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Wellington Zoo was founded in 1906, which makes it the oldest zoo in New Zealand. The following review of Wellington Zoo was kindly provided by Nigel Foster "Wellington Zoo is the oldest one in NZ, and until a few years ago, it was a disgrace to zoos. However in the last few years therehas been an honest attempt to bring it up to an acceptable standard. It is on a very hilly site on the slopes of Mt Albert. As soon as one enters the zoo there is the otter exhibit with monkey island immediately behind it. The monley island was the site of the old mini railway. Now it has been transformed into a more natural exhibit with lush vegetation and no cages. The rear of the zoo has slowly but surely been transformed into an African area, with generous areas for the zebras and giraffes, with areas for the tigers, cheetahs and baboons reaching up the steeper slopes. The zoo seems to be very successful at breeding chimpanzees, there seems to be dozens of them, also a fairly |
large enclosure. Although the lins are now in a better enclosure than they were many years
ago, I personally feel that the current enclosure is still too small for them. There are plans to rehouse the red pandas into a more modern enclosure, as soon as the zoo can raise the finance to do it. Apparently there is a long term goal to have the rear of the zoo exclusively for African exhibits, and a brand new nocturnal house near the entrance. There is still sizable chunks of the zoo with old, empty cages and other enclosures, and the gardens are not to the same standard as Auckland zoo.But given time, I feel that the current staff are working to transform it into a world class zoological gardens. They certainly have succeeded in their efforts to date. I wish them all the best in the future. There is small cafe which sells hotdogs, drinks etc and a zoo shop in the entrance/admin building." |
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