Zoos and other animal collections of New Zealand

driftaguy said:
Has anyone heard of the Heritage Park in Auckland?
I was looking through an Asian elephant studbook (http://www.elephanttag.org/professional/2010AsianElephantStudbook.pdf) and noticed that they have kept an elephant there. I had never previously heard of it.
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I have never heard of it either.

I think the studbook got confused somehow, as both these elephants were held at the reported dates by Heritage Brothers Circus, from the US. I can't see any link between the circus and Auckland though.

Here are a couple of links:
Heritage Brothers Circus in United States
Bandwagon, March 1969

Edit: Aww, Chlidonias bet me to it! :D
 
simon12 said:
hi, does anyone have any information and/or photos of the Moana Zoo? I went as a kid and can only remember there being a capuchin monkey. What other animals did they have and when did it close?
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Where was this zoo? Actually in Moana, West Coast? Seems like a bizarre location for a zoo.
 
zooboy28 said:
Where was this zoo? Actually in Moana, West Coast? Seems like a bizarre location for a zoo.
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yep, in Moana at Lake Brunner. It had 13 aviaries, 9 small mammal enclosures as well as 2 monkey cages, 7 paddocks, the kiwi house, and an indoor bit where the entrance was which had aquariums, reptiles, etc. Not sure specifically what species they had there though. It was on 8 acres (on a farm) and opened in 1986. Closed in 2000.
 
Chlidonias said:
yep, in Moana at Lake Brunner. It had 13 aviaries, 9 small mammal enclosures as well as 2 monkey cages, 7 paddocks, the kiwi house, and an indoor bit where the entrance was which had aquariums, reptiles, etc. Not sure specifically what species they had there though. It was on 8 acres (on a farm) and opened in 1986. Closed in 2000.
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That's a rather specific response given the lack of known species! Did it come from a real estate ad or property valuation or something like that?

I could only find this old webpage from when the zoo was operating: Tuku vs Tuko
 
simon12 said:
hi, does anyone have any information and/or photos of the Moana Zoo? I went as a kid and can only remember there being a capuchin monkey. What other animals did they have and when did it close?
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Chlidonias said:
there were a variety of reptiles, brown kiwi, peafowl, and capuchins. I think small-clawed otters as well. I don't know any others but no doubt there were things like wallabies and so on. I do know one of the capuchins escaped into the bush and was never found again.

The zoo was owned by Jacquie Grant (previously Jack Grant, before "the operation") and from all accounts I've heard was a disgusting filthy hovel of a zoo.
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I've just found an old pamphlet from the Moana Zoo (calling itself the Moana Kiwi House and Conservation Park which I guess must have been its official name, or perhaps before a name-change). It actually looks very nice and scenic in the photos which is at odds with what I've heard from people who had visited, but it also appears to be a pamphlet from the early days of the zoo before it fell into disrepair. Animals shown in the photos are North Island brown kiwi, Cape Barren goose, black-capped capuchin, red-necked wallaby, and small-clawed otter. The text mentions eels, "native trout" (presumably giant kokopu), geckos and weta, as well as more generally-worded "Rare native birds and a collection of exotic animals and birds".

I particularly liked the bit which said of the kiwi "Three words sum up this bird: Weird; Wonderful; and Improbable but True!"

EDIT (June 2014): I have written a short piece on the Moana Zoo. See here: http://www.zoochat.com/17/some-history-moana-zoo-1986-2000-a-369742/#post782027
 
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I've just made some changes to the initial list to include "new" collections (since the last edit in 2011). I have also moved all the closed collections to the bottom of the list with some notes on why they closed.
 
Does Pollen Island count as a closed zoo, and are Emudale and Lindale the same place?
 
Cassidy Casuar said:
Does Pollen Island count as a closed zoo, and are Emudale and Lindale the same place?
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Emudale and Lindale are different places (there are loads of little hobby farms around the country which are open to visitors, especially alongside cafes and such, and I haven't bothered including most of those).

I don't know what Pollen Island is -- I'm assuming the little island by Auckland? I don't get the connection to zoos?
 
Chlidonias said:
Emudale and Lindale are different places (there are loads of little hobby farms around the country which are open to visitors, especially alongside cafes and such, and I haven't bothered including most of those).

I don't know what Pollen Island is -- I'm assuming the little island by Auckland? I don't get the connection to zoos?
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Sorry; I meant Cherry Island.
 
Cassidy Casuar said:
Sorry; I meant Cherry Island.
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I hadn't heard of that one. I did a search and it was a small "animal farm" located on Cherry Island (now abandoned) in the Waikato River at Lake Taupo. I can't find a date for the park's closure but I did find a 6.29 minute video on Youtube too, filmed in 1991. Lots of chickens, ducks, doves, peafowl, rabbits, a few aviaries for common parakeets, and a few farm animals like goats and deer.

So, it is a closed collection but not one for the "closed zoos list". (I just have that for notable collections which housed exotics, or for aquariums; there's a couple of bird collections in there as well, but I won't be putting hobby farm type collections in there because they rise and fall like seedlings).
 
I have always found this list of New Zealand wildlife attractions rather fascinating and in my daydreams I consider the notion of meticulously planning out a Kiwi-themed road trip around the North and South Islands...although finances will likely ensure that such an event never happens. It seems as if many of the attractions on the list would be considered borderline whether they would qualify as a "zoo" but that is the case everywhere in the world. I wonder if anyone has a list of the top 10 zoos in the nation in terms of attendance? Would it be a fairly steep drop-off after the facilities in Auckland and Wellington? Also, judging by driving distances it seems as if a zoo enthusiast could rent a car and see quite a large number of small attractions in a single day, especially on the North Island.
 
snowleopard said:
I have always found this list of New Zealand wildlife attractions rather fascinating and in my daydreams I consider the notion of meticulously planning out a Kiwi-themed road trip around the North and South Islands...although finances will likely ensure that such an event never happens. It seems as if many of the attractions on the list would be considered borderline whether they would qualify as a "zoo" but that is the case everywhere in the world. I wonder if anyone has a list of the top 10 zoos in the nation in terms of attendance? Would it be a fairly steep drop-off after the facilities in Auckland and Wellington? Also, judging by driving distances it seems as if a zoo enthusiast could rent a car and see quite a large number of small attractions in a single day, especially on the North Island.
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I think Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Orana Park (Big Four Zoos) all have attendances over 100,000 (with Auckland over 1,000,000), but I'm not sure what other collections would be in the top ten (Kelly Tarlton's SEA LIFE Aquarium would).

I'm not sure you could see many NZ zoos in a single day, probably 3 or 4 would be the max, with 2 more usual. The generally windy roads mean travel times are relatively long in NZ, and zoos are often widely spaced and sometimes in quite isolated locations.
 
snowleopard said:
I have always found this list of New Zealand wildlife attractions rather fascinating and in my daydreams I consider the notion of meticulously planning out a Kiwi-themed road trip around the North and South Islands...although finances will likely ensure that such an event never happens. It seems as if many of the attractions on the list would be considered borderline whether they would qualify as a "zoo" but that is the case everywhere in the world. I wonder if anyone has a list of the top 10 zoos in the nation in terms of attendance? Would it be a fairly steep drop-off after the facilities in Auckland and Wellington? Also, judging by driving distances it seems as if a zoo enthusiast could rent a car and see quite a large number of small attractions in a single day, especially on the North Island.
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think of the list as being of "animal collections" rather than "zoos".

As zooboy28 says, except for certain clusters (within Auckland or Christchurch, for example) it would be difficult to see many collections in one day because of the driving conditions - it may not look far on a map but the roads are winding, highways are often one lane, and some roads won't even be sealed.

In terms of visitor numbers, the smaller places would be between 25,000 and 65,000 per year. I did some random googling for the larger zoos - it's a bit hit-and-miss due to what is easily available online:
*Auckland Zoo: 717,000 (in the year-period mid-2013 to mid-2014)
*Kelly Tarltons: 360,000 (in 2005)
*Wellington Zoo: 203,000 (in 2011)
*Orana Park: 160,000 (in 2010, pre-earthquakes)
*Hamilton Zoo: 128,500 (in the year-period mid-2014 to mid-2015)
*National Aquarium of Napier: 99,216 (in 2010)

Note that the population of NZ is about 4.5 million, about 1.4 million of whom live in Auckland. The whole of the South Island has just over one million people.
 
I haven't been through the zoo list properly for quite some time, so I just did that and removed a few collections which have closed, and checked the website links (with some changed, added, or removed as necessary).

Most of the collections removed were little farm parks of no importance. But three worth noting (although all small) are:

Salmon World in Rakaia (south of Christchurch), which was an aquarium dedicated to salmon which closed in 2015 (the cafe and giant salmon statue - which were both there before the aquarium opened - are still there). This article is about what the aquarium featured when it opened in 2010: Let's Travel - www.letstravelmag.com: Salmon World opens in Rakaia

The Butterfly and Bird Haven in Palmerston (a butterfly house in the South Island) has closed at some point.

The Waipipi Bird Park closed in 2014 (and had 70 aviaries apparently).
 
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