The National Zoo and Aquarium has reopened its gates to the public today (29 October) with a special new addition – a koala joey.
National Zoo and Aquarian and Jamala Wildlife Lodge’s senior wildlife keeper, Brendan Sheean, said six-year-old mum Matilda has been proud to show off her little one.
“We have a beautiful, lovely girl and she’s about eight months old. We haven’t actually named her yet because here at the National Zoo we have lots of animals to name, so sometimes zookeepers can struggle to find names for our animals and we are after the public to help us out,” Mr Sheean said.
“If you come and visit us during the week, you guys will get the opportunity to let us know what you would like our newest joey to be called and, at the end, we’re going to pick the name that suits its personality the best.”
The koala joey’s arrival is a welcomed relief for the National Zoo, as koalas aren’t easy to breed and there are predictions the native animals could become extinct within the next couple of decades.
“Koalas are facing extinction. The three major threats to their numbers in the wild is disease, habitat loss due to Australia’s large population on the East Coast, but the biggest one is climate change from the high risk in extreme fires, droughts, severe weather and dehydration, so there’s a lot of big problems facing their future,” Mr Sheean said.
“We wouldn’t release these koalas into the wild because of theses threats, so we want to make sure those are gone before we do. There’s no point releasing something if it’s just going to disappear.”
The National Zoo has been closed for the past three months due to lockdown, and the zookeepers said the animals have missed all their visitors.
“Being in lockdown for three months has been an interesting time for our animals. Of course, they really have missed people, especially our primates as they do like the human interaction,” Mr Sheean said.
“We did make sure the keepers spent a lot more time with our animals, just so that they didn’t get lonely, so right now I’m sure they’re all really excited to see the public. Especially the meerkats, they absolutely love people and seeing what people do.”
Wildlife manager Shelley Russell agreed and said many of the species and individual animals look forward to seeing visitors every day.
“The interaction between visitors and animals is an important part of their lives. They love the contact with their keepers, but the variety of different people and ages that visitors offer is very relevant,” Ms Russell said.
“The monkeys, big cats such as lions, tigers and cheetahs, bear, meerkats, deer and even giraffes are intrigued with watching their visitors. Favourites like tigers Mya and Melati and giraffe Skye are looking forward to seeing their visitors again!”
The National Zoo said they’re ecstatic to be open again because it’s important for the community to connect with nature, especially the local, little species that you find in Canberra and around Australia, in the hopes people will want to protect them in the wild.
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