Recently, the San Diego Zoo announced the opening of its Conrad Prebys Australian Outback, new home to the zoos koalas, wallabies, wombats, and Australian birds. San Diego has a long history of involvement with Australian wildlife: for a fair number of years, it was once the only zoo in the United States to exhibit koalas, and still can boast of the largest breeding colony outside of Australia. Visiting San Diego as a kid brought me my first encounters with not only koalas, but wombats, Tasmanian devils, and other Australian species (to say nothing of my first okapi, first bonobo, first takin, and a few thousand other "firsts").
The difficulty in acquiring Australian species - especially mammals - has resulted in many zoos glancing over the continent in their master plans. The zoos that do feature Australia tend to do so with a single yard or 'roos and emus, maybe a few birds in side enclosures. For the institutions that are lucky enough, however, to display wildlife from Down Under, there is a unique opportunity to introduce visitors to a world of wildlife that few people have ever even imagined.
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