To many of the staff at Wildlife Tropical North Queensland, zoo keeping is not just a job it is a passion. A passion that extends to the rescue and rehabilitation of sick or injured wildlife.
Kristy from our reptile department is no exception. Over the past few weeks she has been caring for a baby Lace Monitor that was left for dead in a suburban backyard.
Thanks to Kristy’s perseverance, our native friend has been brought back from the brink. There is still a long way to go yet but progress has been good and Kristy says that this little lizard has a very healthy appetite!
Way to go Kristy!
Mamu the cassowary chick was rescued on the Palmerston range by wildlife rangers and was passed on to DERM (Dept. of the Environment and Resource Management) staff for rehabilitation. Unfortunately, Mamu became a little too accustomed to humans which meant his survival after being released back in to the wild was in doubt.
As a result, Mamu has been adopted by Cairns Tropical Zoo at Palm Cove. He will live here with an adult cassowary and will one day participate in the zoo industry’s captive breeding program.
A Cassowary Husbandry Workshop was arranged recently by James Biggs (Bird Department Supervisor) of Cairns Tropical Zoo and hosted by Dreamworld on the Gold Coast. The purpose of the workshop was to address some of the current issues facing the captive breeding program for the endangered Southern Cassowary and to further develop the Cassowary Husbandry Manual (last published in 1997 – Liz Romer, Ed.). The primary aim of the manual was to update and improve captive cassowary husbandry and management across the board.
Some of the issues discussed at the workshop included general husbandry, housing, handling, health, reproduction, behaviour, nutrition, artificial incubation and rearing, the use of cassowaries as a conservation tool and the status of wild and captive population genetics. A number of speculations about captive cassowary physiology and behaviour were resolved at the workshop and a few trends identified from studbook data that may assist in reinvigorating the breeding program.
Staff from Cairns Tropical Zoo made a guest appearance at the Cerebral Palsy Picnic at the Cairns Esplanade on the 30th of July. Anna and Emma took along some animals for the kids to look at and touch. The animals were a star attraction and well received by all.
Even a couple of Cairns Taipans players, Alex Loughton and Dusty Rychart helped out on the day and had fun holding animals themselves!
Cairns Tropical Zoo has many dedicated and passionate staff who love their wildlife.
Emma is no exception and has been working at the zoo for 7 years. Not only is Emma a mammal keeper but she has also assisted in raising orphaned wildlife rescue animals. This goes to prove the dedication and committment shown by many zoo staff.
Sadly, we bid Emma farewell as she moves south to Melbourne to take up a new career in the Aussie Animals area of Melbourne Zoo.
From all of us here – Good Luck Emma and all the best in your new career!
Cairns Tropical Zoo plays and integral part in life-saving research conducted by James Cook University (JCU). Each month, dedicated reptile keepers “milk” a variety of venomous species including taipans, brown snakes, black snakes and death adders.
The venom is passed on to JCU so that they can use it for a broad range of research work including blood clotting, studying the venom’s effect on the human heart and muscle cells, developing potential medicines and even learning more about the physiology of snakes!
Alex Mitchell (Featured in the photos below) is a very dedicated and passionate reptile keeper at the zoo. He maintains that there are a lot of benefits from these animals that people aren’t aware of.
During the “milking” process, each snake is encouraged to bite down on the rubber lid of a small vial while its head is massaged to yield small quantities of venom.
