Australian ZOO
Australian ZOO is located relatively close to the university, only 30 minutes by bus. The Zoo is founded by the parents of Steve Irwin in 1970 and is now owned by his wife. The zoo is mainly know through the documentary The Crocodile Hunter, due to this series the zoo became a very popular touristic attraction. The original name of the park was Beerwah Reptile and Fauna park, after some name changes it is now called Australian zoo. The zoo has a very diverse flora and fauna located on an 40 hectares of land. In the zoo there is an Animal Planet Crocoseum stadium in which 5000 people can see live shows with birds, crocodiles and snakes.
The day we were at the zoo we watched a show in which birds were flying across the stadium but more spectacular was the show with the big salt water crocodile. In this show the trainers would jump in the water to attract the crocodile to move into their direction. It was amazing to see how such a big animal could move through the water without making any ripple in the water. They feed the crocodile rats and you could see that in the water the crocodile was very fast, and he also came out of the water so fast. But when he was on land with his whole body, the crocodile was slow because of his body weight and his long tail. On the end of the show they fed him some meat which was attached to a rope, and by pulling on the rope the crocodile started to turn and flip around in the water in order to win the fight.
In the zoo there were different parts in which specific animals were located, for example in the African area, there were elephants, zebras, giraffes. In another part of the zoo there were tigers. In Dutch zoo’s there are tigers too, but they are behind fences and glass, although in this area the trainers were playing with the tigers and they were jumping in the water with them and running around. Other animals in the zoo were mainly reptiles (snakes) and crocodiles (salt and fresh water).
The most exciting parts for me were the areas in which you could walk through the kangaroo paddock and touch them and the area where you could pad the koalas. They were so sweet, although you could see they were used to the visitors so much that they would just continue sleeping if somebody would touch them.
The Koala in the picture is treated in the Zoo hospital which was opened in 2004. This hospital takes care of animals which are for example hit by a car of attacked by a dog. The hospital has an operating room. In this hospital mainly birds are treated, however the koalas are in a majority present because they need such special care that they will take a long time to recover.
Overall, if you every go to Australia, I can certainly recommend the zoo to you, it is a nice place and it looks beautiful and it is also very educative.