed, however with many males becoming sexual mature in facilities across australia the program is now possible, when californian sea lions were brought to taronga we only had one male sea lion capable of breeding and he was extremly non social and so was living by himself so this was not an option, however with our current teenaged male we have the ability to breed, and with other facilities such as PPPool in Coffs Harbour and AQWA with large, potentially breeding, groups (infact PPP has already started breeding with 2 pups born recently) we have the means now to set this program up.
 
wow!

so after arguing erratically that i was wrong to suggest that an australian sea lion breeding program should be a priority, and that since there was little space we should not be importing any more californian sea lions, you then give a lengthy response to exactly why it is possible.

ka-bang! just contradicted yourself again.

what's even more interesting to me is this. you said you've been a marine mammal keeper at taronga for something like 15 years. and twice now, twice, i have questioned your credibility and called you suspect. said i don't believe you work at the zoo...

and both times you have refrained from taking me up on it.

i would have thought that anyone who has spent over a decade working in a given profession and is then questioned over it, by someone on an internet forum at that - who admittedly doesn't even work in that profession - would be positively livid.

i would expect and instant absolute venomous defense.

but instead nothing.....

and you don't even know how to spell kodiak.

zooworker - i'm calling you a liar and i swear i'll leave this forum for good if you can prove otherwise!
 
wow pat big promises!

I think you have both got your selves sound wound up in beating the otehr, neither is starting to make sense.
 
patrick said:
so after arguing erratically that i was wrong to suggest that an australian sea lion breeding program should be a priority, and that since there was little space we should not be importing any more californian sea lions, you then give a lengthy response to exactly why it is possible.
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Never once did i say that californian sea lions should take over or be imported when australian sea lions can fill the space. Never once did i say that australian sea lion's should not be a priority for breeding. I said it was not possible at the time that the cali's were brought it, we are currently at a point where it is possible to start increasing the breeding program for Australian sea lions as we now have animals in facilities able to reproduce.
patrick said:
what's even more interesting to me is this. you said you've been a marine mammal keeper at taronga for something like 15 years. and twice now, twice, i have questioned your credibility and called you suspect. said i don't believe you work at the zoo...

i would have thought that anyone who has spent over a decade working in a given profession and is then questioned over it, by someone on an internet forum at that - who admittedly doesn't even work in that profession - would be positively livid.

i would expect and instant absolute venomous defense.
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Believe me there are many things i have been wanting to say to you but due to the fact i am carrying the name of the institution i work for i can't. You are free to say whatever you feel in this forum, i am limited by the fact that i represent a very large institution. I am livid. My experience being questioned by a person who doesn't work in the industry does really piss me off, even more so when you claim to challenge me when you still compare the space needed for eared seals and then Leopard seals, thats like saying stick a lion in a snow leopard enclosure, they are both cats it's the same thing(how wrong is that idea, even you would pick me up on that) In terms of spelling, like you have to be kidding me, your using a spelling mistake as a reason to back your argument. My history of employment is as follows, i worked at the John.C Shedd Aquarium in Chicago for 5 years with Beluga Whales and Pacific white sided Dolphins and was an advisor on the design for the new facilities there. I then made the move to Taronga 15 years ago when a position came up back in Australia as i had to leave due to lack of work. I have done two exchanges since that time, one to exotics (ex. Asian mammals) in the year 1996 and once again in 2006. Now i would appreciate it if you get of my back with stupid evidence which includes the comparison of two very different family of pinn's and a spelling mistake. Now stop being an arrogant prick and realise that there may be some things that you do not know and for once you may be wrong.
 
zooworker said:
Never once did i say that californian sea lions should take over or be imported when australian sea lions can fill the space. Never once did i say that australian sea lion's should not be a priority for breeding. I said it was not possible at the time that the cali's were brought it, we are currently at a point where it is possible to start increasing the breeding program for Australian sea lions as we now have animals in facilities able to reproduce.


Believe me there are many things i have been wanting to say to you but due to the fact i am carrying the name of the institution i work for i can't. You are free to say whatever you feel in this forum, i am limited by the fact that i represent a very large institution. I am livid. My experience being questioned by a person who doesn't work in the industry does really piss me off, even more so when you claim to challenge me when you still compare the space needed for eared seals and then Leopard seals, thats like saying stick a lion in a snow leopard enclosure, they are both cats it's the same thing(how wrong is that idea, even you would pick me up on that) In terms of spelling, like you have to be kidding me, your using a spelling mistake as a reason to back your argument. My history of employment is as follows, i worked at the John.C Shedd Aquarium in Chicago for 5 years with Beluga Whales and Pacific white sided Dolphins and was an advisor on the design for the new facilities there. I then made the move to Taronga 15 years ago when a position came up back in Australia as i had to leave due to lack of work. I have done two exchanges since that time, one to exotics (ex. Asian mammals) in the year 1996 and once again in 2006. Now i would appreciate it if you get of my back with stupid evidence which includes the comparison of two very different family of pinn's and a spelling mistake. Now stop being an arrogant prick and realise that there may be some things that you do not know and for once you may be wrong.
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I like people who stick up for what they believe in and dont stoop to other peoples levels, Congrats. On another note im a TTI student and will be doing my pract days in the GSO later this year, and I cant wait. At the moment im up in OZ mammals loving my time up there, they are really a great group. I had Paul M(From Marine Mammals) as for a couple of classes last month, He was AWESOME. I really enjoyed learning from him i cant wait to see what hes like to work with.
 
zooworker don't start suddenly defending taronga's right to import califorian sea lions in the past as if it was that i had a problem with.

i said that californian sea lions should be phased-out.
i never questioned the decision to import them past. go back and re-read as much as you like. i am confident i never said a thing about past imports, only that they should cease in favour of endangered, native, species.

also, you keep mentioning the needs of leopard seals over and over again, despite the fact that my argument has been far more structured around australian sea lions.

simply i was saying australian zoos need to stop further investment in an exotic seals and focus their attention on natives. you argued that we should continue to keep exotic seals. it was that simple.

so for the record i think you not only have poor comprehension skills - you show an amazing lack on insight and articulation into something you apparently should be an expert in...

so say what you like, thats not proving nuthin'...

i stand by my words. be honest about who you are. and i'll get off this forum for good. thats a promise.
 
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