Perth Zoo

City: South Perth
Country: Australia
State: West Australia
Opened 17.10.1898

Species 164

Perth Zoo has three main zones - Australian Walkabout, Asian Rainforest and African Savannah - with a few minor exhibit areas (Lesser Primates, South American birds, Main Lake, Galapagos Tortoises).All exhibits are designed to mimic the animals' natural habitats and utilise passive barriers where possible. The Australian Walkabout includes the Australian Wetlands and Penguin Plunge, Reptile Encounter, Australian Bushwalk, aviaries and the Nocturnal House. The Australian Wetlands includes black swan, black-necked stork, brolga, little pied cormorant, darter, blue-billed duck, freckled duck, Australian shelduck, Radjah shelduck, Eurasian coot, yellow-billed spoonbill, black-winged stilt, little egret, pied heron, plumed whistling duck, estuarine crocodile, freshwater crocodile, motorbike frog, splendid tree frog, Western swamp tortoise. The Penguin Plunge is home to little penguins and bridled terns. The exhibit includes a 50,000-litre (13,000 USgal) pool of filtered salt water with underwater viewing, a beach, a reef, and a rookery. The Australia Bushwalk takes visitors on our journey through the Australian landscape where they can see dingoes, emus, koalas, red-legged pademelons, numbats, quokka, red kangaroos, short-beaked echidnas, Southern hairy-nosed Wombats, Tammar wallabys, Tasmanian devils, and Western grey kangaroos. A detour takes visitors to the Western Australian Black Cockatoo exhibit, planted with cockatoo food trees and home to Baudin's cockatoo, Carnaby's cockatoo, Major Mitchell's cockatoo, Muir's corella, red-tailed black cockatoo, and Red-capped Parrot. Another detour takes visitors to the Numbats Under Threat exhibit, which showcases the endangered Australian numbat along with rufous whistlers. The Nocturnal House is designed in a circular viewing layout that lets visitors circumnavigate the Australian mainland while viewing nocturnal animals under simulated moonlight. Vertebrates in this building include bilby, cane toad, chuditch, dibbler, ghost bat, green tree frog, Northern quoll, slow loris, spinifex hopping mouse, squirrel glider, water rat, Southern brown bandicoot, ringtail possum, feathertail glider and brush-tailed bettong. In addition, this exhibit includes a number of invertebrates such as Australian tarantulas, millipedes, redback spiders, scorpions, and Sydney funnel-web spiders. The Reptile Encounter was opened on World Environment Day in 1997. It contains 17 exhibits designed to match the animal's natural habitat. The building is climate controlled, and displays reptiles from around the world including black-headed pythons, chameleon dragons, dugites, Fijian crested iguanas, frilled dragons, turtles, olive pythons, perenties, pygmy mulga goannas (Monitor), pygmy pythons, reticulated pythons, South-west carpet pythons, tiger snakes, Merten's water monitors, blue-tongued skinks, spiny-tailed lizards, and womas.The African Savannah replaced a variety of barred cages, and was the largest construction project undertaken at the zoo when it was created. The exhibit recreates the African savannah, and includes African painted dogs, African lions, cheetahs, Grant's zebras, Hamadryas baboons, Meerkats, radiated tortoises, Rothschild's giraffes, spotted hyaenas and southern white rhinoceroses. Visitors view the animals from a path that simulates a dry riverbed running through the savannah.The Asian Rainforest is home to a number of threatened Asian species. These include the Asian elephants, Asian small-clawed otters (which can be viewed underwater through a glass window), Red Pandas, Silvery Gibbons, Sumatran orangutans, Sumatran tigers, sun bears, and White-cheeked gibbons. Perth Zoo contributes to the conservation of many of these species in the wild. The Zoo's Sumatran Orangutan breeding program is the most successful in the world, having bred 27 orangutans since 1970. In 2006 it released one of its zoo-born orangutans into the wild in Sumatra as part of an international program to re-establish a wild population of the critically endangered ape. The Lesser Primates exhibit is home to lemurs and monkeys including Black-and-white Ruffed Lemurs, Black-capped Capuchins, Bolivian Squirrel Monkeys, Common Marmosets, Cotton-top Tamarins, Emperor Tamarins, Pygmy Marmosets and Ring-tailed Lemurs. Next to the African Savannah and opposite the Lesser Primates is the exhibit home to two Galapagos Tortoises.The zoo is home to the most colourful birds of south america including Amazon parrots, Blue-and-gold Macaws, Green-cheeked Conures, Nanday Conures and Sun Conures.Near the entrance to the Zoo is the Main Lake which has two islands. One is home to a group of Black-and-white Ruffed Lemurs and the other to a family of Javan Gibbons. Next to the Main Lake and opposite the cafe are exhibits home to the Southern Cassowary and the Goodfellow's Tree kangaroo. It also includes Australian Pelicans that move around in the waters.