2010    February ...

A pair of young White Lions arrived from South Africa. Following extensive media coverage, the male was named Shaka and the female Shenzi. We have devoted an entire page on this website to these beautiful animals.

2009    The year in review .....

This year has been one of consolidation after the rapid growth of our first few years.

REPTILES

Now that Emerald, the crocodile from Sydney, has acclimatised we were able to allow him go outdoors into his large, grassed enclosure complete with pool.  He quickly made himself at home and soon learned to move back inside when the keepers needed to access his enclosure to service it.  Emerald is growing at a phenomenal rate and we are already planning a new crocodile interpretive centre here which will be his ultimate home.

Several reptiles arrived at the zoo this year after having been confiscated by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.  We predict that this is going to be a growing problem in years to come as people lose interest in their pet shop turtle or Children's python.  There are only so many of these animals that zoos can accomodate, leaving an uncertain future for the rest.

Our Blue-tongue lizards were very prolific this year with one mum delivering 15 healthy babies! 

Both Steve and Stephanie were involved, with other industry representatives, in discussions with Biosecurity Queensland  aimed at developing workable new Standards for the keeping of exhibited reptiles in this State.  At the end of the year those Standards are still on the drawing board.


                                                                 

BIRDS

Our feathered friends had a wonderful year!

Hatchings included Yellow-crowned Amazon, Ostrich, Bleeding-heart Pigeon, Blue Peafowl, Common Bronzewing Pigeon, Eclectus Parrot, Rainbow Lorikeet, Red-tail Black Cockatoo, Moustache Parrot and, after ten years of trying, our first Ruddy Shelducklings.  As the year ends we have several Blue and Gold Macaw eggs in the incubator.

Near misses include clear eggs from the young Hahn's Macaws and Musk Lorikeets while the Satin Bowerbirds built a beautiful bower but produced no eggs.

Just as unwanted pet reptiles are going to pose a problem in years to come, unwanted pet birds already pose a huge problem. Hardly a week goes by without we are approached by people wanting us to house cockatoos in particular.  Once again, we just cannot house the huge number of birds involved although we do our best.  These birds tend to be problem birds - noisy, aggressive social misfits.  We have rehabilitated quite a few but we currently are wrestling with our biggest challenge to date - Snowy.  Snowy is a Short-billed Corella who has spent the best part of his life in a little cocky cage.  When we released him into our cockatoo aviary he stressed terribly.  It turns out that Snowy had not previously seen the sky, couldn't fly and couldn't socialise with other birds.  Eventually we returned him to a smaller cage and he settled down considerably.  Not having a place for him at the zoo we offered him as a pet to some friends.  They loved him and he grew very fond of the lady concerned.  So fond that he could'nt bear to parted from her.  Left at home by himself on weekdays he started to yell and scream to such an extent that the neighbours complained and Snowy returned to live at the zoo.  We are now trying to find him a home on acreage with a family that includes at least one stay at home person!  Snowy's dilemma is not uncommon and we often have misfits like him who need an understanding home.

As the year ends we are trying desperately to ensure that 173 confiscated rare, exotic birds are not slaughtered by the Commonwealth Government.  Although most of these birds have been in the country for many years they are now judged to be smuggled.  The government will either return them to their country of origin [impossible in this case], send them to an ARAZPA zoo or euthanase them. Although we have had an application to join ARAZPA pending for several years it has not been progressed by that Association so the Darling Downs Zoo is prevented from offering safe haven for these birds.  Many of them are CITES 1 and CITES 2 endangered species and would be treasured anywhere else in the world.  We are therefore asking the government to broaden it's placement policy to allow non-ARAZPA zoos of a high standard to house these birds.


                                                                 

MAMMALS

Our mammals also multipled in 2009.  Notable births included Rhesus Macaque, Common Marmoset, Tammar Wallaby, Red-necked Wallaby, Rufous Bettong, Llama and we are awaiting the imminent arrival of our first baby Dromedary Camel.

One of our female Crab-eating Macaques went to another zoo on a breeding loan and an unrelated male arrived at the Darling Downs Zoo to pair with our females.  A breeding trio of Rhesus Macaques was sent to a southern zoo as part of a collaborative effort to ensure that these species are not lost to the region.

On a sad note Simba, our movie star lion of George of the Jungle 2 fame, died in Tasmania of liver cancer. He was 13 years old and had been hand raised by us following his birth by Caesarian section. He was a wonderful character and will be missed. His brother, Leo, will shortly return from Tasmania following a reorganisation of our combined lion holdings.



                                                                 

STAFF

During the year we were fortunate to secure the services of Ben Bawden from Adelaide.  Ben has joined us as a keeper working in all precincts.  He comes to us with a wealth of knowledge and we are looking forward to developing several exciting projects while he is with us.

Renae Radke entered her fifth year with the zoo and is now our most senior keeper.  As if she doesn't have enough to do here, Renae has been working on a wildlife carers course at TAFE in her "spare" time.  All of us are looking forward to helping her celebrate her 21st birthday early in the new year.

Making life so much easier for us during the year have been our two wonderful volunteers, Keely and Nicole.  We are going to miss Nicole as she starts Uni next year on the long road to becoming a vet but we will have plenty of work for her when she graduates!



                                                                 

GOVERNMENT

During the year our relationship with the state government improved dramatically and we look forward to that improvement continuing in 2010. New Standards for the exhibition of animals continue to be developed in collaboration with all the parties concerned.



                                                                 

INDUSTRY

We continue to collaborate with a number of like minded zoos in areas such as staff training, species management, transactions and on legislative and regulatory issues.

Our application to join ARAZPA has, once again, gone absolutely nowhere.  It has been stalled all year on one pretext or another and we have now been told that the application process is to be changed [yet again] and nothing much will be done until March 2010!


                                                                 

2010 ......

There are a number of projects underway here at the zoo with the first to be unveiled in February. New animals will be arriving during the year and we hope to complete at least one major new habitat.

With a bit of luck we might also see some movement with our ARAZPA application - one way or another.