Auckland Zoo: Home of the Not Dead Yet

On a recent trip to Auckland we stopped to visit the zoo. I went to a New Zealand zoo to see native species, the world’s smallest penguins, rare tiny frogs and animals that are not yet dead. I don’t mean extinct, I mean they haven’t gone stiff on their straight little legs and quietly as some yelled “timber!” keeled over. Yet, according to Margaret, our volunteer tour guide, this happens frequently. It wasn’t so much that she said all the animals are dying, it was that at ever other exhibit she showed us, some animal had recently kicked the bucket.

Margaret started off our tour by showing us the one lone elephant left in the zoo. I didn’t want to point out to Margaret that elephants are not a native New Zealand species. And that no one on our tour was under the age of five so we’d already seen all the elephants we needed to see. But Margaret felt it important to show us Burma because she was the last living elephant in New Zealand. Until about a month ago, the zoo had housed two elephants but Kashin, the other elephant, had died an untimely early elephant death. She was 40. In dog years she was 280, but we’re not talking about dogs here so I guess she was actually 40. I stared at Burma thoughtfully and wondered if she realized she was the last one of her kind in New Zealand. Before I had time to finish that thought, Margaret asked us to follow her to the kiwi house.

I was excited to be in a very few minutes actually see—up close these small round bundles of brown feathers (like the stuffed one I’d seen in the museum only moving—hopefully). I’d been meaning to look up on Wikipedia if kiwi birds were one of those New Zealand species that were extinct (meaning that ALL of them were dead, not just the ones in the zoo). It’s hard to keep track of which New Zealand species are extinct and which ones are on the endangered species list because A. native New Zealand wildlife doesn’t live anywhere else but New Zealand and no one outside of New Zealand keeps track, B. So many other animals like the ferret, rats, and wild cats have been introduced to New Zealand we can’t remember which ones are native and which ones are not, and C. Let’s face it, with the headlines all focused on a six year-old-boy potentially zooming around Colorado in a homemade hot air balloon, who spends time thinking about native New Zealand wildlife?

We entered the habitat into what, to me, was the dark clave of blackness. It was so dark Bat Man with his superior radar detection powers could not have maneuvered. I tried to get my bearings and bumped into, not too softly, a man in front of me. I said sorry and Margaret told me to keep my voice down and walk slowly. The kiwi—like the blue penguin—spend most of their time walking around in the pitch black and laying low during daylight hours. What is it with these native New Zealand birds that hate the sun? It is difficult to develop an appreciation for New Zealand native wildlife when they keep hiding!

For the sake of zoo visitors, the birds’ days and nights have been reversed. When it is daylight, and the zoo is open to visitors, the bird habitat is dark so they are fooled into thinking it is night. They come out of their private bungalows to forage in the mulch looking for grubs. Probably the birds are just pulling a fast one on the tourists. When the lights come on and everyone, including the zoo staff, goes home, I imagine the kiwis prance around, eat popcorn and laugh at all the tourist who they’ve bamboozled into thinking they only come out only at night.

But I saw one. I think. Staring into the blackness I watched a roughed up bowling ball with a thin, long beak poke around in the mulch and lob across the enclosure. That was it. At least at this exhibit Margaret didn’t mention that any of the kiwis had died.

Then it was time to head on over to the blue penguin habitat. The penguin habitat is home to two penguins. One was an old timer here at the zoo. The other had been rescued from the sea after an unfortunate incident where his wing was ripped off. The injured penguin has been rehabilitated and was even swimming straight. Margaret was very excited about this news. I can’t figure out the advantage of swimming straight when you swim in a tiny circular pool. It seems it would even be advantageous to swim with a curve in your stroke to help you bank corners and attack your food.

I was thinking this as I peered at the penguin huts. We didn’t actually “see” the penguins because they were inside their huts, sleeping. For some reason the zoo hadn’t thought to reverse the days and nights of the penguin habitat like they had the kiwi habitat. This would’ve been helpful since we the tourists had spent nearly the same amount of money on zoo tickets we’d spent on plane fare to SEE the native New Zealand species.

As we rounded the—empty—pool, Margaret casually mentioned that it was great that the old timer penguin had a friend now. This penguin had been living alone since her five companions had died last year. From a report in the paper I learned that they had died from a “mysterious illness.”

Then it was time to head over to a facility the zoo was very proud of, a $4.6 million, national centre for conservation medicine. Wow. With a title and money like that I wondered why they couldn’t keep more of the animals alive. Before I got a chance to ask, I read a sign about the first surgery performed at the clinic.

So if you had a big, fancy medical center like this one, what is the first thing you’d do? Open heart surgery? Help someone with an injured eye, foot or fix a broken tail? Well the Auckland zoo felt that the zoo’s hippo was getting a little too big for his britches (and I can only imagine how big that would be). So they brought in the hippo. Although Margaret didn’t know exactly how the vet coaxed a vexed hippo into the surgical suite. Perhaps this could explain the mysterious death of the five penguins.

Anyway they prepped the hippo and cut off his balls. This I know to be true because his balls are on display in the medical centre foyer. These appendages are as big as bowling balls. Okay, not really. They’re as big as a Buick. Really, they’re the size of two misshapen grapefruits. And way uglier. I was just glad the hippo didn’t die. Although the hippo may felt otherwise.

Leaving the zoo we rounded another pool. Margaret pointed out the tops of the head of a mother hippo and her son. We couldn’t actually see them because they dove deep the moment we appeared. I can only imagine what advice the mother was giving her son. “Lay low, honey, lay how.”

So what we’ve learned from our zoo visit is that you may or may not see native species. It’s harder than you think to keep zoo animals alive. And if you are a hippo don’t piss off the zoo administrator.

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