Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens Los Angeles Zoo News 2019

So based on the timescale I saw they are recommend, the major sections to get overhauled, regarding exhibits, would be: California and Africa over the next 10 years. California will be at the very front of the zoo so that guests whom live in California or come from around the world can see the fauna that makes up our state. As for Africa, it’s perhaps the biggest geographical area of the whole zoo, will the next big phase in the next 5 to 10 years. The other sections are proposed for 10 to 20 years from next year: Asia, Islands, Rainforest, Water, and World Aviary. The ones I’m most excited to see revamped are Africa and Asia which are most desperately needed in my opinion.

 

Well that is unfortunate! I must be mistaken then - they don’t have them in DC do they?

Regardless I was very happy to get it off my list. Do L.A. have any luck breeding them?

 

No to both of those queries.

Edit: LA might have bred them in the past at some point, but I'm not familiar with any recent breedings.

 

4.1 means 5?

 

5 total, males and one female.

 

That’s a shame. Where else are echidna kept in the North America beyond Toronto and L.A.?

 

Furthermore, does anybody know the history of Koala’s at the LA zoo? How many do they have now and when and why were they moved from the ‘Australia House’ to the outside. And are they kept outside all year round?

 

Water deer and Victoria koala are no longer kept in US Zoos?

 

The Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, and the San Diego Zoo have them (at least I think San Diego still has one as an education animal; possibly no longer). There may be others.

 

I don't know how many koalas LA has at the moment, but I can tell you about their history. The first koalas arrived at the LA Zoo in the late 1970s. The Australia House was built for them in the early 1980s prior to the 1984 Olympics. @Blackduiker was present when the first koalas arrived at the zoo, so maybe he can give more details of what the first koala exhibit was like.

There were koalas in the Australia House until the last one died in the late 1990s. When they got a new group of koalas from Australia it was with the understanding that they would be kept outside, so they have been in their outside exhibit for the last almost 20 years.

Yes, they are kept outside all year long, although they have indoor night quarters. For quite awhile they were not on exhibit at all after one of them got eaten by a mountain lion in 2016.

 

St. Louis and Ellen Trout should.

 

Thanks for your reply!

Was there any reason the new arrivals were to be kept outside? It’s unusual as the Australia house still has a lot of signage calling it the Koala house.

Have the residents always been Wombats since then? And am I right in thinking the Australia house was always ‘dark’ even when it held Koala’s?

Also thanks to those who replied regarding the Echidna. Are they the only ones kept in an outdoor exhibit on the continent?

 

San Diego had an echidna for decades that lived outside in the children's zoo. Brookfield's echidna exhibit is indoors in their Australia house.

The Australia House has always been dark. There were echidnas, woylies, and sugar gliders in there along with wombats when they reopened the building to the public (it was closed for many years), but everyone but the wombats were taken out since then.

My understanding (which could be remembered incorrectly) is that when LA got a new batch of koalas it was with the stipulation they would be outside because being in sunlight is better for them physiologically than being in the nocturnal house was. Maybe someone with some veterinary knowledge can chime in about that.

 

Thank you David for your ever useful reply. Are you aware as why all the other animals were removed from the exhibit?

 

The gliders were sent away because nobody ever saw them. I think that they wanted to give the wombats the whole space because they were reproducing. The echidna was never seen anyway because it was burrowed in its hole.

 

They’re never seen anywhere! Thanks for the swift reply though. Do you know how much space do they have to hide in their exhibit now? Seems not much to me but I could be wrong.

 

I'm not sure that I understand your question. How much room do the echidna have to hide? They have the run of the whole koala yard as far as I know. I very rarely see them. You did well to get a sighting.

 

Apologies for the confusion. I think what I meant was do they have an underground burrow system in the Koala exhibit?

That’s the last one I promise!

 

Sugar gliders were usually quite easy to see at London Zoo's Moonlight World.