Wellington Zoo update » Wellington Zoo

baby chimpanze
29-10-2007

wellington zoo has had a female chimpanzee born. i was tempted to post this news under perth zoo, or worst zoo exhibits, or the taronga thread but instead thought id do the right thing and track down the approtriate post.
good news all round

09-01-2008

Any updates here..?

Has anyone been recently..?

I saw the scale model of what the zoo should look like after 10 years and 20 million $ when I went a couple of years ago... It looked pretty good...

09-01-2008

I'll be going to Wellington Zoo next month

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09-01-2008

can some1 plz post pics of new africa exhibit!

09-01-2008

Could you please do a review (if its a trip for pleasure) and possibly take a photo of the scale model, adding it to the Wellington Zoo gallery..?

09-01-2008

I'll see what I can do. Hopefully I'll be getting to the zoo, Te Papa, Karori, Kapiti, Somes Island, and either Nga Manu or Mt. Bruce, but it all depends on time etc

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09-01-2008

where abouts in the zoo is this scale model located?

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09-01-2008

Sounds like you've got a good trip planned..!

I'm hoping to go to Ti Pi point tomorrow if I can manage it... A visit to a garage this evening gave me some inspiration..!

09-01-2008

When I went it was just after going through admission adjacent to the otter enclosure... Earlier in the thread Nigel mention it was still there (I believe), I think the post was in mid 2007...

09-01-2008

Giraffe Exhibit Pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

20-02-2008

so I went to Wellington Zoo last week, for the first time in several years. One of the things I noticed was the big decline in birds. Wellington used to have one of the country's best bird collections but there is very little diversity there now. One aviary even had bantams in it, and others were making do with magpies and golden pheasants. Several species were down to just one or two specimens, even from species that could be readily obtained from private aviculturists in NZ. The complete bird list (as far as I could tell) was as follows:
ostrich
emu
North Island brown kiwi
Australian pelican
little pied shag (although the sign on the aviary said little black shag)
banded rail
brolga
white heron
Himalayan monal
golden pheasant
bantam
NZ scaup
Campbell Island teal
mandarin duck
Australian shelduck
Cape Barren goose
Derbyan parrot
sun conure
red-fronted macaw
North Island kaka
kea
red-tailed black cockatoo
Leadbeater's (pink, or Major Mitchell's) cockatoo
greater sulphur-crested cockatoo
NZ pigeon
Australian crested pigeon
emerald dove (green-winged pigeon)
tawny frogmouth
morepork (apparently, in the Kiwi House)
common kookaburra
Australian magpie

Other noticeable things included the very poor signage now being used. I liked the warning signs (don't feed the animals, etc) for their amusement value, but the actual animal signs have been reduced to a photo and two sentences of information. All very well for your average visitor who is incapable of reading but for the visitors who are actually interested there is nothing to cater to them -- not even the scientific name of the animal!! In my opinion they should have the simple signs for the idiots and then some more informative ones for the others.


warning sign


animal information sign

Where did all the bats go? There used to be dozens of little red flying foxes at the zoo, hanging all over the top of the aviary now housing cotton-tops, agoutis, sun conures and red-fronted macaws; as well as filling the enclosures in the old Kiwi House. Now there is only a handful of bats in the historic elephant house (which is now used mainly for displaying reptiles).

And speaking of the Kiwi House, the new one (now about five years old I believe?) is terrible. I work with kiwi myself and talk to lots of tourists who have visited other Kiwi Houses, and I have only ever met ONE person who has actually seen anything in Wellington Zoo's new Kiwi House. It is dark obviously, but a little too dark for visitors and for some reason there are white/blue lights arranged in such a way that whichever way you turn you tend to get them shining right in your eyes so you never get accustomed to the darkness. With this in mind, the small size of the enclosure, the fact that it is open and walk-through (so no barriers to keep down sound), and that there is only a single kiwi in there anyway, it's really a wonder that ANYONE has seen the kiwi in there!

On the good side of things they have quite a good reptile collection now (for a NZ zoo), mostly inside the historic elephant house and by the old Kiwi House; with more in a breeding room round the side of the elephant house, viewable through a window. There is a baby chimpanzee, born 22 October last year. The young male lions were very active with their dead goats. There was a family of Americans identifying the African wild dogs as wallabies (!).

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future development model
20-02-2008

below is the zoo's model of their future development plans which NZ Jeremy asked me to photograph. Its not the best (there are little labels all over it with animal names but they can't be seen in the photo) but its the best I could manage. The model is dated as June 2005. I've drawn the plan out myself to get photos with legible labelling. Just ask if there's anything you can't read. There are some... shall we say, "interesting" animals on the map, such as harpy eagle, fossa and chevrotain, as well as some like Francois' langur that Australian zoos are working with but that are currently not in NZ. In fact at least seventeen of the species on the model aren't in NZ currently as far as I'm aware, although feel free to correct me on any that are (fossa, capybara, harpy eagle, pigmy marmoset, Philippine deer, chevrotain, clouded leopard, Francois' langur, impala, nyala, bushbuck, ground hornbill, crowned crane, caracal, "vulture", bongo, colobus). They have "black leopard" labelled as being by the Amphitheatre, which is in the South American section, so I'm not sure what that's about. Where it says "S.A. Aviary", by the spider and capuchin monkey island, I'm assuming it means "South American Aviary". The ruffed lemur island also has ring-tailed lemurs on it. Its interesting there is no zebra on the plan at all, and that the "cheetah run" appears to be on one of the steeper parts of the zoo!




left side


right side

The "African Savannah" has already opened (there is still a sign on the exhibit itself saying "our new African Savannah is opening this summer") and at the moment houses only the giraffes and ostrich. The Grant's zebras were also moved here but didn't get on with the giraffes so were moved back to their previous enclosure. The girls at the counter told me that blackbuck were going in there as well (or perhaps were already in there) which I was a bit confused about. I suggested maybe they meant bushbuck (as these are on the future plans, although I don't know of any in NZ) but they were adamant they were blackbuck, even though I pointed out that they come from Asia not Africa. I am now of the opinion that they must have meant springbok, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, the area of the exhibit isn't exactly large so I don't know how they plan on having all the species they want in it (giraffe, springbok, impala, nyala, ostrich, crowned crane and ground hornbill) unless they only have a couple of each which hardly seems worthwhile.

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historic animal notes on the zoo
20-02-2008

this is just some notes on animals that used to be at the zoo when I first visited in about 1988 and which are now no longer there. Just for anyone that's interested. I've only been to Wellington Zoo three times, first in about 1988, then in 2002, and lastly this month. Its mostly from memory and photos I took at the time (and before anyone asks, I don't have a scanner so can't post those photos).

The lake near the start where the islands for gibbons and monkeys are now, then was just a big lake with a little railway running around it. Down the end was the section for mainly-Australian waterbirds, including pelicans (probably the same ones they still have), Australian wood ducks and magpie geese, as well as two capybara. The sun bear enclosure was then still two adjoining pits landscaped only with narrow concrete terraces -- if you think its bad now, it was much worse then; on one side was an American black bear (brown in colour), on the other just some small-clawed otters because the Asiatic black bear had recently passed on to the great jungle in the sky. Where the servals are now there were then snow leopards (with newly-born cubs) and what is now the kea aviary was then used for wedge-tailed eagles. The site of the meerkat enclosure by the kiosk was then a pool for koi and turtles. There was a little aquarium near here too but I'm not sure exactly where (the only tank I remember had convict cichlids swimming amongst bricks).

Other mammals were sitatunga, fallow deer, llama, blackbuck, American bison, Geoffroy's cat, coati, kinkajou, raccoon, Eurasian badger, Arctic wolf, camel, bobcat, siamang, Diana monkey and euro. There were sugar gliders in an enclosure in the Kiwi House. My guide book from the time also has leopards and puma but I don't remember them. Many of the above species are no longer found in NZ at all.

Birds included wonga pigeons, noisy pittas (there was still one left in 2002), Radjah shelduck, Antipodes Island parakeets, nicobar pigeons, green peafowl, nankeen night herons, barn owls, lots of waders and parrots, and others I can't recall. In 2002 there were blue and gold macaws (and the cotton-top tamarins were then free-ranging, which I remember because they were running over the aviary harrassing the macaws who weren't too happy about it). I'm pretty sure there were golden lion tamarins in a glass-fronted enclosure near the entrance to the zoo in 2002 as well, but I may be confusing them with somewhere else.

Reptiles included common iguana, Gould's monitor, and an American alligator in the waterbird aviary (apparently it once ate a spur-winged plover but generally behaved itself).

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21-02-2008

Chlidonias,

Thanks for leading us through the Masterplans on Wellington Zoo. Seems a well thought out plan with some zoo geo-zoning (Africa, Asia and South America). Understandable that Wellington Zoo concentrates on these and does not try to make for every ... continent. The species assemblages are also quite imaginative.

New imports coming from where? Surely not Australia given the import restrictions?

I however deplore the fact that hardly anything birdwise as you say ... save for an South American (S.A.?) and Asian aviary. Where are songbirds and pheasants going? Secondly, I also view the lack of sufficient space for native and Australian species (Aussie mammals and Aussie/NZ birds + reptiles) a downer (especially since zoos a principal communicators in the conservation game and NZ is a prime example of the need for strict biodiversity controls).

21-02-2008

Thanks for that Chlidonias, I've always regretted not snapping that model when I was there a few years ago...

Did you notice Caracal, Fossa and Clouded Leopards on those plans... Huh..? Are these anywhere else in Australasia..? Feasible..?