New exhibits for Australia Zoo » Australia Zoo

New exhibits for Australia Zoo
12-08-2007

A report in yesterdays news paper here in Brisbane states, the manager of Austraila zoo says, the zoo will spend 200 million dollars plus on new exhibits over the next ten years.

The zoo is expected to reach 300 ha in size.

Should be interesting to see what happens in the ten year time frame.

12-08-2007

Here's a panoramic photo of the elephant enclosure at Australia Zoo that I took a couple of weeks back when I visited.

13-08-2007

thanks sim - what did you think of it? its a bit hard to tell whats what from the one photo.

whats with the fugly giant faux figs holding up shade cloth though?!

i probably would have just given them some access to the shady trees on the opposite side of the enclosure!!!

13-08-2007

I thought the enclosure was quite spacious - gives them a bit of room to wander around, although it is rather barren - not much there really. The water feature up near the fence is pretty small too - although difficult to judge without an elephant playing in it.

Don't elephants have a habit of destroying trees in zoo enclosures ? I seem to remember comments by the keepers at Western Plains Zoos that their elephants (African) would destroy anything in their enclosure - especially trees.

13-08-2007

within reason. they can't destroy live trees that are hotwired. and certainly even without protection i doubt very much they would manage to do any significant damage to some of those monsterous trees i see in the photo. some seem far too solid and too tall for them to destroyed. they may indeed have some access anyway - its hard to tell if there is fencing there or not.

its seems like a somewhat oddly designed enclosure and somewhat barren as you said. i dare say - like many australia zoo exhibits, a bit on the tacky side. with a bit too much overkill.

clearly it is designed to be driven though judging from the gates and the road that runs through it.

i still am still somwhat in disbelief that steve irwin didn't absolutely leap at the chance to buy the mareeba/tipperary animals. he showed interes, but i am very curious as to why he let the chance slip through..it would have soooo seemed in their best interest and they most ceratinly could have afforded it.

with that one aquisition they would have had a virtual complete african safari (bar the giraffes which are never in short supply anyway) with animals like hippo that not even monarto zoo have.

essentially, australia zoo would have had nearly all the expected "A-listers" the other major zoos have (elephants, tigers, lions, bears, hippo, rhino, monkeys, zebra and giraffe..) and would have really just have needed a few gorillas and orangs to top it off.

always thought it was quite odd.. despite their world-wide branding they still actually have very few exotics....

13-08-2007

Don't forget that you'd need enclosures to hold all those new animals - esepcially the large ones! They currently have nowhere to house new large animals, and their older existing enclosures aren't exactly large - so may not accommodate many smaller ones either.

Australia Zoo is still very much "under construction" in my view - they have a heap of space available, and have only just started to utilise some of it with the new Elephant and Tiger enclosures.

13-08-2007

Some more photos of the elephant enclosure:

13-08-2007

THE FAUX TREE IN THE MIDDLE WILL EVENTAULLY BECOME TREES, IF YOU BELIVE ME.

sorry caps^

they are planted out with vines, high ehough up so the eles carnt reach, so wen the vies, bushes grow out they will merge to create a large shade area, with a nice bushy tree like top, that will not be accessable to eles

13-08-2007

well there you have it.. they defiately do have access to live trees and shade... i would have used the money spent building those tacky concrete trees on hiding that double storey brick vaneer home i see at the other end of the enclosure!!!

and i'm not forgetting animals need enclosures. and that australia zoo does not currently have enclosures for these animals. they would have to build them. but since thats what the zoo plans on doing anyway AND that they have the money, you must admit..its seems supprising that the irwins didn't leap at the chance to get their hands on some animals that they otherwise may be waiting decades for.........

13-08-2007

they is p[robably a good reason why nothing was done, just we have no idea what !

13-08-2007

probably.....

13-08-2007

From what I had read the fake threes were planted out with Fig trees, I did not hear anything about the "under contruction" Lemur Island for the Ruffed black and white Lemurs, they started that some time ago, maybe Sim may of seen it.

australia zoo's eles
13-08-2007

little of the topic but what is the make up (as in male to female ration and age) of Australia zoo's elephants?

13-08-2007

All of them are cows around 50 years of age

13-08-2007

3 reitired circus girls, as mark said ranging from about 47 to 50 or so, sabu, siam and bimbo! go to the austrlia zoo for there whole biography, the zoo takes it's eles very seriously, and they are the big stars there from what i take it