I thought you all might like a look at this http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/flash/monarto1612.swf Monarto!
And was that a close-up of a rhino or an elephant's eye? It was very old footage if it was an elephant!
zoopro, that was an asian elephant for sure - they haven't had one of them for a long while! the platform look like a good addition. werribee just built a really fantasic-looking rustic african one in the lower savannah. it has a thatched roof and is made from sapling logs and all that.. unfortunately it is a "special tour" only experience, meaning you have to pay extra. i think this is a shame since if they made it a something visitors could access by trail then it would mean being able to view the savannah at your own leasure as well as feed the giraffes. werribees beiggest flaw is that with so few animals accessable by foot (as opposed to the safari tour) the zoo is a little short of things to do. giraffe feeding would have been a much welcome addition....
patrick it is a white rhino, we havent had elephants in years, and that photo was in the newspaper with White RHino written under it
patrick, i havent been to weribee yet, hoping to come down to melbourne in the next few months and do weribee too. btw, do you know anything about training it from melbourne to adelaide? but from what ive seen of weribee, i think what you said about less to do on foot would be right. im glad theyve opened the lion and hippo exhibits, and it would be nice to see the much talked about babboons relocated from melbourne out there. the fact that you can do western plains by foot and not miss out on anything, not even sun burn or blisters or dehydration is what appeals to me so much about the place. you can do it all at your own pace. having said that, it would be nice to see WPZ perhaps developing a few more immersion style experiences like weribee has. maybe when dubbo becomes more cash flow positive taronga will be able to spend a bit more on it!!!
werribee is growing slowly, but they are doing it right. all the exhibits are of modern design and utilise glass and hidden moats or fences to keep the animals in. havent seen the finished "kubu river" hippo exhibit yet, but no doubt it adds a decent amount of time to your experience. still before it opened the zoo was still really just a 2-3 hr visit and that probably includes lunch on the grass.... but as i said, whils they don't have the huge range dubbo have that keeps you there longer - they do have most of the star african animals - lions, cheetah, vervet guenons, hippo, meerkats, giraffe, rhino, zebra and probably the best antelope collection in australiasia.. unfortunately, whilst they do house them, there are no wild dogs on display as yet. baboons will be great, especially if its omething along the lines of singapores exhibit. i am still very tempted to suggest attempting mixing them with barbary sheep... no doubt fennec, colobus and maybe even hyena will one day find themselves on display there... and the place looks great too. originally the zoo was little more than a booth at the werribee mantion were you bought a ticket and jumped on a regular minibus. they now have jurassic park-like safari busses with hydrolic (sp?) doors an modern timber and steel visitor center (entrance, shop, restaurant savannah center, etc..) and african village picnic area and its all centered around a attractive lake with grazing zebra and waterbuck on the other side. they really did score a great peice of land - the "lower savannah" (the main mixed paddock) is in the perfect location on a gorgeous floodplain with a river winding past and marsh in the middle. looks great!!! expanding the australian "volcanic plains" trail would help things a bit too. they really need to get some more native animals on display in there (like koalas), but at the moment it seems they are pretty keen on keeping the australian section a natural indigenous representation of the area. so there will be no hairy-nosed wombats or red kangaroos it seems... whilst i haven't been to dubbo (but sooooo badly want to!), i must say that as werribee continues develop it just may start to give is much more popular northern neighbour a run for its money.... thats if monarto doesn't beat them both!
i honestly think western plains would close in the future if not for the fact that even though its not attracting neearly enough people now tourism is worth $75 million to dubbos economy, and i dont think the state govt would close the place, or allow it to close because it would create so much unemployment in regional nsw. for many years after it began dubbo consistently failed to attract enough visitors to become cash-flow positive. now, with climbing petrol prices and a downturn in domestic/regional tourism dubbo may be facing a crisis trying to attract people. i really like dubbo but it definitely needs some real 'immersion style' enclosures for the big animals. hippos, rhinos, all the big cats, primates and even elephants live in fantastic enclosures that coulddo with a jones and jones make-over.
between us, i was told when i was there a 2005, many keepers said, that the zoo isnt getting any money, and thats why alot of the aster works arnt going in (safri etc,) as its a waste of money when no1 will come. they said to me dubbo may close down within 5 yrs, so yea hopefully not, no other zoo matches the exotic endangered species birth rate
Dubbo does cost a lot to run, does not have the resources that it needs, and is not attracting the vistors that it used to. It would be a huge shame if it doesn't pick up enough funds to continue growing......
it would be, its a shame more funds aint going to dubbo, even to just do breeding centres around the place, it just has so much room to breed anything.
You need more than just room - you need infrastructure, food, veterinary care, additional keepers etc., and this all costs big $. Sadly, there aren't big $ being thrown at Dubbo these days.
i dare say, i always thought it was a somewhat rediculous place to build a zoo - nobody from sydney can really visit the place in a day. dubbo might be a beutiful area, but its just too far from anything.... and this is the big advantage werribee and monarto have. they might not have the collection (yet) but they got the location. werribee is roughly halfway between victorias two largest cities - and just takes around 45mins to get there, hardly i hike....
