Australia Zoo

Australia Zoo is a 700-acre zoo on the Sunshine Coast near Beerwah/Glass House Mountains. Owned by Terri Irwin, the widow of Steve Irwin, whose wildlife documentary series “The Crocodile Hunter” and his family's new show “Crikey! It's the Irwins” made the zoo a popular tourist attraction.

Australia Zoo was opened by Bob and Lyn Irwin in 1970 under the name Beerwah Reptile and Fauna Park. Their son Steve had helped his parents since childhood care for crocodiles and alligators plus the growing number of other reptiles and animals in the zoo. In 1982 the park doubled in size and was renamed the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park.

Born in Oregon, Terri began working for an animal rehabilitation center for injured predator mammals at the age of 22 while working for her family's trucking business. She met Steve while touring wildlife rehabilitation facilities in Australia in 1991; the two married in 1992.

Steve and Terri changed the name of their growing wildlife park to Australia Zoo. Following Steve's death in 2006 from a stingray injury while filming a documentary, Terri became the new owner of the zoo which she and her 2 children, Bindi and Robert, now operate with the vision to make Australia Zoo the biggest and best wildlife conservation facility in the world. We were fortunate to see the entire Irwin family perform the main show at the Crocoseum with the crocodiles.

Some of the more exotic critters we saw and things we learned:
• Ring-tailed lemurs, wombats, Sumatran tigers, dingoes, meerkats, giant tortoise, red panda, tall giraffes, white rhinos, rhinocerous iguanas, exotic birds, and so many more…
• “Alimah”, an albino Burmese python discovered by police in 2006 (someone’s lost or discarded pet), now has a large home here.
• Quokkas – small cat-size wallabies known as “the world’s happiest animal” because of their smiling faces and friendly personalities. Live in only a few isolated forests and islands of Australia. A group of Quokkas is a Shakka.
• Komodo Dragons are the largest lizards on the planet. They can grow up to 10’ long and weigh over 150lb.
• American alligators have been on the planet for 65 million years. Alligators have between 70-80 teeth. As they wear down or fall out, they are replaced with new ones. Living 80-100 years, an alligator can go through up to 3000 teeth in a lifetime.
• Crocodiles are found in both salt and fresh water. They have about 66 teeth which are replaced every 2-3 years and have the strongest bite in the world – 6 times stronger than a great white shark!
• Kangaroos can jump over 10’ high, can leap over 40’ in a single bound, and “run” over 40mph. Baby kangaroos, “Joeys”, are the size of a jelly bean when born, stay in their mother’s pouch for 8 mos and then hop in and out until as old as 18 months.
• Wombats are marsupials (Moms have a pouch), are found only in Australia, have teeth that never stop growing and poop in cubes.
• Koalas are not bears - they are also marsupials, eat only eucalyptus leaves (over 2lb/day), snooze in treetops 18-22 hours each day, and have 2 thumbs on each hand.

Crikey!
XOXOXOXO
Gma & Gpa