Gorillas at Adelaide zoo » Adelaide Zoo

Gorillas at Adelaide zoo
17-02-2006

G/day,
Just read on Adelaide zoos webpage in their news page that Gorillas are coming to the zoo?, Has anyone heard if this is so, it does not state any more information that that?. WOW

17-02-2006

yea gday ,

i heard tht in their masterplan , go to there website and download the 20 20 masterplan doucument , its good , the exhibit if i remember is to be a central exhibit , and island in middle of existing lake ? or something like tht , plus it is mixed species with colobus

17-02-2006

no sorry my bad , thts incorect the preivious post is about perth zoo , not adelaide sorry , but still have a look at the perth zoo page , at tht document

21-02-2006

i read that masterplan document also. but i remember it just being an idea. there are no plans in effect to have gorillas anytime soon.

21-02-2006

Just to Clarify, i am a volunteer at the adelaide zoo, and the gorillas will be there for a month or 2 on route to Europe

21-02-2006

G/day all, yes the Gorillas will be on dispay from 8th March and will only be staying for 8 months, they are coming from holland.

21-02-2006

please explain!???

why on earth are adelaide importing gorillas for 8 months that are then going to holland??

22-02-2006

yea plz do thts very confusing !

22-02-2006

gday guys , jst read the telegraph today and a feature on tarongas gorrilla females , they are goin to adelaide , 2 females on there way to holland ,

here a link to there website to read article
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/st...001022,00.html

22-02-2006

they are there for the shear fact that adelaide has never had gorillas and so most S. Australian have never seen them, but my suspicions (sp) are that they will serve some of there time there as a quarintine

22-02-2006

that makes sense. taronga zoo's two females are off to join the european gorilla breeding program (of which melbourne and taronga are part of) but will see out there pre-departure quarrentine at adelaide so that the people of SA can see them. they are not importing gorillas from OS.

22-02-2006

well im hoping soon that tarongas 2 teen males will leave soon , they are now occupying the de bazzras exhibit , so hopes soon tht they will be off to troops of there own .

Gorllias
22-02-2006

Thats right Pat, the two females are from the group in Taronga zoo, they were imported from Holland some years ago when Taronga imported the Gorllia troop from Holland, so it looks like they are going home.

24-02-2006

for a long time melbourne was the only place they had gorrillas

24-02-2006

actually, i have mentioned this before on this forum, but it is an interesting story regarding the gorillas. melbourne zoo and taronga both had pairs of gorillas in the very early days of the zoo. eventually, due both zoo's having no success in breeding them (in those days they didn't think to keep them in natural groups) - it was decided to send the taronga pair to melbourne as melbourne had much better facilities for great apes. for many years melbourne exhibited all 3 genus' of great ape and taronga just had the orangs and chimps. of course melbourne started to have results with breeding their gorillas and then built a fantastic exhibit in 89 and have ever since been world famous for them. eventually melbourne decided to send it's chimps to taronga - who had equal success with that species, and the two zoos struck an agreement. melbourne would breed gorillas, taronga would breed chimps. but of course chimps (for reasons unknown) have never had quite the public interest gorillas have and taronga in 96, decide to import a family from a primate park in holland. this was all told to me by a zoo volunteer at melbourne and she said a degree of animosity has existed ever since, regarding gorillas, between the two zoos. i personally think the taronga exhibit sucks and it's a pity they didn't focus more on the chimp park (please render those ugly brick walls!) because that was something taronga was world famous for and it is actually more interesting watching the chimps at taronga than the gorillas - who live in an altered giant panda exhibit.

i don't have any actual objections to taronga having gorillas - i just think they seemed to half-arse it somewhat. apparently melbourne zoo staff think it was all about the olympics....