2 Aussie Renegades: Taronga Zoo Sydney

Taronga Zoo in Sydney sits perched on a hill with glorious views of the harbour, if you're into that sort of thing. You have two main options to get there, drive and park there ($17 for the day) or catch the ferry from Sydney over to Mosman ($12 for an adult return ticket). There is a ferry stop right at the zoo and from there you can catch a gondola to the top of the hill, where the main entrance is. We recently spent half a day meandering our way down past the numerous exhibits on a sunny Saturday. I would recommend no more than half a day, as adults, unless you're super keen on staring animals down. If you're searching for a map like we were, they are given out at the information booth at the top before you enter the actual zoo.

The frustrating mapo

Once you get your map, you will discover it is frustratingly confusing, and there is no easy way to walk past most of the exhibits without doubling back multiple times. Luckily I did not have high hopes, or I would have already been annoyed that we had to spend 10 minuted figuring out how to see the animals we wanted to, while minimising the walking distance. I also found it stupid that the had marked out very short walking trails on the map, rather than marking a suggested route to take to see the whole zoo.

My tail! (let's ignore that it's standing on concrete)

So we set off to see plenty of native and non-native animals. I won't bore you with the details. I will say that most of the animals seemed content and like their basic needs were met. I didn't hang around too long at the elephant and giraffe enclosures because their behaviour made me uncomfortable. When I was in Thailand a few years back I went to Phuket Zoo, and there were some elephants there too (obviously). While the elephants were not entertaining people in shows they were in an enclosure just swaying back and forth (think shifting your weight from your right to your left foot and back) and this is what they were doing at Taronga too. This is called stereotypic behaviour and is an abnormal behaviour that only captive elephants do. They usually do it because they are not being stimulated enough. Now I don't know the background of Taronga's elephants; if they came from another zoo that did not stimulate them enough then that would be where this behaviour started and it's very hard to stop them. However, I really did not like that they have a bull elephant in an enclosure by himself. As for the giraffe enclosure; one of them was displaying sterotypic behaviour too, despite only just being provided with food. I'm not one of those people that's opposed to zoos; in fact I've always loved visiting zoos. I just wondering if it is right to keep animals in enclosures that are too small for them to be able to run any distance in, when they are migratory animals.