Adelaide Zoo - What's New?

The banners outside the grand old polychrome brick gateway to the Adelaide Zoo flap the news that there's always something new inside. The baby bison, for instance, looked tiny and frail against its primeval and bulky parents as we began our update tour.

First major stop, the Australian Rainforest Aviary, with its new boardwalk that snakes through the dense foliage that's been home to about twenty species of birds for a couple of decades. It is much easier to spot them among the leaves now, especially when they flash brilliantly in black and gold like the Regent Bowerbird. As birdkeeper Martin Jeffries arrived with lunch at a feeding station, it was mobbed in a flurry of colour and shrieks and chatter. Through a gate, the boardwalk transports you from a Dividing Range forest to a Kakadu-style wetland.

A rare speckled duck took a long feather-cleaning splashing bath below while a graceful spoonbill watched from above a waterfall. A couple of red-tailed black cockatoos rancously corresponded. It is one of our compulsory stops on our regular family visits to the Zoo - a place where you pause and watch and let the birds do the talking.

On the way to our next venue on the what's-new-tour, the four chimpanzees were seeking out their fruit and vegetable lunch that the keeper spreads 'round their enclosure. A banana is carefully peeled by one, while a corn cob is rapidly but neatly d..... by another. The primates pathway now extends to make a shortcut to the children's zoo, its aboriginal-design paving leading past the new Animal Health Centre. It has replaced the antiquated veterinary facilities and brought them forward for zoo visitors.

A "shop window" lets us look in on an operation or checkup in the spacious theatre area. Zoo vet, Dr David Schulz, invited the Postcards crew in for a closer look. He was checking an arthritic hip of an older peccary, a relative of the domestic pig. While she was under anaesthetic, he took the opportunity to take a skin tissue sample from her ear to give to Sydney University researchers working on DNA analysis of the sub-species in our zoos. A blood sample was handed over to an Adelaide University scientist. Doc Schulz gave us a dentist's view of the peccary's teeth...very long and sharp, and lifted the tough bristles on the back to reveal a large scent gland. It's the explanation for why the Texan's call these animals musk hogs. Next time you are at the Zoo, look through the window to check if there's a patient on the operating table.

After a quick chat to Jamala the giraffe (she's just moved down from Monarto Zoological Park), we were on our way into the Nocturnal House to see the new bilby exhibit. It runs the length of the walkway, a long and sandy strip with regularly replaced desert bushes that three bilbies have adapted to quickly. During our videotaping session, they ranged up and down in search of mealworms and their favourite treat ....locusts.

As we leaned on the wooden table-high and glass-sided "fencing" (good for toddler vision) they hopped by just a metre or so away. Given they've been extinct for a long time in South Australia, and that nocturnal bilbies are now found scattered in Northern Territory arid lands, this is a captivating chance to see them up close and contemplate the value of the Bilby Recovery Program which is re-introducing them into the wild. Keeper Mandy Smith told me that they've been unperturbed by the excited conversations around them, and that they've become a very popular exhibit.

Past the Lyrebird Restaurant (the original monkey house in the nineteenth century), the great Victorian era aviary has two very colourful and noisy new tenants. Young South American blue and gold macaws, Charlie and Medidi moved in about a month ago, and in this prominent spot they're set for stardom. After many hours of training and nurturing of these intelligent and curious parrots, they join in a new keeper-talk at the zoo. Birdkeeper Nicholas Bishop let the Postcards team inside for an intimate version.

As Charlie sat on his arm gnawing with curiosity on his watchband, Nicholas gave a group of students at Zoo School some fascinating facts. They constantly squawk to each other as a way of keeping in touch in the rainforest canopy, and they mate for life. The bare white skin on their faces can flush pink for aggressive or amorous purposes, and the black facial lines are fine feathers - and every face is different.

There will be lunchtime macaw talks everyday in the school holidays and on weekends after that. The holiday program includes several other keeper talks and plenty of activities in the children's zoo. You will also be able to test your olympic aptitude against animal and athlete scores in the zoo games throughout the precinct. The zoo is open everyday, and as our 2000 visit showed, there's always something new at the zoo!!

Adelaide Zoo

Frome Road
Adelaide. S.A. 5000
(in the northern parklands by the River Torrens)
Open daily: 9.30am to 5.00pm
Phone: 8267-3255
Internet: www.adelaide-zoo.com.au
Email: swillis@adelaidezoo.com.au (general information)