Wild Life Sydney Wild Life Sydney visit - February 2012

I visited Wild Life Sydney yesterday for the first time. I was skeptical going in and impressed going out. WLS does the things it does very well, but what it does is limited.

I think I'm the first person to review it since Merlin took over and re-organised the place to accommodate a Madame Tussaud's. As far as I can tell, little has really changed. You now have to walk close to 100 metres up and down corridors to get to the first animal exhibit, but apart from that, everything that was described before hand is still there, just in different places.

There are basically eight major exhibit areas now, rather than the nine pre-Merlin. Reptiles, which I gather were once largely collected together in one distinct zone, are now distributed throughout the complex. And the reptile exhibits are genuinely brilliant. They are naturalistic and for the most part (and perhaps surprisingly) very generous with space for the occupants. I have not been to a zoo in Australia with better enclosures for reptiles and amphibians. Species on display include, in rough order as you progress through the complex, the following:
- Tree frogs (species not labelled, but they apparently have green tree frogs, giant green tree frogs and splendid frogs)
- Spotted Grass Frog
- Green Tree Python
- Scrub Python together with Long-nosed Water Dragon
- Eastern Brown Snake
- Eastern Tiger Snake
- Red-bellied Black Snake
- Diamond Python together with Cunningham's Skinks (about eight of them)
- Jungle Carpet Python
- Broad-shelled River Turtle (in the cassowary exhibit)
- Boyd's Forest Dragon
- Eastern Water Dragon
- Centralian Carpet Python
- Ridge-tailed Monitor
- Collett's Snake
- Inland Taipan
- Central Netted Dragon together with Panther Ctenotus
- Black-headed Monitor, Frilled Dragon, Hosmer's Skink and Major Skink
- Saltwater Crocodile
- Pig-nosed Turtle (in a small annex off the saltwater croc pool)
- Perentie
- Spotted Python
- Centralian Knob-tailed Gecko
- Northern Giant Cave Gecko

The first exhibit is for butterflies. At the moment, it is terribly underwhelming. I saw about three butterflies. There were also plumed whistling-ducks and masked lapwing in this *extremely* humid room, and the vivaria for green tree python and the various frog species. My first impression was not positive, unfortunately.

Next comes a koala exhibit that you can view from across a fence or, after passing through a door, through glass windows. There are probably eight or ten koalas here, including youngsters. It should be said that they were the most active koalas I have ever seen. They were running from tree to tree along the ground, or jumping from one to the other. One male rather abruptly expelled a joey from it's mothers back for an attempt at mating her. This area was also the first of several that provided free-flight opportunities for birds, and we saw zebra finches and a bush stone-curlew in here. There were also two kookaburras that I suspect could not fly.

The third exhibit is viewed entirely behind glass. The feature species here are half a dozen yellow-footed rock-wallabies and a southern hairy-nosed wombat. It is also accessible to the free-flying birds and we found a large number of bush budgerigars in here. They were foraging on the ground and a keeper later told me that they plant fresh native grasses every second day. The budgies make short work of the seeds.

From here, you rather jarringly go from the outback to the Daintree Rainforest. The main species here is a southern cassowary, and there are a couple of red-legged pademelons. This mix has been discussed here before. A keeper pointed out a couple of parts of the exhibit that are inaccessible for the cassowary but available to the pademelons. Birds in this section cannot get to the rest of the complex, and include satin bowerbirds, emerald doves, brown cuckoo-doves and topknot pigeons. There is also a turtle that we found a good seven or eight metres away from the pond and no doubt wondering how it got there. This exhibit is only viewable behind glass.

The next and largest enclosure is again outback themed. It has four male red kangaroos and, at present, five seven-month old emus. They were a joy to watch sprinting from one end to the other (one managed to crash straight into the glass and hobbled off, somewhat dazed but not deterred). This is the second exhibit to have a walk-through area, which was always staffed by an employee. That's a good thing as the young emus have absolutely no fear of visitors. This area can be accessed by the free-flying birds.

The newest big feature exhibit is 'Kakadu Gorge' which has been thoroughly described on Zoochat already. It is truly excellent. Rex the saltwater croc is the largest I have seen. You can enter the top part of the exhibit where there are red-collared lorikeets waiting to pull your hair out. This area is also constantly staffed for visitor safety. The lorikeets are not shy about landing on people and could be a problem if you have earrings or the like.

The nocturnal area is fantastic. Is is very well illuminated with imitation moonlight that gives you a good chance to see the golden-phase brushtail possums, feathertail gliders, greater bilby (mixed with a large colony of spinifex hopping mice in a very good-sized exhibit), northern quolls, fat-tailed dunnarts, plains rats, ghost bats and rufous bettongs. We were the only two people on a seven o'clock keeper tour through the area. On the off-chance that that keeper is reading, he was excellent. He picked up on the fact that my partner and I are not quite your average zoo-goer, and adjusted the talk accordingly.

The final area is up a set of stairs and includes a variety of invertebrate exhibits, and a second koala exhibit for touristy photos. Nothing spectacular, but not bad either. Nothing in the place is.

As I said at the beginning, Wild Life Sydney only does a few things, but does them well. There is virtually no opportunity for expansion, unfortunately. A keeper said they were interested in getting quokkas and Tasmanian devils. The former could go in with the first group of koalas (which is also the logical place for echidnas, which they apparently have but must be behind the scenes). There is nowhere to put devils unless they get rid of something else. That's the reality of the tiny space this place has - any new exhibits are a zero sum game, with something else having to make way.

Wild Life Sydney might replace Taronga for some international tourists, but should not for anybody here. However, if you want to see some truly excellent exhibits (especially for reptiles) and a somewhat different take on displaying native wildlife, it should be combined with a Sydney Aquarium visit. On its own, it is pricey. Allow 1.5 to 2.5 hours and you will have plenty of time to go through everything twice.

 

Thanks for another review, and I was also pleasantly surprised with this establishment when I visited in 2007. The idea of obtaining Tasmanian devils is interesting, but as you point out some other exhibit would have to be eliminated if that were to ever occur.

 

As you say, probably the first review since Merlin took over and started making changes. I've been meaning to go but not had the chance, but keener now to see the changes.



Hix

 

Too bad they changed the reptile section, that was one of the best reptile sections I've ever seen. The same goes for the invertebrate section.