Werribee Open Range Zoo

I mentioned before that H was going to take me to Werribee Open Range Zoo for my birthday, but I got sick and couldn’t go. Fortunately, we finally got to make the trip out there about a week ago.

The Werribee Zoo has mainly African animals and has been built in a big crater where they have tried to recreate an African savannah and let the animals roam semi-free. In order to see them, you have to go on a “safari” which is included with your admission.

Not all the animals are in the free range area. Only the non-predator animals that get along, like giraffes and zebras. If you want to see lions or gorillas, they have their own enclosures.

I took some pictures to share with you.

A one-humped camel. I didn’t see any two-humped camels. And I don’t know if these camels really came from Africa or if they just scooped these guys up out of one of the rogue Outback herds.

American bison. They don’t actually live in Africa, but they are a threatened species and I guess the zoo just wants to help keep them alive. And since they are a grassland species, they fit right in with the rest of the animals.

Scimitar-horned oryx are extinct in the wild and now only live in captivity. They used to live in herds of over 1000, but now most are fewer than 20.

The Przewalski horse, or Mongolian wild horse, is the last truly wild horse in the world and has never been tamed by humans. It is native to Asia and parts of Europe, but being a grasslands animal, has managed to fit in at Werribee.

Przewalski horses died out in the wild in the late 1960s. It exists today only because of captive breeding programs and all Przewalski horses alive today are descended from nine horses that had been in captivity in 1945. Fortunately, these horses have been successfully reintroduced into the wild in Mongolia and there are now about 300 wild horses.

The addax is critically endangered, having been overhunted for its prized meat and skin. Fewer than 500 are thought to exist in the wild today.

The grasslands animals have a huge area in which to roam.

The wetlands area of the open range section. All the wetlands animals were off napping somewhere.

Zebras! I was so excited to see them, but unfortunately, I was on the wrong side of the bus to get very many pictures.

Two funny giraffes. Did you know they have blue tongues? It helps keep their tongues from getting sunburned. Fortunately, giraffes are not endangered. Werribee has about seven giraffes, all male.

The common eland is a type of African plains antelope. Fortunately, they are not endangered, though their population is decreasing. They are the second largest antelope in the world, after the giant eland.

These southern white rhinos were happy to just watch us go by. They are one of five species of rhinoceros that still exist. Their only predator is humans and they are under threat from habitat loss and poaching. Their horns are especially prized on the black market. While a rhino can survive without its horn- their horns are sometimes removed preemptively and very gently to discourage poaching- poachers often hack it off with a chainsaw or machete, causing serious harm to the animal and leaving it to die from blood loss and stress. A rhino’s horn is worth its weight in gold on the black market.

This is Leeroy. Our guide told us that he is very funny and gets bothered by the different species of animals socialising together and will try to herd zebras with zebras, giraffes with giraffes, etc and will go around herding until they are all segregated.

A whole zebra family and this time they were on my side of the bus! How cute is that baby zebra???

The zoo has three male gorillas. Werribee Zoo is a sort of holding facility for male gorillas that take part in international breeding programs. They are endangered in the wild.

Meerkats live in southern Africa and belong to the mongoose family. They are burrowers and can dig up to 400 holes a day. They also appear to be immune to snake and scorpion venom.

The vervet monkeys were some of the few very active animals we saw. (Most were just resting.) Vervet monkeys exhibit a lot of human-like traits, including very strong kin relationships, anxiety, dependent alcohol use, and spite. They have four predators (leopards, eagles, pythons, and baboons) and have a distinct call for each. They should perhaps develop a call for humans because, while not endangered, they are facing threats from human encroachment, including loss of territory, electrocution, vehicles, and being captured for bush meat, use in traditional medicine, or biomedical research.

Hippopotamus spend most of their day wallowing in mud or water. In order to keep from getting sunburned, their skin secretes a natural sunscreen, which has a pinkish tint to it. Hippos are listed as a vulnerable species. Baby hippos are subject to predation by crocodiles, lions, and hyenas, but adult hippos are left along due to their size and aggressive temperament. They are subject to poaching from humans for their ivory teeth.

These two cheetahs are two adolescent brothers. Cheetahs are the fastest land animal and can run up to 70 mph or 112 kph.

Every day, there is a serval demonstration, where the keeper brings out a serval and gets it to leap around and be adorable while explaining why servals do what they do. I’d love to be able to tell you more about it, but honestly, I couldn’t hear anything the keeper said because there was a very rude mother behind me who let her child scream in my ear the entire time. But since most of the animals are not that active during the day, this is one of the few chances you’ll get to see one of them doing something other than resting.

We had to come back to the lion exhibit three times before we finally saw one. I’m glad my camera has a decent zoom lens because this picture has much better detail than what we were actually able to see. The zoo has three male lions and one female. Sadly, their population in the wild is rapidly decreasing and most wild lion populations are isolated from each other, causing inbreeding.

The Werribee Open Range Zoo is not a huge zoo. You can spend maybe three hours there before you’ve seen everything you want to see, assuming all the animals are visible. (We didn’t see any African wild dogs, since they were just not active, and almost missed the lions.)

The safari to see the grasslands animals is probably the best part. It’s a bit difficult to see the animals that are in enclosures, but the safari animals are free roaming and you can get pretty close to them.

I was also really looking forward to the serval demonstration because I really like servals. Well, I like all wild cats, but servals are very cute. I love their spots. Unfortunately, at places like zoos, you always have selfish people who don’t care if they ruin the experience for everyone else.

I hate to be Debbie Downer, but I have a message for parents: If your child still needs afternoon naps, don’t drag them around a zoo all day long. Your kid is tired and cranky by 2pm and they need a rest from all the excitement. Make sure they get it because no one else wants to hear your screaming brat and your screaming brat is miserable and you’re a terrible parent for ignoring their needs. If you, the parent, want to see the serval demonstration, then get a babysitter and leave your kid at home. Your toddler is not interested in what the keeper has to say, but we adults who paid for our own tickets are interested and want to be able to hear what he is saying without your brat screaming throughout the entire thing. So let me make it simple in case you didn’t know why everyone was giving you the stink eye: please just leave because no one likes you.

As much as I liked seeing all the animals, by the end of the day, H and I were both a bit depressed. The whole day was basically, “Look at this animal; it’s going extinct,” and “Look at this animal, it’s extinct in the wild,” and “Look at this animal, it’s severely endangered because of poaching,” and so on. It’s really sad to see all these majestic animals and know they are struggling to survive and that in most cases, humans are to blame. I’m glad we have zoos that run conservation and breeding programs to keep them alive, but it’s still very depressing.

But if you can get past that, then Werribee is a neat zoo and worth visiting. I don’t know of any other zoo that takes you on a mini safari. I admit I did like Healesville Sanctuary a lot better (there’s more to do and see there) and I haven’t been to the Melbourne Zoo yet, but it’s not bad for what it is.

Healesville Sanctuary

For months, I have been dying to go to Healesville Sanctuary, a small zoo in the Dandenong Ranges which has all the characteristic animals of Australia and even offers opportunities to get up close and personal with some of them.

Finally, two weeks ago, after seeing all the cool pictures of the animals posted on Stumble Down Under, I made it a point to go and spend a whole day there, and now I’m finally getting around to posting some of my pictures (which are admittedly not as good).

Previously, their Magic Moments close encounters were $35 per person, which I always thought was just too much, but now that is off-peak season, they have dropped their priced down to $10 per person. As much as I love koalas (they are, without question, my favourite Aussie animal), spending $10 just to get a photograph with one that a handler is holding seemed like kind of a rip off. You’re not allowed to touch them at all because it stresses them out. So I opted for a Magic Moment with my second favourite animal, a kangaroo, where you get to pet and feed them. More on that in a minute.

First things first.

Upon walking through the gates, you immediately come to the emu enclosure. I’ve seen them at a distance in the wild at Wilsons Promontory, but up close, they are a lot more impressive.

Next was the koala enclosure, where trees have been cut into Y shapes to give them sleeping spots.

Of course, some koalas turn up their noses at the manmade beds and prefer to sleep on branches as thin as dental floss. You would think this little guy would be uncomfortable, but apparently, koalas have hard pads on their bums that enable them to sit and sleep comfortably on even the thinnest branches.

Next, we went to the kangaroo enclosure, where they have wallabies, grey kangaroos, and red kangaroos. The red kangaroos are the ones that can grow up to six feet tall, but only the males are ginger in colour, whereas the females are a bit smaller and are a blueish-grey. The grey kangaroos are a bit smaller than the red kangaroos, but the males can be twice as big as the females.

On our way through the park, we passed by some brolgas. Brolgas are also known as Australian Cranes and they are known for their intricate mating dances. They also have a very modernised take on gender roles, with both the male and female helping to build the nest, and incubating and guarding the young chicks.

We passed by the wombats on our way to the Tasmanian Devil enclosure. I adore wombats. They are so cute and cuddly looking, although I’ve read they can be aggressive when threatened and have actually caused severe injury to people. I got pretty up close and personal with one at Wilsons Promontory, who didn’t seem to mind my company, but had I known then that wombats can and will maul people, I would have probably not gotten so close. In any case, this pair seemed pretty calm and they were polite enough to pose together for me for a picture.

Although I find Tasmanian devils very ugly, I was keen to see one because it (along with the platypus, of which I could not get a good photo) was one of the few iconic Australian animals that I had not yet seen anywhere. The Tasmanian devils have suffered a few hard knocks, first becoming extinct on the mainlaind, probably due to the introduction of dingoes, and are now threatened by a contagious cancer called ‘devil facial tumour disease‘ which they transmit through biting each other and which causes tumours to form around the mouth. The tumours eventually interefer with feeding and the afflicted devil then starves to death. Poor things!

We made a stop in the reptile area. I didn’t get any pictures because the lighting was dim and they were all behind glass, obviously. They had Australia’s 10 deadliest snakes. Number two was the eastern brown snake and number one was the inland taipan. I have a problem with this, because while the taipan is more venomous than the brown, no known fatalities have ever been attributed to the taipan, as it doesn’t come in contact with humans that often, whereas the brown is attributed the most human fatalities, being found in populated areas and being very fast and aggressive. The taipans are fairly docile and only attack if provoked, whereas brown snakes need very little provocation at all and will even chase a person down. If the list is going to be called the “deadliest” snakes, then the brown should be number one. The taipan should only be number one if the list is called “most venomous” snakes. Very misleading!!!

Anyway, reptiles disgust me, especially snakes, so onto more pleasant animals!

One of my favourite things about Australia is all the unique and colourful bird life. I especially love all the varieties of parrots, so when I heard that you could actually feed and hold them in the parrot enclosure, I went straight there. After getting some nectar from the keeper, I ended up with two green lorikeets in my hand. I didn’t even get pooped on! Here are some of the awesome birds in the parrot enclosure.

A red-tailed black cockatoo, who was very friendly and very interested in the girl sitting below him with a shiny cell phone. Apparently, these birds are very well suited to aviculture, but can be very expensive. In the US, they are rare to have as pets and to get a hand-raised bird, you’d be looking at paying five figures for one.

This pretty cockatiel (also a popular pet bird) posed for a picture. My family had a cockatiel once when I was a kid. I remember I hated that bird because he would sit on my shoulder and bite my ear really hard and pull my hair. I was also deeply disappointed that he was too dumb to talk and all he could do was whistle “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. I guess I prefer them better in the wild!

The birds I got to feed were scaly-breasted lorikeets, so named for their yellow breast feathers which look like scales in contrast to the surrounding green feathers. These are EXTREMELY noisy birds and they are constantly screeching to one another. They are very playful and the first bird I attracted was more interested in showing off its acrobatics that coming to sit in my hand like a good bird to get its dinner. It only came and sat in my hand when another lorikeet landed on me and had a better position to get at the nectar.

Also in the enclosure were a pair of Ecletus parrots. They are the most sexually dimorphic of all parrot species, having completely different plumages. The males are green, while the females are red. For a long time, they were thought to be two distinct species of bird. The females are very defensive of their nesting sites and will fight off other females, even to the death, although as pets they are very calm.

Following my close encounters with parrots of all kinds, we proceed to the bird show, which was pretty cool.

As we sat waiting, an ibis came around, pecking up all the crumbs people had left behind. The ibises roam free around the park, cleaning up after people.

Included in the bird show were several species of cockatoos (I love them!!!), including my favourite, the sulphur-crested cockatoo, of which I couldn’t get a good photo (it’s not uncommon to see flocks of them in the city, so maybe another time!), as well as a Major Mitchell cockatoo, which I had never see before. They have a pretty pale pink plumage with a crest that is bright red and yellow when fully displayed.

Another interesting bird was the black-breasted buzzard (or kite), which is known for slamming stones onto large eggs to break them open in order to open them up and eat the contents.

H loved the wedge-tailed eagle, which is his favourite bird. He had a huge grin on his face the whole time the eagle was flying around, especially when it landed right in front of him.The wedge-tailed eagle is the largest bird of prey in Australia and also one of the largest in the world, with a wingspan of up to 227cm.

After the bird show, it was Magic Moments time, so we went back to the kangaroos so I could pet and feed and love them. I was so excited! We got to feed the female Kangaroo Island kangaroos. The males can be a bit aggressive, so we weren’t allowed to feed or pet them. I fed a 15-year-old female named Josie, who was mostly blind. That’s pretty old for a kangaroo! She was very sedate and ate slowly and didn’t mind being petted at all. At one point, a second kangaroo came over to partake in the handouts, so I had two to pet for a while. From a distance, their fur looks quite coarse, but it is actually extremely soft and plush. I just wanted to bury my face in it and take them home and use them for pillows! It definitely the coolest part of the day.

The only things left to see at that point were the dingoes and the wetlands track.

The dingoes at Healesville Sanctuary are treated awfully well. Let me tell you, they are living the high life. Not only are all their needs provided for, but they also get a lot of perks that other animals don’t get, including walks around the park and massages! Heck, they live better than most people!

Dingoes are descended from the Asian grey wolf and have only been in Australia for about 4000-5000 years. Only about 75% of dingoes are ginger coloured. The rest are black, white, or tan. Unfortunately, true dingoes are threatened because of interbreeding with domestic dogs.

Lastly, we took a stroll through the wetlands track, which is a marshy area with all different kinds of Australian wetlands birds. Very pretty and peaceful, and as it was only an hour before closing, we were the only ones there. It was a nice change from the crowds earlier and it was pleasant to end the day on a quiet note of solitude.