Perth Zoo at a Tortoise Pace

A trip to the local zoo is always a pleasurable way to spend a day (at least for us it is). So that was our destination this past Saturday. Despite his grumblings of having homework to do, we 'forced' Kyle to join us. We originally had hopes of visiting both the zoo and the museum, but alas we took too long at the zoo - guess we took too long watching the Koala and Orangutan....

The best surprise of the day was how active all the animals were. I expect the cooler weather arriving has renewed their energy levels. Animals which are normally quite docile during the day were out and about. Even the tortoise above was doing laps around the area collecting food and keeping busy.

It is interesting to see the variation from the Toronto Zoo. The biggest difference in Perth, as you would expect, was the broader selection of Australian animals. Since we have wild photos of many of the animals, we did not post zoo shots - except for the Koala which does not live in W.A. These little guys were awake and eating - surprising since they sleep 23 hours a day. We spent a lot of time at the koala exhibit!

The nocturnal exhibit was fairly extensive also. There was also a quite large netted in area with a large selection of birds.

The African exhibit was similar to Toronto - all the typical star attractions. Again, there was lots of activity by the rhinos, which is not very common in my experience. At left is a juvenile with it's mother.

The reptile exhibit was another favourite for us. There was a wide selection of snakes, lizards, skinks and such. Many behind glass of course as there are MANY poisonous snakes out here!

The crocodile was certainly the least active animal we saw. When Kyle and I first approached, we were certain that it was a plastic model under the water as there was absolutely no movement or signs of life. We were quite surprised when he (or she) very slowly surfaced for a breath. It is incredible how still they can sit - no wonder they can catch their prey off guard so easily.

And of course, the monkeys and meerkats are always fun to watch, and we did our share of that.

But the most memorable experience of the day was with the orangutans. Apparently their name in Indonesian means 'people of the forest' - and I can certainly understand why. The zoo has built a very elaborate area for them with segregated accommodation, but so that they can all climb up to platforms and see each other. They have successfully bred 25 orangutans in captivity at the zoo, and have recently released one into the wild - so far she is doing fine. They hope to release more based on a success. This little guy was keeping mom busy as she tried to stay near by while he was constantly on the move.

Each animal had its personality described, and there was one fellow who was described as being very social with humans and his favourite past time was to sit and people watch. And that is exactly what he did. He even came right up to the glass and sheltered the sun from his eyes so that he could peer through better. As I opened my back pack to pull out my water bottle, he peered in to check what was in there and what I was up to. I could have spent hours just sitting with him - he was extremely intelligent I suspect.

And on our way out, we passed the omnipresent pelicans - not part of the zoo exhibit, but entertaining to watch never the less.

By the time we headed out of the zoo, it was after 3pm - past lunch time and too early for dinner. We tried many restaurants, but with no luck as they all shut down between meals. So we hit the local pub instead - they don't stop the beer flowing between meals after all, and ordered some not so healthy potato wedges and a cool one (beers for Mike & I, a pop for Kyle :-). They hit the spot enough to get us home for a real meal.