BurbleChaz

(I haven't blogged about our trip to the Mornington Peninsula yet. That's because it didn't go well. We were presented with a tiny room. The shared bathtroom facilities came as a bit of a surprise. Then it turned out that only one restaurant was open within 30kms, and we'd have to drive. When we discovered that the shared lavatory had no lock, we turned round and came home.)

Today started with the usual full gale, so we went to the zoo. Our efforts were slightly hampered by the centenary celebrations for Yarra Trams. They closed the docklands lines so they could line up their full set of historic trams on the lines they'd closed. Beyond the obvious problem here, all the 'historic' trams are still in service. For example, the 31 service is operated by W6 class trams. These were introduced in 1923, and are still going strong.

Eventually, we arrived at Royal Park Station and forked over the usual $22 each for the entrance fee. Everything here seems to cost about that, and seems a lot better value than similar things in Europe.

This is the second big zoo we've been to here - the other is Taronga Zoo in Sydney. We've also been to Healesville Sanctuary.

Taronga and Healesville are great places. Melbourne zoo is not.

Starting with the good things, the Platypusary (neat word) is good. The platypus was swimming, then surfacing, then scratching. And scratching a lot. Most of its tail fur was missing. It kept scratching. Judging by size, the one we saw was a male. No partner was in evidence. I don't think they're very sociable anyway.

The lions seemed happy. A bunch of males (not a female in sight) lounging around on a grassy mound. A pair of pumas in a 30x20m cage were doing OK. A lone leopard in a similar sized cage was not happy. Lots of repetitive pacing.

The bears look mangy and miserable.

The Australian animals all seemed content. Kangaroos, koalas, wombats all doing their chilling and snoozing thing.

The huge aviary works well. Lots of Australian species in three different habitats, all looking well and flying freely.

The gorilla environment at Melbourne zoo seems excellent. They goof around, play with each other and spend a lot of time just chilling. It's still far from nature. Staring into the eyes of a beautiful gorilla from ten metres away, I wonder what she did to be locked in a zoo. Would she be happier free? Safer? It's hard to look at a sentient being through a wire mesh.

Seeing a solitary elephant exhibiting cage stress - repetitive, pointless movement with no engagement - is upsetting.

The seals looked happy enough. Except for the one that was isolated from the others. Why?

Nowhere in the whole zoo is there any evidence that they are involved in conservation, breeding programs, research or anything worthwhile. To an outsider, it's a circus.

Melbourne zoo needs to stop keeping animals it can't care for, communicate its conservation, breeding and research better, and take better care of the animals it keeps. We saw too many mangy animals, from bears to echidna.

In addition to having a piss-poor zoo, Melbourne also shuts on a Sunday. I know, we never learn.

The Giant Tortoises seem happy enough.