Taronga Zoo - the return!

Even though I had a sore knee I still had to go to Sydney Zoo which is on the other side of the harbour. in 2000 I came to Austrlia on a whirlwind tour for 4 weeks. One of the things I did while in Sydney was go to the zoo. I thought it was quite a good set up until I arrived at the elephant enclosure. It was there that I witnessed one of the elephants pacing back and forward. It was obviously stir crazy. I stayed watching it for nearly 20 minutes - it was a very harrowing thing to watch.

So, not because I wanted to but because I had to I caught the ferry back to Taronga zoo. I got the cable car up to the top of the zoo and started making my way down to the bottom looking at all the different enclosures on the way. Some of the animals had really large settings - especially the apes. But some of the enclosures were still just glorified cages. The elephant enclosure still looked too small but at least the elephants looked sane. I read about all the things they did to try to keep them amused - games and baths and hiding their food so that they had to search for it.

I was going to give the zoo a tentive thumbs up for being on the whole good - until I got to the tiger enclosure.

There I seen their single tiger pacing up and down in front of its encloure. I took a video but its too long to place on the blog - it would take a day to download!

While there are animals in this state in zoos I will never be a fan of them. With all the tv programs there are today and the information you can get at the click of a finger through the internet I no longer see the need for zoos that have animals purely to amuse the public.

caged desert fox