HIPPO
H-Habitat lose
I-Introduced Species
P-Pollution
P-Population Growth
O-Over Exploitation
This Tuesday we went to Orana Park to learn new things about animals and have fun around Orana Park. We saw about 16 animals at Orana Park and we learned so much about them and we got to hold some stuff from the animals. This is my second experience around orana park and on my second experience, I saw a lot more animals than my first experience around orana park. The first thing that bright sunny morning was got ready to go on the bus and seated on the bus and we left. As we left we sang and talked about stuff on the bus, on our trip to orana park we came along some up and down roads and forest filled with campervans and tents, plus some shops.
As soon as we reached orana park the other bus came along behind us, the bus parked and said thank you to the bus driver and lined up on the parking lot because there were no cars, well only the owners and managers cars were there. When the other bus arrived and the other classes got off, they lined up and some zoo rangers/teachers came over to take us on a tour, we were already given badges at school and it says a number on it so we were split into groups at orana park and went to our ranger/teacher.
Elaine was our ranger teacher and she took us on a tour around the zoo, the first thing she did was that she told us the important rules about the animals and keeping things to ourselves. Example: Not feeding the animals our food and not touching or climbing the fences, after that we went in and we first ate some food because it was morning tea time. After having morning tea we left our bags by the toilet and went with Elaine to a special room. When we went inside it was dark but not too dark. It had real animals but a statue of them, she showed us what animals they were and she also showed us the bird of the year which is a kea. We learned other things in that special room then we left, we followed Elaine to a big cage filled with keas and another type of birds.
Kea
Elaine told some things about the keas, they are sneaky, loud and playful and plus they are naughty. I liked the keas because underneath these wings are colourful and that's one thing I like about them. We went on a bridge that was in the cage and we saw rivers and a pond underneath the bridge. We saw lots of keas and one of them flew from behind us and tried to grab something from someone, they are very very sneaky and naughty. We came to the end so we left the cage and went outside to go to our next destination.
We walked on a long path and as we were walking we saw a playground but it wasn’t a playground for us, it was a playground for the spider monkeys. Spider monkeys lived on an island, it lives on an island because it has a barrier around it filled with water because spider monkeys hate water, they do drink water but they do not like to swim. Which also means that the spider monkeys won’t escape from their barrier and wander around the zoo, spider monkeys are cool and funny because they do weird, funny things with their tails like swinging on a rope with their tails wrapped around it and swing upside down.
We left the spider monkeys alone and went off to see the lions. The lions were sleeping on the far end and we could not get there because there was a fence and we were not allowed to enter or climb over it. But from the distance, I saw seven lions, some males and some females sleeping together in a group almost in the far back corner of the cage. Like I said some were males the males we saw did not have manes but Elaine said they will be growing soon. I like lions because they sleep hunt and protect together as a group.
Tasmanian devils
We left the lions and moved on to see the Tasmanian devils when I read that name on the board saying, Tasmanian devils, I did not know what it looks like but on the board, it showed a picture of it and it kind of looks like a rat but bigger. We only saw 2 of them, one hiding at the back of the cage and one behind a tree or I guess they were just sleeping. I did not get a good look at them because they were way too far away, but that was okay for me because I did get a close-up picture of them.
Tigers
We started our trail again towards the tigers, we saw one in each cage, they were about three or two cages but I only saw two tigers. One was in one cage and other in the other cage because they may fight or breed because the zoo rangers don’t want to breed more animals but they make some animals breed. The Tigers went towards each other and walked backwards and forwards by the fence like they were communicating or something, my friend caught one tiger well peeing in the corner of the fence on the far side. But Elaine said one thing about tigers peeing around places. Elaine said that they pee in places so that when other tigers come by and smell the other tiger's pee it means it is their territory and they can not take over their place. I found that interesting and I never knew about that. Did you ever know about this?
Zebras
We set off and found three or four zebras at the back of the fence eating grass and hay, Elaine told us a question to answer and it was… Are zebras black and white or white and black, the answer was black and white because the baby zebras are all black and as they grow, the white stripes come along. When they are adults they black and white plus zebras have their own unique patterns around their body of stripes.
Buffalo
Next to the zebras were the buffaloes, Elaine told us that there were only a Dad and his two daughters. They were so cute and new because before we came to Orana Park there were more buffaloes and no babies. I loved them plus those two baby buffaloes were pale yellow by the look of it and the mum or dad was dark brown. The baby buffaloes were super cute when they slept together.
Cheetah
After looking at the buffaloes we walked for about 1 minute down the path and found cages down on the dark shades path on the left, we walked down the dark shaded path and saw a big cat which was the three cheetahs sleeping in their cages. We went close to one but not too close because there was a sign saying that do not get too close or you will get bitten. It’s stripes were so colourful and neat and one looked at us like it’s telling us to go away because we might be disturbing it so we left it alone and carried on.
Gorillas
We took a shortcut to go and see the big great muscle ape which is the big black gorillas. The gorillas were big and there were only three in the cage, one of them was the boss in there and he decides what to do with them or what to order the other gorillas to do, it was scary because the boss gorilla gave us a mean look which was pretty scary and I did not like it one bit so we moved on to see the orange hairy apes.
Next to the gorilla's cage was an orangutans cage and they were only three of them spread around. One was on the top of the playground, forgot to say that the gorillas have a playgroudn and so does the orangutans but in separate places so they did have fun but the gorilla's, not so much. One orangutan came across wearing a sack on his/her head like a hat to protect from themselves. As we were looking at them we saw Emu’s on the other side but we did not go over there because we had not much time. So we moved on to see the Rhinos.
We passed the giraffes but left our bags by the door where the zoo rangers store food for the giraffes but the giraffes couldn’t reach so it was okay. We started to walk towards the rhinos and saw five or six rhinos and Elaine took out a tooth and a horn from her bag, it was a rhino’s tooth and horns so we each got to hold it and the horn was pretty heavy so we moved on to the giraffes, we only fed them and we finished our journey.
We had so much fun and learned a lot from them so thanks to Elaine the zoo ranger for teaching us and we appreciate it. Hope you liked my journey at Orana Park.
