ZooNooz Article - march 2005

Stocking the pantry

Barbequed chickens for the Snow Leopards. Japanese mustard spinach for the Francois Leaf Monkeys. Blood iceblocks for the big cats and frozen chick cocktails for the Maned Wolves. Food Preparation Supervisors at both zoos receive some very unusual requests from zookeepers eager to please their animal charges, reports DARILL CLEMENTS.

Photographs Jo Nevin and Leonie Saville

Every day, Chris Riley, head of Taronga Zoo's Food Preparation Unit, orders, sorts, freezes, stores' and delivers the meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, grains, hay and a myriad other food items for Taronga's 2500 hungry animal mouths. A butcher by trade and a qualified meat inspector, Chris joined Taronga Zoo 10 years ago. He had discovered an interest in animals after enjoying a threemonth overland African safari, but he never thought he could combine his butchery skills and a career in animal conservation until he landed the job at Taronga.

At the recent staff Silver Shovel Awards ceremony Chris received the coveted John Kelly Quiet Achiever Award. This award, named after the late former Zoo Director, is voted for by peers and recognises Chris's quiet excellence in the everyday performance of his vital role in providing outstanding customer service to the keepers and their animals.

The Food Preparation Unit, with its shining stainless steel counters, spotless butchery and neatly stacked freezers, comes to life every day at 5.30am when John Epworth, a Taronga driver/labourer of 27 years service, begins his delivery rounds to the animal departments.

Hungry Giraffe

Chris's logistics role begins at 7.30am when he checks the animal diets devised together with the keepers and signed off by the senior veterinarian. He keeps a close eye on the varying daily requests and weights - today, the Asian Division wants more rabbits and there is a special request for figs, cottage cheese and yoghurt for the Sun Bears. The veterinarian wants Chinese cabbage, kidney beans and dried sardines for the fussy new monkeys from Japan. Because grapes are out of season, Chris will have to substitute sweet nectarines or plums in the African Division's order. Details of each division's weekly food supplies are forwarded to Taronga's purchasing department so a close check can be kept on spending and each division is kept informed of its current tally in relation to its annual budget.

Much of Taronga's annual animal food bill of $1 million is spent on fruit and vegetables. This includes 18 tonnes of lettuce, 28 tonnes of carrots, 9.5 tonnes of sweet potato, 28,000 eggs, 2 tonnes of broccoli, 6.6 tonnes of bananas, 1500 coconuts and 230 punnets of strawberries. These are purchased from the Flemington Markets via a yearly contract with a wholesaler. The mammoth annual fish order, including 39 tonnes of six different fish varieties, is sourced via fish brokers and suppliers around Australia, depending on the season. The horsemeat, beef, kangaroo and chickens for the carnivores are sourced through pet food suppliers.

The fruit, vegetables and fish arrive twice a week and the meat, weekly. Then there are the grocery items such as dried fruits, honey, Vegemite, jams, cordials, birdseed, formulas and supplements, cubes, grains and stock feed. Chris must ensure he has mealworms and crickets (about $1,000 worth a week), yabbies and sheeps heads always in stock. Taronga supplements these by growing flies and fly pupae, rats, mice and crickets in the Live Breeding Unit and also supplies these to Taronga Western Plains Zoo.

Meanwhile back on the Plains

While Chris was dealing with yet another strange request, this time from Taronga's marine mammal researcher, Dr Tracey Rogers, asking if he could fit a whale's head in his freezer, Andrew Reilly at Taronga Western Plains Zoo was contributing to locust plague reduction efforts in the central west by wielding a butterfly net and catching two kilos of these insects to send to Taronga's small primates.

Andrew's day commences at 6.30am when he and his assistant, Robert Clifford, prepare the meals for the zoo's 1000 animals and then deliver them to the outlying animal departments.

Andrew has been working at Taronga Western Plains Zoo for 12 years (and for five years at Taronga before that) so what he doesn't know about fulfilling the dietary requirements of large, herd animals would fit on the prong of a pitch fork! The annual budget of $400,000 is primarily spent on 450 tonnes of seven different varieties of hay, chaff, grains and stockfeed pellets for the grazing animals. Much of this Andrew sources from the Dubbo district but during times of drought he must go further afield to Victoria and South Australia to guarantee the huge quantities necessary for the Taronga Western Plains Zoo animals.

Between December and April, Andrew buys in his main hay stocks to ensure sufficient supplies for the nongrowing time. For winter, he stocks up on 40 tonnes of oats to provide additional nutritional value during the colder months. His largest animal customers, by far, are the African Elephants and each day, apart from 140kg of hay, he must also provide them with 10kg of apples and 20kg of carrots. Seafood for the Oriental Small-clawed Otters is delivered to Andrew's freezers six times each year, rabbits are regularly harvested from the zoo grounds, and supplements, formulas and grocery items are ordered from local suppliers.

Andrew is particularly proud of the close relationship that Taronga Western Plains Zoo has built up with the Dubbo community and several local businesses are now 'sponsors in kind' for items as diverse as bread, bones, bran and buckets. He is, however, still looking for someone to supply the blood iceblocks!

Want to read more?

By joining as a Zoo Friends member we send you a full colour, glossy magazine each quarter as part of your membership package. Join now.


« Back to ZooNooz article listing