Taronga Zoo

March 19th

My size compared to the largest bear in the world

Classes have started to pick-up . I've survived 3 weeks of lectures and I'm finally getting settled into my tutes (tutorials), which are very similar in class size to Bryant. I'm very prepared for participation in these tutes (10%-15% of the final grade), coming from business classes at Bryant as well. I have my first two items due Monday: I must engage in a debate on Deor in English, and a 500 word essay in sociology. I'm not too worried about the essay, as I just wrote more than 4/5th of that essay in this blog post alone, and sociology is of vast interest to me anyways (one of my minors).

Seal at the entrance to the Taronga Zoo

In other news, I finally made it to the Taronga Zoo! It was just a short ferry ride from the Central Business District. The zoo has some breathtaking views of the CBD. In one particular exhibit mountain goats climbed terrain backed by the opera house!

Look at the Opera House in the background of that goat!

Th exhibits at Taronga are impressively varied. They contain animals that are endemic to Australia, as well as ones from around the world.


Taronga is very good at breeding. The Taronga Zoo is the 2nd zoo in the world to successfully breed the Australian native platypus, and most animals have offspring within the zoo. A young gorilla jumped on its mother's back while we watched, and its mother handed it some cabbage. In another case, two elephants shaded their young from the sun.

Little one rides on its mother's back while consuming cabbage

So what was my favourite animal? By far it was the Meerkat, because I do not remember ever seeing one in a zoo before. Take a look for yourself.

Meerkat

We ended the trip to the zoo with an educational and intriguing bird show. The zoologist showed us some unique birds up close and put on a show for us with birds flying every which way. If you are ever in Sydney, DON'T miss this bird show, and Taronga Zoo in general. I liked this zoo even more so than the world famous Bronx Zoo, or the San Diego Zoo. It takes about 4-5 hours to fully see, so plan accordingly.

Bird show with the Sydney CBD skyline in the background

Oh! and here is a really cool (I think at least) video I took of a bird helping her chicks back into their exhibit: click here


Keep it level!


Jono De Costa

elephant shade

Am I the only one that thinks this fella is goofy looking?