Auckland Zoo the all glowing review of my visit, September 2012

[jay]

I think part of the problem is that Australia and New Zealand have such boring animals. Who would want to see a platypus, wombat, numbat, kiwi, tuatara, kea, or any other such creature? YAWN. No wonder your zoos are such snooze fests.

I think snowleopard's comments are off base (and a bit insulting to Aussies and Kiwis). I found Taronga Zoo and the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to be as interesting and high-quality as any zoo in the U.S. I'm amazed that countries with populations as relatively small as Australia and New Zealand (there are roughly twice as many people in California as in Australia and 2.5 times as many people in Los Angeles County as in New Zealand) can support so many zoos as these places do. It seems like these zoos replace their outdated exhibits at least as fast as their sisters zoos do in North America and Europe.

What snow lepard is getting at and as and Aussie I agree is that while indiviually each zoo im Australia is excellent, taken as a whole they are almost identical. Taronga and Me;bourne especially may as well be one zoo.

 

[DavidBrown]

What snow lepard is getting at and as and Aussie I agree is that while indiviually each zoo im Australia is excellent, taken as a whole they are almost identical. Taronga and Me;bourne especially may as well be one zoo.

Not to be argumentative Jay, but why is this a bad thing? If they were in the same city, or even within a hundred miles I might understand complaints about similarity from people who regularly visit both collections, but these zoos are serving completely different cities 550 miles away from each other. It seems logical that people in both cities would want to see popular zoo animals (giraffes, elephants, gorillas, lions, tigers, etc.).

 

[jay]

Not to be argumentative Jay, but why is this a bad thing? If they were in the same city, or even within a hundred miles I might understand complaints about similarity from people who regularly visit both collections, but these zoos are serving completely different cities 550 miles away from each other. It seems logical that people in both cities would want to see popular zoo animals (giraffes, elephants, gorillas, lions, tigers, etc.).

Because people in Australia are very mobile. Many people think nothing of popping on a plane and flying to Sydney or Melbourne for a weekend.
Perth is different because it is a complete continent away.
Vefore circumstances changed and I became a full time carer I would visit Melbourne and Taronga at least three times each year and Adelaide once or twice a year.
I'm not really complaining because I understand and value the reasons behind the similarities but one of the great things about visiting Adelaide was that they had a number of species different from other two. (sloth, beaver and now panda)

 

[Jabiru96]

Getting back to Auckland Zoo, does anyone have any updates as to the Bornean orangutan group in terms of are they planning to send them away to make room for Sumatrans or keep them until they die out, then switch to Sumatrans?

Also, I understand that they just built Te Wao Nui, but are there any plans for new developments at Auckland? Or even better, does anyone have a link to an online masterplan?

Thanks.

 

[zooboy28]

Getting back to Auckland Zoo, does anyone have any updates as to the Bornean orangutan group in terms of are they planning to send them away to make room for Sumatrans or keep them until they die out, then switch to Sumatrans?

Also, I understand that they just built Te Wao Nui, but are there any plans for new developments at Auckland? Or even better, does anyone have a link to an online masterplan?

Thanks.

As far as I know they are planning on sending them away, but haven't found anywhere for them yet. I don't think they will just wait for them to die out - that would take too long (the youngest is only ~6). I don't know if they are trying to breed them at all or not now though. It may be possible to bring in a group of Sumatrans to live in one exhibit while the remaining Borneans live in the other (some animals will ahve to be sent away/die before this is possible though), I don't know if there are any issues with keeping both taxa near each other.

I think the next big thing for Auckland will be sorting out the elephant situation, which will be an expensive and time-consuming process. There should also be minor refurbishments and a small number of new exhibits opening over the next few years, Auckland has a policy of opening major exhibits every five years and a minor one on each of the four other years (roughly) - Te Wao Nui was the last big one, and this year's would be the Golden Lion Tamarin island I suppose.

There is a masterplan online somewhere, I think in a PDF of the zoo's asset management plan, but it is very poor quality picture and the words are extremely hard to read. I'm also not sure how current it is, given the deviations from it recently.

 

[CGSwans]

Problem?..... And if you were wondering, yes there is a photo of literally every single exhibit at the zoo, all of them.

Wow. I guess some would love that but in the hope that one day I visit Cincinnati, I'm not going to go looking. What a way to spoil the zoo! I like flicking through a gallery before visiting a new place, but I don't want such a comprehensive view before going. What would be the point?

 

[Moebelle]

Wow. I guess some would love that but in the hope that one day I visit Cincinnati, I'm not going to go looking. What a way to spoil the zoo! I like flicking through a gallery before visiting a new place, but I don't want such a comprehensive view before going. What would be the point?

I don't think it's a way to spoil it, there was almost a photo of every exhibit of the St. Louis, and Louisville Zoo but being there made it so much more of a different experience. Besides, when I'm there once a week during the summer, I'm not going to take a photo of the same thing every time. Plus, many photos of exhibits weren't even taken by me.

 

[Nisha]

As far as I know they are planning on sending them away, but haven't found anywhere for them yet. I don't think they will just wait for them to die out - that would take too long (the youngest is only ~6). I don't know if they are trying to breed them at all or not now though. It may be possible to bring in a group of Sumatrans to live in one exhibit while the remaining Borneans live in the other (some animals will ahve to be sent away/die before this is possible though), I don't know if there are any issues with keeping both taxa near each other.

Shouldn't be any issues with keeping both taxa. European zoos manage it with few issues and so did Taronga back in the early 00's when they were holding 0.3 Borneon's prior to shipping them to Auckland

 

[OrangePerson]

It may be possible to bring in a group of Sumatrans to live in one exhibit while the remaining Borneans live in the other (some animals will ahve to be sent away/die before this is possible though), I don't know if there are any issues with keeping both taxa near each other.

Just so long as there are no gaps a fiendishly determined pair can utilise!

 

[Jabiru96]

Shouldn't be any issues with keeping both taxa. European zoos manage it with few issues and so did Taronga back in the early 00's when they were holding 0.3 Borneon's prior to shipping them to Auckland

The only problem is that there are two groups of orangs, one consisting of pure Borneans Charlie (m, Madju and Isim's father), Madju (m, born at Auckland in 2006), Melur (f, Madju's mother) and Gangsa (f). The other is a pair consisting of Isim (m, born at Auckland in 1993) and Wanita (f, hybrid).

The first group share the original orangutan exhibit, the second the former chimp exhibit. And these are the only two spaces that the orangs can be displayed.

I don't know where they could fit in Sumatrans without sending away their current orangutans.

 

[zooboy28]

I have posted a picture of Rajah, Auckland Zoo's first (and only) bull elephant in the gallery: http://www.zoochat.com/679/rajah-elephant-auckland-museum-294823/#post605276