Taronga Zoo

Interesting facts

From 1999 to 2014 Taronga cared for three leopard seals rescued sick or injured from New South Wales beaches, at the time the only ones held by any zoo.

In July 2009 the Asian elephant Thong Dee gave birth at Taronga to Luk Chai, the first elephant calf ever born in Australia.

A second calf, feared dead in the birth canal after a labour lasting days, was born alive in March 2010 and named Pathi Harn, Thai for "miracle".

Sydney's first public zoo opened in 1884 at Billy Goat Swamp in Moore Park, on ground now occupied by Sydney Boys and Sydney Girls High Schools.

A critical review in 1967 swept away elephant rides, a miniature train and a monkey circus, turning the zoo towards conservation, science and education.

Taronga has bred and released more than 200 critically endangered regent honeyeaters, and its staff and volunteers have planted over 30,000 trees in the Capertee Valley.

By 2019, 21 Sumatran tiger cubs had been born at Taronga since 1980, for a subspecies with fewer than about 350 animals left in the wild.

The Nura Diya nocturnal house was home to J.R., a Barton's long-beaked echidna over 55 years old and the only one of his species living outside New Guinea.

In 2014 a bilby was renamed "Bilby George" after eight-month-old Prince George unveiled its exhibit during what was billed as his first official engagement.

The zoo's science and learning institute, nicknamed The Hive for its honeycomb architecture, houses a CryoDiversity Bank that freezes genetic material from endangered species.

Why it is worth it

Taronga Zoo occupies one of the most enviable pieces of land in Sydney: a steep, wooded slope on the northern shore of the harbour at Mosman, looking straight across the water to the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the towers of the city. The name is said to come from an Aboriginal word meaning "beautiful view", and the setting delivers it.

The zoo moved here from a cramped site in Moore Park. Its secretary, Albert Le Souef, visited the Hamburg Zoo in 1908 and came home convinced that animals should be shown without bars, in open, landscaped enclosures. The New South Wales government granted land on the harbour, and the new zoo opened on 7 October 1916. Some of its earliest landscape features survive, like the Rustic Bridge of 1915, a stone-studded crossing over a gully, planted to look like a romantic Italian grotto path.

Today about 350 species and more than 5,000 animals live on 28 hectares, arranged by region. The Australian precinct, Nura Diya, opened in 2023 with a new nocturnal house where bilbies, echidnas and ghost bats are active in reversed daylight, and raised walkways among the koalas. Tiger Trek recreates a journey to Sumatra; a marine section, Great Southern Oceans, opened in 2008. The zoo was only the second in Australia to breed the platypus, in 2003, and its conservation programme concentrates on species such as the koala, the regent honeyeater, the southern corroboree frog and the Sumatran tiger.

Arriving is part of the experience: the ferry across the harbour doubles as a short harbour cruise.

Getting there

Taronga is in Mosman on Sydney's Lower North Shore, about 13 km from Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD). The classic approach is by ferry from Circular Quay, Wharf 4: the crossing takes about 12 minutes, and the lower zoo entrance is a few minutes' walk from Taronga Zoo wharf.

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia

Taronga Zoo Sydney is a government-run public zoo located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, in the Lower North Shore suburb of Mosman, on the shores of Sydney Harbour. It offers great views of Sydney Harbour and the city. The opening hours are between 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and 9:30 am to 5:00 pm. Taronga is an Aboriginal word meaning "beautiful view".

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia