Australia Walkthrough Idea

Not sure if this has already been made but it should...

Imagine a large paddock with a building in the center. There is a gate to enter the large paddock which is filled with wallabies, kangaroos, and emus. Eucalyptus trees dot the paddock. A path leads from the gate to the center building which is labeled as Australia. There are at least two zookeepers making sure no one does anything stupid. Diverging off the path is a small rest area with benches under a wooden canopy with TV sets highlighting conservation issues in Australia and New Zealand. On one bench is a statue of a wallaby while a statue of an emu guards the rest area. In front of the building is a small pond filled with magpie and cape barren geese.

In the building is an assortment of New Zealand/Australia animals. On the second floor is a restaurant/grill overlooking the kangaroos, emus, and wallabies.

The first floor opens up with a long hallway featuring the small reptiles and amphibians of Australia. The walls are black with a sky light.

The next room is much larger and features the nocturnal animals of Australia (wombats, echidna, and tasmanian devils). All nocturnal animals are exhibited in pits with fake rocks, fake trees, plants, and sand. The wombats have the largest exhibit, tasmanian devils, second largest, and echidnas third largest.

The next room is also nocturnal but it exhibits free flying bats flying around a narrow walkway to the next room.

This next room features four bird exhibits (finches, kiwi, Australian robins, and kookaburra). These four exhibits are situated in a circular black room. In the center of the room is an educational presenter podium for animal ambassadors. This room also has the elevator to the restaurant upstairs.

Another long, black, high ceiling, hallway, this one features two large glass windows into two out door exhibits. Exhibit one is a koala exhibit with three eucalyptus trees and small bushes. Exhibit two is a cassowary exhibit. Both exhibits are not fully enclosed and are separated from the wallaroomu exhibit by moats.

At the end of the hallway is a large aviary for parakeets, guests will be able to purchase feed and feed the parakeets.

The final room in the building is a dark circular room featuring lit up circular pictures of the biodiversity of Australia.

Outside the building is a similar path to the first path leading away from the building and to an exit gate. Bothe gates are marked with large wooden arches.

This is just an idea feel free to add keeper buildings and off exhibit holdings.

 

This is cool! Would the walk-through area include Koalas?

 

When I visited Taronga Zoo, I spent a lot of time trying to photograph a male lyre bird and I visited the Platypus House twice. I would have platypuses and lyre birds in a Fantasy Australia exhibit.

 

Wasn’t sure if visitors would try to mess with the koalas, but you would be able to see the koalas from the walkthrough and get closer in the building. It’s sort of like cinncinati zoos lion exhibit but for koalas, with the wallaroomus in the background. Maybe we could get a meet and greet for the koalas behind the scenes...

 

For the platypus, I was thinking of including an aquatic animals section for the platypus and saltwater crocs but wasn’t sure where to place it.

Lyre birds could probably be included in the parakeet aviary but I’m not sure if that would be good for the lyre bird.

 

Cape Barren and Magpie geese are more terrestrial than aquatic. I hope that this "fulfilled small pond" have a large land area for these birds. A pond would be better for Australian shelducks, maned wood ducks, etc. If it's enough large, then black swans.
I would like to see either the kookaburras or the finches (not both cause risk of predation) in the walkthrough area instead inside the building.
The building must be fairly large as it's includes many enclosures and some animals with big space needs, such as cassowary.
Not sure if sand soil is the best for wombats, tas devils and echidnas. I hope they also have some firm soil and a part of bark flakes or similar.
I suppose that there will be an alternative path to the next room appart of the bat one. There will be people that will don't want to enter with bats.
I like your exhibit idea but I miss a big aquarium with Australian lungfishes and rainbowfishes mixed, maybe with some long-necked turtles too. Pigeons also would be fantastic for the walkthrough part, I don't ask by impossible dreams like spinifex pigeon, but at least some diamond doves, bronzewings and emerald doves....

Lyre birds shouldn't be in the parakeet aviary. Most parakeets live in open dry areas, sparse eucalyptus forest... they are crowded, noisy, and will throw drops over the lyrebird. Lyrebird needs much bigger space, well forested and shady, it's a shy bird that needs a calmy place.

 

Should I maybe scrap the pond and let the geese roam about like the wallaroomus?

I’ll move the finches to the aviary, the kookaburra is fairly large and might spook guests, the lyre birds will replace the finches old area? Is that enough space? I’ll take your recommendation on pigeons and add emerald doves.

I’ll change sand to a mix of bark and sand

There will be an additional path to the bats where one can still see the bats, but through glass.

Everyone seems to want some aquatic section but I don’t know where in the building to put it to maintain the flow. Anyone have suggestions on how to incorporate the aquatic animals?

My main problem is that I want to give the saltwater croc an outdoor exhibit and don’t know how to do so safely as if it is outdoor it extends into the walkthrough area which may be hazardous for people and animals...

 

Maybe get the geese free in the walkthrough is a good idea but take in account that they can be aggresive, especially Cape Barren's. They may scare visitors.
A kookaburra is a fairly large bird that might spooks guest... but emus are much bigger and can spook much more Kookaburras tend to be quiet in a perch and would be great acoustical addition to the walkthrough when they laugh loudly But finches are really nice in a walkthrough. Some zebra finches, double-barred and long-tailed and colorful Gouldians will make a pleasant sight when they come down to drink or to the feeding tables
I don't know how large was planned your finch aviary for put the lyrebird instead. I think that about 50-75 square meters would be the minimum for a single male lyrebird, well forested with fake tree trunks, live and dry ferns, and some clear areas. If you additionally want to breed them, probably you would need separate exhibits for male and female lyrebirds - of course they can be off show.

Aquarium inside buildings are extremely common in every zoo, the flow is mantained with bombs. Anyway lungfishes, ranbowfishes and long-necked turtles lives in calm waters and don't new a strong flow.

Outdoor part of crocs is no matter of worry. There is a lot of zoos with visitors and crocs not separated by a glass. They just need to be in a large pit. Ensure that the wall that limit the croc pit is enough for prevent failing both for children and for emus and kangaroos.

 

On the topic of the aquatic animals, an additional room could be added to feature one tank that curves around a circular room (lungfish, rainbowfish, and turtles).

For the crocs, I’d probably make a separate building on the out skirts that has a glass viewing both under and above water. Similar to the cassowary and koala exhibits there would be a moat and a fairly high faux rock wall. This building would also house the platypus on the opposite wall. The building will also have a balcony on the second floor that overlooks the entirety of the exhibit.

Both the geese will be exhibited in two separate enclosures outside the aquatic building.

Conservation-wise there would be daily animal ambassador talks in the bird room. TV sets would also detail conservation issues.

Because the kiwis would probably need smaller exhibits we could squeeze in a larger lyre bird exhibit if we move the Australian robins to the walkthrough aviary. Lyre birds would have half of the circle with the remaining half divided up between the kiwi and kookaburra.

 

Not gonna lie, I had a laugh at the Cape Barren and Magpie Geese. You would have one pair of cape barrens running around chasing people, and whatever magpies you have hiding from the cape barrens.

 

Maybe we should let them out...
Only problem is if they can open doors...

 

On one visit to Martin Mere I spent a lot of time escorting visitors through a walk-through where a hand-reared Cape Barren Goose was housed. He was intimidating people, so I got him to believe that I was a bigger and tougher Cape Barren Goose and whenever he started challenging visitors, I walked up to him and he ran off. Hissing and spreading my arms out worked wonders, he gave in to me pretty quickly.

 

I've thought of something like this before! I mean, not just a normal australian walkthrough exhibit, but one with restaurant, observatories, small mammals, aviaries, herpetariums, aquariums, ponds and other things.

It would be nice if the fences had the height based on the species kept. Like if there were several enclosures, some with a fence height that would allow agile wallabies and parma wallabies to go through but not red kangaroos and emus (also, these last two don't necessarily need to be mixed). Others would allow only parma wallabies to go through.
In addition, if the animal wants to make this transition without getting bothered by guests, there should be some sort of bridge or shelter that solves this problem.

There's a good number of other mammals that could be kept - especially nocturnal ones -, since you're willing to mention animals with the rarity of a platypus. Numbats (diurnal), possums (talking about gliders, it would be nice to have something like greater gliders, golden-bellied gliders and feathertail gliders instead of the ordinary sugar glider), kowaries, quolls, dibblers, bilbies, ghost bats (potential residents for the nocturnal house) and Macropodiformes (highlighting non-Macropus ones such as rock-wallabies, tree-kangaroos and quokkas) are just some of them.

I'm not mentioning a lot of non-mammals but, mainly if you pretend to get some pretty common side-neck turtle, maybe you could include Fly River turtles, if you don't care about they don't really crossing with lungfishes in the wild (then you could house it in another tank). Other than being the only australian freshwater turtle that isn't a side-neck, it's the only 100% aquatic freshwater turtle and Carettochelyidae species. It also doesn't mean that you can't get other turtles, whether in other enclosures or not.

I wouldn't keep dingoes and cassowaries there.





And I guess that some Obdurodons, Megalibgwilias, giant echidnas, Diprotodons, Procoptodons, marsupial lions, Phascolarctos, thylacines, Dromornithidae, megalanias, Wonambis, Meiolanias and, if possible, Rattus, would be nice too.

 

Phascolarctos was included in the original plan
By curiosity which species of Rattus would you add? Probably the exhibit will have Rattus too, but just none of the native Australian species, and they will have as an uninvited and undesirable guests

Since I realized that the author was playing with the idea of get species of the rarity of platypus or even lyrebirds!!!, then I wanted to add some regent bowerbird, Victoria riflebird and other delights.

 

Did you mean not in the open walkway or not in general?
While the cassowaries are expendable I feel that dingos add an important predator dynamic...

Anyone know if it would be safe to allow the koalas access to the walkthrough?
Anyone got any ideas on dingo enclosures in a huge walkthrough, I think an exhibit similar to cinncinati zoos lion exhibit would look good...

Regarding your nocturnal animal choices, do you know if any would be fine in a mixed exhibit?

 

I completely forgot about these guys, may need another aviary or netted in area around the building.

 

You got me. I didn't specify which, though.

Rabbit.

Wait...



Are they australian? Because I've already seen some here.

 

While I would leave the cassowaries for a different section (New Guinea?), dingoes aren't really "wild". If I had then, it would be for educational purposes

Not me. I guess that they could get stressed because of their metabolism, but maybe it should work with small ground-dwelling animals (maybe wombats). Not sure, though.

Not me, but it don't sound so good... I guess that they could easily harass and hurt macropods, and also get the emu kicked by asses. Oh, and they're introduced species, so whatever.

Not me. Ok, at least the ghost bats with other bats and and some Macropodiformes with other mammals and birds, I guess. Maybe possums (with other possums) and other "carnivore marsupials" should be fine with some other species too... Mainly in ground+tree-dwelling mixes of two nocturnal (or diurnal) animals of similar temperaments. I wouldn't try these last ones, though.

 

If I move cassowaries to a separate section I guess the koalas can expand which is good.

You brought up some pretty good points about the dingo, how would you feel about using it as an animal ambassador for education on invasive species. It would be located somewhere behind the scenes.

I assume possums and numbats won’t need all that much space so I guess the nocturnal room will be slightly expanded.

Animal Ambassadors:
Echidna
Wombat
Wallaby
Dingo?
Koala?

If anyone knows any good reptiles/amphibians for animal ambassadors from Australia, please share.

 

Bearded Dragon, Blue-Tongued Skink