Adelaide Zoo Adelaide News 2014

Made my first trip to Adelaide in 2 years yesterday. It appears that the new director, Elaine Bensted and her team are doing a magnificent job of turning the zoo around. 2 years ago I was disappointed with the number of repeat species and empty enclosures. Now the zoo is looking refreshed with a range of new species and renovated enclosures. Here is some notes from my visit yesterday.

-Mara have gone on display next to peccaries.
-Capybara are on display in the former Pygmy hippo yard. The enclosure is quite nice with new grass and they have rendered the brick wall at the back.
-The otter exhibit next to the capybara has been renovated with new mock rock pools and plantings, looks much better than the small pool they used to have.
-The Asian aviary along the boardwalk has had the birds removed and the doors were open. It's also not on the map anymore. Not sure if it's under renovation or being removed.
-South American Coati are on display in the former red panda enclosure across from the lions.
-Elongated tortoises are on exhibit in the enclosures on the front of the nocturnal house.
-Chinese three striped box turtle are on exhibit in reptile house in former mata mata enclosure.
-A common wombat is being hand raised and was out walking on a leash when I was there.
-The enviro dome is overflowing with stick insects and many more eggs are on display in a hatching enclosure.
-A fake rhino is on display in one of the old mongoose enclosures to advertise Monarto Zoo.
-As always it was a treat to Australia's last flamingoes and also got very excited when I found an African grey parrot on display across from the nocturnal house that has been confiscated by customs.

Will post a review of the dinosaur display later today. Unfortunately I can not post any photos as my internet is being a bit dodgy at the moment. Please feel free to ask any questions.

 

Thanks for bringing us up to date, Sunbear12.
I haven't been to Adelaide zoo for a long time. Must try to get there this year.

Although Taronga is my local zoo, Adelaide is among my favourites, because they persevere with such animals as maras, which the other mainstream city zoos have abandoned.

Do they still have any sloths, or have they died out?

 

2 sloths are still on display in the nocturnal house.

After the panda import and the massive loss of diversity at Adelaide I did get rid of my membership and stop visiting but now that Adelaide is improving they are back to being one of my favourites. It is great to see Mara and capybara back in the country.

 

Continuing on with my notes on Adelaide Zoo from yesterday I am going to do a review on the dinosaur exhibit currently on at the zoo called dinosaurs alive. It is located across from the reptile house and is entered through the picnic area.

The exhibit is rather well done with new plants. Each dinosaur is set back from the path and has an A-Frame sign with the name and some information for each dinosaur. It features 9 dinosaurs which roar and can breathe. There were always volunteers there throughout the day to answer questions as well. There's only one major problem and that is that the pathway is rather narrow so with the holiday crowds it can be rather hard to move through the exhibit.

The 9 dinosaurs on exhibit are
-stegosaurus
-ornithomimus
-velociraptor
-ornitholestes
-tyrannosaurus
-apatosaurus
-pteranodon
And a triceratops with eggs and a baby

All up I quite enjoyed the exhibition and judging by its popularity it looks like this should be quite a good year for zoos SA.

Also a piece of news I missed yesterday is that 3 Barbary sheep baby's are on exhibit that we're born last November.

 

World's Oldest Sloth Celebrates birthday at Adelaide Zoo.

Story & photos here: Birthday celebration for world s oldest sloth in Adelaide - Yahoo!7

 

Worlds oldest Hoffmann's sloth turns 40 ! :
Birthday celebration for world s oldest sloth in Adelaide - Yahoo!7

 

Mara Babies Born

First births of this recently re-established species in Australia, reported on Adelaide Zoo's Facebook page:

As I understand it, this more than doubles the national population from 1.3 to 1.3.4 (so saying - or implying - two adult pairs is a bit rich). While I'm glad that breeding success has occurred, I hope other zoos import new blood too rather than relying on offspring from this tiny founding group.

 

Especially with only one male founder. Good news though

 

I guess it would not be too difficult to import more mara into ARAZPA region. But I suppose you have a long list for some others … too!

 

Adelaide Zoo has been in the headlines today with plans revealed today to remove giraffes and lions from the zoo.

No Cookies | The Courier-Mail

It suprises me that this is such a big thing now since I first learnt of the plan in about 2006. I also don't like the idea of attempting to manage another a big cat program in Australia since we currently have 4 which keep gaining holders and which need them. We also have 2 or so other species floating around taking up spaces.

 

I think it is about time that the giraffes and lions are moved on to Adelaide, would benefit all parties I believe.

I do like the idea of leopards, and i think that with renovations a decent exhibit could be built for them, and I think there would be enough space around Australia to have another species of big cat if a few zoos got on board (which I don't think will be too hard, demand is generally pretty high for species like this).

 

A portion of the old front gate is currently undergoing renovation ready for some poison dart frogs to go on display.

 

Is this likely to be one of the brick ticket booth/kiosk like things inside that gate that had a pile of posters about reptiles in the windows and I think a small Freshwater Crocodile exhibit recently?

 

Couldn't this please have its own thread so that this particular piece of news doesn't get lost in a very long thread and so is easier to find again.

 

Western swamp turtles hatched at Adelaide Zoo :
Teeny Tortoises Have Big Conservation Impact - ZooBorns

 

is there any information available about the poison arrow frog exhibit in the old entrance area?

 

4.0 Bolivian Squirrel Monkeys have arrived from Auckland and are now on show following quarantine (zoos Facebook)