I visited Adelaide Zoo last Saturday, the 11th of June, and just thought I'd write a few things here for anyone that's interested. I drove from Melbourne with a friend so had to drive for quite a while to get there and I planned to leave early in the morning and get there some time during the day. I couldn't sleep very well because I was so excited and ended up leaving at about 3am and getting there about 1-ish. Adelaide time is 30 minutes behind us so we got an extra half an hour there during the day. This came in handy on account of the fact that we didn't leave until closing. The first thing we wanted to see and pretty much the reason for going were the pandas and frankly they’re just boring. I can't see what all the hype is about now because we watched for a while on two occasions and all they did was eat and sleep. They're even smaller than I was expecting too. The exhibit on the other hand is amazing. Both exhibits are huge, with water features, shady areas and sunny areas, maturing trees and really good viewing. I was more interested in the architecture of the exhibits than the black and white fur balls sitting in the corners. The red panda exhibits on the other hand were a bit small in my opinion and the smaller of the two only had two medium sized trees joined with logs. They seemed like a massive after thought when compared to the splendor of the main attractions. But overall this area is really nice and still has that new feel to it. This zoo is very similar to Melbourne Zoo so I found myself comparing the two a lot of the time. They both have a mixture of old and new exhibits, beautiful gardens and seeing as they’re Australian they have very similar collections. Another shared feature is an immersion Asian rainforest with Sumatran tigers, orangutans, and siamangs. Where Melbourne has elephants and short-clawed otters in their trail, Adelaide has Malayan tapirs, langurs, sun bears, white-cheeked gibbons and interestingly mandrills and hamadryas baboon. Adelaide Zoo also has some walk-through aviaries whilst Melbourne only has look into aviaries. The one thing that Melbourne has over Adelaide is space so their exhibit is more immersive and you can’t see all of the barriers like at Adelaide’s. The highlight of this section at Adelaide has to be the Malayan tapir and dusky langur exhibit. The first view you get is through a window at treetop height from inside a walk-through aviary and then you exit the aviary and get to look into the trees from a raised boardwalk. The giant fig tree in the middle makes it a stunning exhibit and the langur family is very entertaining. The Sun bears, siamangs and gibbons also have really lush exhibits that I really liked. The other highlights for me included:- ~The nocturnal house which had some interesting native species, such as spinifex hopping mouse, northern quoll, ghost bat, among others, as well as the star attractions for me…two two-toed sloths. They were even awake the first time I walked through the building. ~Some of the birds. Hyacinth macaws, lyrebirds, a Chilean and a greater flamingo, razor-billed curassow, palm cockatoos and so many more. ~And being able to tick a few new species of my to see list.
Yes I definitely agree, the pandas are very boring. But I guess they do bring in more of the typical 'zoo tourist'. The mandrills and Hamadryas baboons are not meant to be part of the Asia exhibit. The African wild dog exhibit is/was meant to become a dhole exhibit, the baboon exhibit is/was meant to become a Komodo dragon exhibit and the mandrill exhibit is/was meant to become an island for otters, binturong and siamang. Possibly these plans may go through in the next couble of years, but were meant to be completed a couple of years ago, but I think pandas took over. Did you see the Australian pratincole? That bird is a little character, funny to watch its activities in the aviary.
I did. It looked like it was trying to be fed by any bird that ventured to the ground and it was so quick. Plus it was another of the firsts for me.
Dholes are now a phase-out species (not surprising since Taronga was the only zoo to ever show enthusiasm for them).
Another phase out... What is happening to our zoos? I was suspecting that Adelaide were going to forget about the dholes. Shame though.
Just got back from a day out at Adelaide Zoo. Complete reviews have already been done, but has anyone mentioned the male toilets? Well, picture this: in one of the male toilets, while at the urinals, there are inquisitive hyacinth and blue and gold macaws observing you peeing! How cool is that? I kept saying "hello gorgeous" - let's hope no one thought I was weird.
While the male toilets have South American parrots, the female toilets have Australian grassland parrots.
