A mere 10 minute ferry ride from Circular Quay in the heart of Sydney is the zoo http://www.zoo.nsw.gov.au/. I give you this short excerpt:

Thefirst public zoo in NSW officially opened in Sydney in 1884 on a siteknown as Billy Goat Swamp in Moore Park, operated by the ZoologicalSociety of NSW which was founded in March 1879.

Aftera visit to Germany in 1908 the elected Secretary of the zoo, AlbertSherbourne Le Souef, returned with a vision for a new Sydney zoo, basedon the bar-less exhibits of Hamburg Zoo. The site at Moore Park hadbecome too small and was not suited to the vision. A new site for thezoo was sought. On April 24th, 1912 the NSW Governmentgranted 43 acres of land north of the harbour which were part of AshtonPark. Another 9 acres were granted in April 1916. In1913, Management of the zoo passed to a Trust named the New ZoologicalGardens Trust which became the Taronga Zoological Park Trust. Thefirst exhibits to be built were the seal ponds, elephant temple, monkeypits, top entrance, aviaries, paths and roadways and the refreshmentrooms. In all, 228 mammals, 552 birds and 64 reptiles were moved fromMoore Park to Taronga. Many, including the elephants, crossed theharbour on board a flat top barge. Taronga Zoo was officially opened on October 7th, 1916.

This zoo has lots of animals. In fact, it feels like the zoo has too many respective of the area in which the animals are confined. According to my research, if you find animals pacing or having self-destructive behavior they are in way too small a cage. This is what it felt like. That being said, we had a great tie at the zoo primarily because we had a private tour led by a park ranger. Not only did the ranger provide a wide range of information but having her along allowed us to delve deeper into the zoo history and its issues. Certainly, the highlight of the zoo was being allowed into a display area for birds and possum to feed them. I have lots of pictures but none of this since it was night in the habitat. At one point, I had a possum on my shoulder eating a peanut and a bird on my finger eating worms out of the palm of my hand. Not bad for a city boy!!!

Here I have some decent photo's. This covers about 10pct of the zoo so you dont really get a feel for how big it is.

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