Robert, as he prefers to be known, has been involved in a number of projects within the entertainment industry lately, including co-hosting I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!
It was referenced a few times back in the early documentaries. I think of memory they even send some of the larger male crocodiles to farms for breeding. If they were not into the farming industry in the early days, why in the doco's were they egg collecting and actively breeding crocodiles on site. The early documentaries they literally show grow out ponds where they move some of there keepers out onto display. Zoos in australia have never had to breed crocs or create sustainable populations in zoos.
I beg to differ on some freshwater crocodile (Crocodylus johnstoni) populations where the competition with salties has seen sharp declines in the number of freshies where their distribution overlaps and some populations like the pygmy freshwater of the Liverpool and the upper Bullo river reaches that seem to be highly adversely affected by cane toad toxins on ingestion. BTW: Sure enough ... the freshwater crocodile with a population at 47,000 is deemed LC (low risk) ATM by IUCN. Even so, I see a role in education and subsequent ex situ conservation breeding for educational purposes of freshwater crocodiles. Given the high value and visibility of Australia's crocodile species in Western Australia, Queensland and Northern Territory and Steve's fascination with crocodiles in general, I am of the personal view that zoos like Australia Zoo on the Continent do have a case for investing more in displaying and ex situ conservation breeding of other non native crocodile species as I mentioned before (certainly the outliers like both Papua NG Croc species, the Philippine crocodile and the Sunda Tomistoma and Indian gharial.
Couldn't agree more with you here. I visited today for the first time in two years and was taken aback by just how heavily everything was dedicated to the Irwins. Countless statues of them as well as a heavily edited video of Steve singing that plays at the end of the main show. As far as I could tell, almost nothing has changed since I visited on 2022, aside from the Cheetah being on display.
"Oh they collect eggs, used to breed a little bit, and keep animals off display, they must of been running a highly profitable crocodile farming operation" is quite frankly a baffling conclusion to jump to. Australia Zoo collect eggs so they DIDN'T breed. Males and Females are kept together for space, socialisation and education purposes, which naturally results in several hundred eggs a year. If left in the enclosure, many, if not most of those eggs would hatch. They are collected and then simply not incubated, meaning the embryos inside never get a chance to properly form. On very, VERY rare occasions in the early days they'd incubate one or two eggs to better stock their incredibly small collection. Even if they were farming crocs behind the scenes (and they weren't) the absolutely miniscule number of crocs they hatched, plus the cost that goes into raising a croc to be farmable size means it would be anything but a profitable operation. Australia Zoo has many animals off display. So does quite literally every zoo on the planet. Those animals off display include several Saltwater Crocodiles, who are incredibly large animals who need to be housed solitary in sizable exhibits. They quite literally do not have the space to scatter 2 dozen or so Saltwater Crocodile exhibits around the zoo. Crocodile breeding is not excessively common within Australian Zoos, with most doing as Australia Zoo does and removing the eggs and not incubating them, but where do you think the dozens upon dozens of both Saltwater and Freshwater Crocodile hatchlings housed at countless zoos across the country came from? Do you think 15 centimetre Freshwater Crocodiles are being deemed problem animals that need to be removed on a regular enough occasion that there's a steady supply of them to fill zoos and travelling animal encounters country-wide? I would love to know what doc you got them sending crocs TO farms came from. Several of their crocs came FROM farms, and I know of at least one doc off the top of my head that covers that. Crocodile farms are significant operations, and with how many eggs are laid in a single clutch, you could get up to 60 hatchlings a year from one male. In the incredibly unlikely occasion where a farm is in dire need of more males, dire enough that they cannot wait to raise up their own juveniles, it would be significantly easier to go to any number of rinky-dink facilities or other farms, rather than large, well-known, accredited zoos known for hating their very existence. Terri, Steve, and his parents before him, were and are all incredibly vocal in their opinions of crocodile farming, and none of those opinions gel with them sending crocodiles to farms, let alone operating one themselves.
Like I said, of memory I think Steve mentioned it in the old documentaries back when he first started them. Im not spending the time to go back and find it tho so take it with a grain of salt. Why else would they wild collect, Yes im aware on there current stance but they literally used to collect wild eggs on the show. Even when they aired Terri first appearing I can remember one where she was getting wild croc eggs. Having grow out pens with 30+ crocs in each with a facility that already had 100 crocs, what is your answer to it ? that isnt exactly keeping a few extra of display. There was this really cool show called the crocodile hunter, you should look it up. ......It might also be where Steve Irwin got famous.
Oh, I'm sorry. You're right, Steve Irwin obviously loved killing crocodiles and killed so, so many that he got filthy rich off it. Some vague memories you have of things that might of maybe been mentioned somewhere amongst the 100+ documentaries Steve made (but you don't know which ones) is clearly solid evidence of that fact, and suggestions of things like "basic logic" or "Australia Zoo has an incredibly well-documented history and there is no mention anywhere else of them being a Crocodile Farm" or "Everyone who has ever owned the place has hated Crocodile Farms with a passion" cannot shake that concrete fact.
Unless you can provide some evidence beyond your own memories of a TV documentary you watched a decade or more ago, you can’t expect to convince anyone that Australia Zoo has previously conducted crocodile farming. Their stance against it is well documented and has been detailed to you in previous posts by both myself and @Always_Amity. So you saw Terri collecting wild eggs? There’s a number of valid reasons she could have been doing that. Perhaps the environment was unsafe for the hatchlings (human encroachment, high population of adult crocodiles) and excavation of the nest represented the best chance of survival. You say the Crocodile Environmental Park had lots of crocodile exhibits? Since it opened in 1987, that was the aim, to aid in the protection and research of the species. Through the 1980’s, Steve caught many of its residents, which were relocated due to them posing a threat to human populations. Bob and Lynn Irwin (who ran the zoo at the time) were strongly against crocodile farming (a stance shared by Steve and Terri); and from as early as the 1980’s, the park was recognised as one of the leading tourism attractions in Queensland for its conservation ethos.
Entering back into the cooler months for my local zoo-visiting routine with a trip to Australia Zoo today (it was still pretty warm today though). I received a voucher recently and discovered the zoo is now doing a back of house tour which takes you on an hour buggy ride past mainly their megafauna off-display areas. Really fascinating tour that was a good way to realize how huge the full site really is. The tour started around the back of tigers which is a complex of ten separate exhibits. The zoo currently still have the seven Sumatrans and they are all rotated regularly around. The buggy continued towards a section of large forest that was planted with African plants initially started by Steve Irwin. This thick forest that is now very well-established was going to be where gorillas were going to be housed with a new ‘African Highlands’ section. There are no current plans for this development but it was interesting to see and envision what could have been. The zoo use this forest for browse nowadays. Continuing onwards, the buggy passed off-display housing for giraffe and we drove past male Forrest munching away in peace, away from the crowds. There were the rhino bomas opposite the giraffes for the three females, that can be housed separately mainly to manage feeding. The elephant bush paddock was huge and covered a large space with a barn area in sight as well. We later drove along the fence line of the elephant night area as well with the barn in full view. The male rhino DJ had access to two large paddocks that sat opposite the bush paddock for the elephants. He was resting in the shade and is used for encounters. They have trialled having him on-display but he pulled out the irrigation pipes so he instead lives off-show. Lots of browse gardens are peppered throughout the back of the zoo, not only eucalyptus for koalas, but also bamboo, palms, mulberries etc. There were some exhibits nearby for male kangaroos housed separate from the female mobs to manage breeding – a male Red and two Eastern Greys. There was the large alligator pond with a large number of the ‘photo gators’ used for encounters that outgrew their use, off-show cheetah yards which rotate the two pairs of males with the new exhibit and a row of four aviaries. These used to contain the ruffed lemurs but now have female Ring-tailed Lemurs with young and Red Panda. There are also currently 15.0 lemurs on-show across two islands. The tour then headed towards the elephant on-display section with a stop by the new facilities for their Irwin’s Turtle; four large tubs with turtles, two additional tubs to grow food plants from the Burdekin River and two sandy shallow pools for all the offspring that have been produced so far. We were permitted to enter the space as quarantine restrictions are loosening since their arrival and watched these turtles up close for several minutes as they swam to the surface poking their pinkish nose upwards. Amazing. There were also a few crocodiles as well being housed in the general area. The pair of Irwin’s Turtles on-show within the zoo was also wonderful to see as well. Also, all four elephants were using the pool today – again, great to watch. Anyway, newsy bits and pieces are below and photos can be seen here [Australia Zoo - ZooChat]: Western Brown Snakes are now on-show where the Eastern Brown Snake used to be. The King Cobra was not on-show today. Lots of dart frogs as well to keep me happy. the zoo has a current pause on breeding for both giraffe and rhino for the foreseeable. The three female giraffes and male Forrest are all on contraception. The zoo currently have 1.5 giraffes in total with two female calves with two-year-old Lizzie (PLB) and almost one-year-old Zaraffa. female red panda Scarlett has recently moved to an unspecified facility for breeding purposes. Sibling male Teddy is on-display and adult female Mohini is currently being housed off-show next to the female lemurs. No word on adult male Nima. the zoo continues to try breeding their 3.1 Aldabra Giant Tortoises; 2.1 are on Bindi’s Island now and 1.0 near the entrance. Merten’s Water Monitors have moved to the Crocodile Hunter Lodge. The large colony of Cunningham’s Skinks that the monitors lived with have a large batch of young filling every crevice and crack in the display. the Red-necked Wallabies have been mixed with Koalas in their new exhibit that was built within the walkthrough for Red Kangaroo. The zoo currently have 75 koalas approximately. 43 Irwin’s Turtles have hatched at the zoo since the 3.3 turtles were collected from the wild. All three of the females arrived gravid and there has been a 100% success hatch rate thus far. off-show, Perenties are breeding with male Alex and female Adeline producing a clutch of six eggs which are being incubated. The zoo hasn’t bred this species in 20+ years. the pair of Sacred Kingfishers in the walkthrough aviary are attending to a nest of two eggs. The new batch of Pacific Emerald-Dove fledglings were out and about. There is also new signage in the aviary covering all the species present. one of the brolga enclosures was empty and several of the large trees have been removed, making the front half of the wetlands area have more sunlight. Both new exhibits with the juvenile cassowaries are filling in nicely with vegetation. six Freshwater Crocodile eggs are being incubated and are starting to hatch. The first breeding of this species at the zoo since 2009.
Thanks for sharing. The tour sounds well worth going on. I had no idea Australia Zoo had that many off display tiger exhibits, though I’m not entirely surprised given the numbers they’ve held over the years. I was only wondering this week if Singha was still alive, so it’s good to know she is. She turned 20 years old earlier this month and is the oldest Sumatran tiger in the region. It seems like a few facilities have paused rhino breeding of late, including Hamilton and Orana. With the latter hopefully receiving the first shipment from the Australian Rhino Project soon, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a regional lull (not necessarily a cessation) in breeding in anticipation of new founders entering the population.
What are all the species present? I live halfway across the world from Aussie but I'd love to visit one day. On their website I can't find a particularly good/accurate list and ZTL has been playing up for me lately. Any help would be great. Thanks.
@olhl.animal.photography The aviary currently has Sacred Kingfisher, Regent Honeyeater, Magpie-Goose, Radjah Shelduck, Glossy Ibis, Noisy Pitta, Bush Stone-Curlew, Eclectus Parrot, Australian King-Parrot, Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove, White-headed Pigeon, Torresian Imperial-Pigeon, Bar-shouldered Dove, Pacific Emerald Dove, Wonga Pigeon, Chestnut-breasted Mannikin and Red-browed Finch. There is a high turnover rate of species in the aviary so recent species that are no longer in the aviary include: Gouldian Finch, Eastern Whipbird, Peaceful Dove, Superb Fairywren, Rainbow and Red-collared Lorikeet
Awesome thank you. It's a shame about the Whipbird - they're one of my favourites. Are they still at the zoo or are they elsewhere now?
@olhl.animal.photography Not sure what happened to the male whipbird they received in 2022 but he is certainly not on-show. There are several wild whipbirds that can be heard at Australia Zoo and I have even seen them a couple of times. The calls of the whipbird in the aviary used to attract the wild ones to the mesh.
