Melbourne Zoo Part I

[moonvoice]

I was pretty stressed over in Melbourne,
mostly because of tumours.
I'm sure I'll be far happier to go back once they're out via surgery.
And in the meantime,
Melbourne Zoo is a captivating place.
I always leave any zoo or wildlife centre
wanting to draw.

Red Panda





Meerkats





Red Panda











Ring-Tailed Lemur (these guys were in an exhibit where they could roam wherever they wanted, and there were no bars/wires separating us from them.)









(copycat)



Mandrill





Small-Clawed Otter

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

These are lovely :)

[moonvoice]

Thanks :) I'm glad to be able to share them, just processing photos / putting them up lately has been tiring, so this actually feels like a major achievement atm lol.

[alias_sqbr]

Absolutely!

[cmcmck]

I met meerkats in the flesh for the first time a few days ago myself! :o)

[moonvoice]

Oh that's so cool! :D Did you enjoy them? They are so smol and cute.

[cmcmck]

I blogged about meeting them a few days back:

http://cmcmck.dreamwidth.org/651469.html

[redheart]

So wonderful. I adore red pandas, and these look so happy and healthy... <3 Thank you for sharing.

[moonvoice]

Yeah, the red panda did look pretty happy, and also had a huuuuuge tree to disappear into and climb, which I thought was pretty cool. :D

[venturous]

it looks like a really nice zoo - are the animals well cared for/happy? That mandril is gorgeous.

[moonvoice]

Some more than others? Like, I took no photos of the elephants, I wasn't super happy with how they were being cared for (and I remember not being happy with their exhibit last time). I mean there's whole groups of animals I didn't photo, because I wasn't entirely happy with the way they were stress-pacing (exhibit too small, no stimulus, no real opportunities to hide from being viewed) etc.

Melbourne Zoo is a Zoo that is constantly trying to improve its exhibits, but it's stymied by a few things: it has limited space to expand exhibits, it has to focus its expansions on the most popular animals, which means smaller animals or less popular animals get neglected (and it can show), it doesn't have all the funding it needs to do everything it wants to do and it has some 'relic' kind of housing exhibits that were common 100 years ago and would be considered inhumane now. Not the concrete jail cells of the past, but just...very small exhibit spaces for animals that really require a great deal more room, or the illusion of it.

So some things they're doing *super* well, and those animals look really happy and cared for. Some are sort of...could stand to improve (honestly I felt this way about the tiger). And some I won't photograph because I'm not comfortable with the setting / treatment. But a lot of Zoos are a mix like that, and Melbourne is better than a lot that are out there, I just have really high standards.

[silverjackal]

I am irrationally fond of Ring-tailed lemurs. They can be a pain in the rear to look after (well-known from my interning days), and yet I love the fractious bastards. :D

Your Red panda photos are lovely. There are actually a pair in BCNM and I go to see them fairly regularly because they are just such a beautiful, unique creature.

[moonvoice]

These were gorgeous. And allowed to interact with the public. There was one hanging out with a young child, not touching (and there was a keeper there at all times, who just basically lives and breathes that exhibit I imagine, lol), but like, they were both sitting side by side much to the delight of the parent who hadn't staged the scene and proceeded to take like 4,000 photos. But the exhibit was set up really well, since there's a walkway through their exhibit, but there's *plenty* of places for the lemurs to escape to.

That being said, I dread to think the chaos that can ensue when there's say...a whole school group in there. Though maybe they limit it to smaller groups, since there's like a complicated locking door procedure that's mechanised so that one door *cannot* be opened while the other is still open and then there's another etc. So only a certain amount of people can be permitted at a time.

I really enjoyed that red panda. The ones in Perth are always asleep in the canopy, lol. When I got the photos I turned to Glen and said 'we can go home now, nothing will be better than this.' Lol. It was 5 minutes in (and we did get to see the tiger, but I stand by it, lol, I'll probably never see an awake red panda again).

[firecat]

Ailurus fulgens!

[moonvoice]

They're so awesome. I really should draw them again.

[firecat]

That would be great!

[bunny_m]

Shrieking water-weasels! Eeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

<3

[moonvoice]

Shrieking water-weasels are the best weasels!