It's been about three years since I have visited Taronga zoo. My son, who is 8, and I were talking about Taronga and whats new there. In that time they have opened the tiger exhibits. I haven't seen them yet. It made me think, what was the last exhibit built at Taronga for an entirely new species? The majority of major exhibits built over the last decade or so have been upgrades for existing animals or a new animal in an existing enclosure. Such as the tigers, elephants and southern oceans. I can't think of the last big build for something new. Theres probably something obvious I've forgotted but all I can think of is the Langurs in the asian precinct. What have I forgotten?
Good point. Almost everything since the 2000’s has been upgrades like you say. In the 1990’s there were new exhibits created for Snow leopard (1990) and Western lowland gorilla (1996). The latter were a returning species (the zoo sent their previous gorillas to Melbourne Zoo in 1980). Eastern bongo were also a new species to Taronga Zoo in 1996, though I don’t know if an exhibit was built for them; or if they were simply added to an existing exhibit.
The zoo built a new exhibit for capybara, but I’m pretty sure a fair bit of this exhibit was just modified from the moated lemur exhibit that was already there.
The cassowary exhibit was a new exhibit built from scratch if I remember correctly. Not an exhibit repurposed like the capybara one. The newest exhibit purpose built for a new species would be the gorillas. Not technically a new species to the zoo but a return after a long absence.
In fact the gorilla exhibit was modified from the giant panda exhibit used during the giant panda visit in 1988.
