Animals at the Zoo

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I love the Perth Zoo, if I lived there I would definitely be a Zoo Friend and go as often as I could.  There is a post coming up about the types of enclosures and ways they’ve made it a great place to visit, plus some posts on individual animals.  But here are some more happy snaps for you to enjoy of animals we saw on our recent zoo visit.  Most of them are Australian or African, because those two sections plus the Nocturnal house are our favourite.  But for some reason the nocturnal photos don’t come out!

Baboon

Cheetah

Spotted Hyaena. I am fascinated and repelled by these animals ever since doing some work on locomotion in my Honours.  Their forelegs are longer than their hindlegs, giving them a unique gait that is very strange to watch.

Rothschild Giraffe. Perth Zoo is involved in an extremely successful breeding programme, this baby is about a week old.

White Rhinoceros. The name comes from the Dutch word for wide and refers to the mouth, not the colour.  This is Memphis, his son is also at the zoo.  Perth Zoo acts as a holding facility for excess males while they are bred in the larger open plains zoos.

Painted Dogs.  These beautiful African dogs can live in packs of up to 50 and care for each other, bringing food back to injured or ill pack members.

Indian Elephant. This is Trisha, a beloved fixture at Perth Zoo for decades.  She is now matriarch of the small herd, and every day they go for walks through the zoo for health and fitness (one at a time!).  People are encouraged to get up close, although not touch.  That’s us on the right

Orang Utan.  Awww.  Perth Zoo has possibly the world’s most successful Orang Utan breeding programme (my opinion) and is a world leader in how to care for and house them in zoos.  We have some lovely footage of this pair together and the baby practicing swinging, expect a post on them!

Estuarine Crocodile. This is a brilliant enclosure with a full glass wall so you can see him swimming underwater with the fish and logs.  They are actually Australia’s largest predator.

Tasmanian Devil. These cute but enigmatic critters are only found on Tasmania, when dingoes were introduced to the mainland they were outcompeted.  Unfortunately now they are threatened by a very strange disease – a contagious facial cancer.  It seems to be caused by a very infectious virus and there is a race to discover a cure or vaccine to stop them going extinct.

Hairy Nosed Wombat.

Brolga.  These beautiful birds dance together, jumping high in the air and spreading their wings, throwing their heads back and showing off the bright red patches.  I’ve been lucky enough to see it in the wild, but not capture it.

Red Kangaroo. Ok finally a kangaroo, the archetypal Australian animal.  The best thing about this enclosure is it’s completely open – you just walk along on the paths and the animals sleep, eat or even hop around where they want to.  We’ve had them jumping down the paths with us or lying right next to it.

Do you have favourite animals at your local zoo?

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