Another amazing day at Monato Zoo this is one of the best zoo’s I’ve been to in ages . It’s a non profit making wildlife park working on conservation of endangered animals, the place is huge laid out like the Aftrican Plain and it works. There’s air conditions buses that drive you through the different areas and drop you off at the right time for the keepers talks on all the animals and we needed them with temperatures of 36 degrees the hottest day so far. From the first bus we saw Mongolian Horses, Mesopotamian Fallow Deer, a Bongo, Red Deer, Black Buck and a wild kangaroo who just stays wondering round the parkland hiding in the shade. While we waited for the bus to take us to the Giraffe area we stopped to see the Tasmanian Devil but the bus came so we will be back later for the talk.

The Giraffe zone was fantastic the keepers do feed them snacks at the talks but they just have to call them and they come right up close to the walkway so close in fact that you could almost touch them. Wonderful for photos, what an experience. One of the Giraffe’s that had been born in the park was born they think with the mother laying down and it has damaged the vertebra in it’s neck so it’s head appears twisted . It may well have problems when it get’s older but for now they are just monitoring it.
Could this place get any better we thought as we headed off to the carnivore section.

By now it was the hottest part of the day so hence all the Lions, Cheetah’s, Zebra’s and African Wild Dogs were all laying in the shade just like in Africa. In fact the whole park definitely has an African feel, its so well done and I’d recommend it to everyone, much better than the zoo in Adelaide all the animals have so much land. In fact they pointed out that just the carnivore zone was bigger than the whole of Adelaide Zoo. All these animals are endangered or in the case of the cheetah vunerable.

If a cheetah gives birth to just one cub the mother will not produce enough milk to keep it alive so her at Monato they have one cheetah Tilly that had to be hand raised so is very friendly, in fact for an extra amount you can actually go in and stroke her and feed her but we didn’t
do that .

Next was the African Painted Dog and it was our lucky day as it was their turn for the special treat of small pieces of liver and meet inside old Pizza boxes which they have to open to obviously get to it. Again you stand on high walkways and the children are able to throw the boxes over into the pen which they loved. Just as with the Giraffe’s the keeper just called out ‘Puppy’s come’ and they left their shady spot under the tree and bounded across the plain. When it took longer than they liked getting started 4 of them headed back off to the waterhole for a swim but were soon back in time for the feeding. These are the most endangered of all the animals especially as they only ever have 2 pups at a time. Currently they have 6 dogs here but in order to preserved the bloodline they are moved between other zoos working on
the conservation project and a lot of the money raised from sells of things in the shop for instance goes straight back to Africa to train more rangers in the hopes of stopping the poaching which is only getting worse . But there is hope as these dogs live and hunt in packs of 20 to 30 in the wild and can have litters of up to 14 and when born they are in fact black and white, but their coats soon change to the varying colours of brown.

Here there are also 8 lions currently on show but in all there are 16 at the park, but at present some of the males are not getting on with the females so they are separating them, one day the males get to be out on the savanna and the following day the females. When they are not out they are kept in their night quarters which is still a massive area. It is now estimated that within 10 to 15 years there will be no lions left in the WILD. What a thought.

After stopping for a picnic lunch we walked to the Chimps and were lucky to get there just as the talk started and we saw them chasing the fruit that the keeper was throwing in. There was one with a very cute baby who we all thought was so gorgeous.

We then decided it was too hot to walk around much more so headed off towards home stopping in Harndorf to sample (and buy) some cheese and to have a coffee or in the case of Nick, Dan and I a delicious ice cream. Then it was back to Blackwood for a PG special Cowboy Pie.

Liam went back into the city early to spend The Chinese New Year with some Uni mates so not sure he will be back in time for any pie.