A zoo in the parklands
WangWang the male panda
This past week the weather had warmed up and I had the day off so thought it would be nice to be a tourist in my own city. I headed off to the Adelaide Zoo, the location of many childhood memories of visits there.
The Adelaide Zoo is the second oldest zoo in Australia. The oldest being Melbourne Zoo, the Adelaide Zoo was opened in May 1883 in the northern parklands. It's still there, and over the years it has adapted to a conservation model rather than just a 'lets look at the animals' one. With the opening of the Monarto Zoo, larger animals and those that need space to roam have been transferred there.
Adelaide Zoo currently has 2 pandas on loan from China and have been trying to breed them, so far no baby pandas. As the day was bright and sunny the pandas were active, WangWang was doing laps of his enclosure and Funi, female was up a tree as I entered the zoo!
I was surprised to see the panda up the tree as they're quite big so I didn't realise they could climb!
The Panda enclosure, with the arrival of the pandas a large part of the zoo was remodelled, bamboo was planted, and a new zoo entrance was created.
The zoo has a collection of Australian native creatures as well as exotics. A cassowary from far north Queensland.
A Koala, hiding behind its lunch! Koalas are nocturnal so it's not always possible to see them active during the day.
A Kookaburra, I took this picture in one of the aviaries, so was able to get quite close, the Kookaburra was obviously very used to humans as it just sat there as I took its photo!
Chimpanzees and monkey, this was a very popular, as well as noisey! The chimpanzees 'yell' at each other!
These two were just interesting to watch, the one on the left is examining something (a leaf?) and then the one on the right came up to take a close look as well.
With the zoo being so old (by Australian standards!) it has some heritage buildings.
The heritage gates and entrance to the zoo, with the old ticket office. These gates opened out to the main road and the nearby river, the new entrance is much larger and you enter through the parklands.
Minchin House, now the zoo's administrative centre.
This originally was the Director's House, the zoo Director lived on site. The first three directors were all from the same family, the grandfather being the first Director, followed by his son, and upon his death the grandson of the original Director. It was only with the early death of the grandson that the job went outside the Minchin family. The house has now be renamed Minchin House after these early directors.
The Elephant House, right from the beginning the zoo had an Asian elephant. As they died a new one was brought in, this rather exotic house was part of the elephant enclosure. The last elephant was transferred to Monarto and died there a few years after its transfer.
The Rotunda, donated to the zoo in 1884, by Sir Thomas Elder a wealthy pastoralist who was President of the Royal Zoological and Acclimatisation Society at the time. People can book the rotunda to have weddings in it, it's very popular for children's birthday parties.
A posing meekat! They did make me smile.
Behind the meerkats is the old giraffe enclosure which houses two giraffes, the rest of the giraffes are at Monarto, where there's quite a herd of them. The zoo also has a successful giraffe breeding program, there were two young giraffes at Monarto when I visited last year.
A Spotted Hyena
Pelicans
The zoo is very popular with children and there's a Children's Zoo section where they can interact with the animals. Going on a weekday also means lots of school groups as well! Something new for me is there's now a huge new playground for children to explore as well.
The zoo is easily accessible from the city and surrounding suburbs and a traditional thing to do is take the Popeye boat on the River Torrens either to or from the zoo. Whilst it's an old zoo, there's been a lot of effort to upgrade the enclosures so the creatures have a natural as possible environment to live in. It's not a sad or depressing zoo to visit, something that's always a concern for people when visiting a city zoo from my experience.
This past week the weather had warmed up and I had the day off so thought it would be nice to be a tourist in my own city. I headed off to the Adelaide Zoo, the location of many childhood memories of visits there.
The Adelaide Zoo is the second oldest zoo in Australia. The oldest being Melbourne Zoo, the Adelaide Zoo was opened in May 1883 in the northern parklands. It's still there, and over the years it has adapted to a conservation model rather than just a 'lets look at the animals' one. With the opening of the Monarto Zoo, larger animals and those that need space to roam have been transferred there.
Adelaide Zoo currently has 2 pandas on loan from China and have been trying to breed them, so far no baby pandas. As the day was bright and sunny the pandas were active, WangWang was doing laps of his enclosure and Funi, female was up a tree as I entered the zoo!
I was surprised to see the panda up the tree as they're quite big so I didn't realise they could climb!
The zoo has a collection of Australian native creatures as well as exotics. A cassowary from far north Queensland.
A Koala, hiding behind its lunch! Koalas are nocturnal so it's not always possible to see them active during the day.
A Kookaburra, I took this picture in one of the aviaries, so was able to get quite close, the Kookaburra was obviously very used to humans as it just sat there as I took its photo!
Chimpanzees and monkey, this was a very popular, as well as noisey! The chimpanzees 'yell' at each other!
These two were just interesting to watch, the one on the left is examining something (a leaf?) and then the one on the right came up to take a close look as well.
With the zoo being so old (by Australian standards!) it has some heritage buildings.
The heritage gates and entrance to the zoo, with the old ticket office. These gates opened out to the main road and the nearby river, the new entrance is much larger and you enter through the parklands.
This originally was the Director's House, the zoo Director lived on site. The first three directors were all from the same family, the grandfather being the first Director, followed by his son, and upon his death the grandson of the original Director. It was only with the early death of the grandson that the job went outside the Minchin family. The house has now be renamed Minchin House after these early directors.
The Elephant House, right from the beginning the zoo had an Asian elephant. As they died a new one was brought in, this rather exotic house was part of the elephant enclosure. The last elephant was transferred to Monarto and died there a few years after its transfer.
Behind the meerkats is the old giraffe enclosure which houses two giraffes, the rest of the giraffes are at Monarto, where there's quite a herd of them. The zoo also has a successful giraffe breeding program, there were two young giraffes at Monarto when I visited last year.
The zoo is very popular with children and there's a Children's Zoo section where they can interact with the animals. Going on a weekday also means lots of school groups as well! Something new for me is there's now a huge new playground for children to explore as well.
The zoo is easily accessible from the city and surrounding suburbs and a traditional thing to do is take the Popeye boat on the River Torrens either to or from the zoo. Whilst it's an old zoo, there's been a lot of effort to upgrade the enclosures so the creatures have a natural as possible environment to live in. It's not a sad or depressing zoo to visit, something that's always a concern for people when visiting a city zoo from my experience.
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