Zoos SA
Zoos SA is a non-government conservation charity, every visit, adoption, donation and ticket helps to save species from extinction.

Frequently Asked Questions

Visit the animal information pages on our Adelaide Zoo and Monarto Safari Park websites.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, try the Atlas of Living Australia at www.ala.org.au or the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) website at www.icun.org

Unfortunately our keepers are very busy caring for our animals and won’t have enough time to respond to individual enquiries about our animals. Good luck researching!

Keepers have a very physical and time consuming  job, but also the special opportunity to get up close and form relationships with their animals!

A day in the life of a Keeper generally begins with feeding the animals. Keepers sometimes help prepare the food, but depending on the animal this may also be done by the assets team (for example, making bamboo cake for the Giant Pandas).

Keepers often hide food in different places around the enclosure before the animals are let out from their night quarters, so they have to hunt for their food like they would in the wild. This is called behavioural enrichment and keeps the animals mentally stimulated.

Most of our animals go through a few hours of behavioural training with their Keepers every day. This involves things like training them to present their forearms for needles (so they know what to do when they have blood taken for their health checks), as well as more in-depth and ongoing training like how to behave and respond to certain actions from their Keepers. This builds trust between the Keepers and their animals.

Other tasks that keepers are required to carry out during each day include cleaning the enclosure and night quarters, record keeping (on things like the animal’s weight and feeding patterns to keep track of their health, as well as any unusual behaviours), and delivering talks and presentations to the public about their animals. Keepers also spend significant time on research and training for their animals.

Want to land your dream job as a Zoo Keeper?

Hear from our very own keepers about how they came to work at Zoos SA and what it takes here.

There are many reasons why animals become endangered or face the risk of extinction.

Some of the major factors are briefly listed here:

  • Habitat clearance/destruction
  • Poaching/hunting
  • Natural predation and competition (being preyed on by other species or having to compete with them for limited food resources)
  • Introduction of exotic species which also compete for food
  • Disease (such as the Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour Disease)
  • Other natural causes

Some of the major areas where habitat clearance is an issue are summarised here:

  • Rainforest ecosystems in South East Asia (home to Sumatran Orang-utans, Tigers and Malayan Sun Bears to name a few)
  • Rainforests in Africa, which are home to Western chimpanzees among other important species
  • Open rangelands and grasslands in Africa (home to rhinos, elephants, hyenas, birds and gazelle)
  • Mountains and forests in China, which are valuable Giant Panda habitat
  • Marine and rainforest ecosystems in the South Pacific, which is home to a vast array of aquatic and terrestrial species

You can learn more about our conservation work by visiting the conservation section of our website.

Learn more

About Zoos SA

Zoos SA is a not-for-profit conservation charity that exists to connect people with nature and save species from extinction. Zoos SA acknowledges the Country on which we stand always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land and we pay our deepest respect and gratitude to Kaurna (Adelaide Zoo) and Ngarrindjeri (Monarto Safari Park) Elders, past, present and emerging. We undertake critical conservation work throughout Australia and acknowledge the traditional custodians of these lands.

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