It’s hard to believe that in 1984 Adelaide Zoo’s very first female zoo keeper was employed.

I started working at Adelaide Zoo way back in December 1991 as a casual zoo keeper and by this time it appeared that women were well and truly ensconced into the zoo culture and work ethic.

Even when you know it’s the right thing to do, euthanasing an animal because of a debilitating incurable disease is always done with heavy heart – especially when that animal had been around for as long, and had touched as many zoo staff and visitors, as Dewi, one of our Malayan sun bears.

When the time came, keepers from around the zoo came to see Dewi for one last time, and her primary keeper came in on her day off to say goodbye.

Saw a White-bellied Sea Eagle this morning, brought in by the Australian Marine Wildlife Research and Rescue Organization (AMWRRO). A beautiful bird with impressive powerful talons that we made sure we avoided!

Back in September, we were approached by the Department of Environment and Heritage to help with investigating a skin disease in bats at the caves in Naracoorte. The Southern Bentwing Bat is listed as critically endangered so an apparently emerging disease in this population is concerning for the future of the species.

Hello from MZ vet dept.

We have a very exciting week ahead. Our vet, Ian Smith, and some other staff are off to the APY lands to catch up the endangered Black Flanked Rock Wallabies (also known as Warru) for the zoos cross-foster program.

What happens is they set up night traps with food to encourage the warru to go in to them. When an animal is trapped, they put it in a bag (which feels pouch like and less scary to the wallaby) and then the vet gives it a general anaesthetic in order to give the animal a full health check over.

Dare I say it, it's been a quiet week so far for us in the Animal Health Centre. Which is good as we are a couple of vets down. Wayne is on leave and Lynley is unfortunately off sick.

Ian is holding fort at Monarto. There are two baboons in pre-export quarantine up there due to be shipped to Auckland Zoo this week, and will require a visual veterinary check prior to shipment. Last week he had to euthanase one of our elderly male cheetah who had been managed for chronic kidney disease for some time – never a pleasant task, but in the interests of quite a sick cheetah.

My attentions are again focussed outside the zoo. Today is my last day at work before I head up to the APY Lands with Ian and two keepers, Gayle and Heidi, to join a team from DEH and Adelaide Uni to look at black-flanked rock wallabies (or 'warru'), a threatened species in South Australia.

In addition to conducting health checks, we are taking lots of samples for ongoing research projects, and appropriately sized pouch young will be taken from the pouch, flown back down and fostered onto rock wallabies at Adelaide and Monarto Zoos. The mother will give birth to another joey soon afterwards, allowing many more joeys to be raised each year than would otherwise be the case. This technique has also been used for the Victorian brush-tailed rock wallaby, as seen recently on the channel 7 program 'The Zoo'. So, I am busy getting all our equipment ready to go, so we can hit the road early on Sunday morning.

Hi everybody my name is Paula Modra and I am one of the Veterinary Nurses at Zoos SA, mainly working at Adelaide Zoo, but occasionally at Monarto. I have been with Zoos SA for over 7 years, and as Dianne said last week, I also love my job to bits and pieces!

Hi Again,

I am in early today as I have a Supervisor's course to go to all day and we need to start preparing for the lion anaesthetic tomorrow. We do most of the setting up the day before and liaise with the Carnivore team to make sure everything is set to go first thing tomorrow morning. We plan to dart him at 0830 hours and have him up at the Health Centre by 0930 for tests.