Denver Zoo’s new Down Under habitat is set to open Friday, May 24, with a dozen-plus Australian and New Zealand animals taking over the former Bird World exhibit.
Billed as the zoo’s first immersive area, the $7.8 million project invites visitors to walk through the same area where wallabies and red kangaroos live — with no fences or ropes to separate them — but not interact with them. It’s an experiment, zoo officials say, and one continuing their trend toward larger, more naturalistic enclosures with fewer animals.
The new habitat sits on 3 acres, and its price tag and complexity make it the zoo’s biggest project since 2012’s Toyota Elephant Passage. Like that enclosure, it’s included with general admission.
During a member preview earlier this week the animals seemed utterly relaxed, despite the adults and children strolling the Wallaby Way path, as it’s called.
Red-necked wallabies relax in the Down Under habitat at the Denver Zoo, Colorado on May 21, 2024. The Denver Zoo’s newly renovated area, home to animals found in Australia and New Zealand, will officially open to the public Friday, May 24. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
“Natural behavior for wallabies and kangaroos when it’s nice and warm is going to be laying in the sun sleeping, so they’re doing what they would do,” said Matthew Lenyo, assistant curator of predators. “Just like lions, they sleep 20 hours a day. But they’d also be happy if it was 40 and sunny.”
Marshmallow, a 5-year-old, albino wallaby, seems destined to be a star. She came to the City Park institution from SeaQuest in Jefferson County. The Zoo rescued more than 100 animals from that interactive aquarium earlier this year, following injuries and animal welfare complaints.
On Tuesday Marshmallow lazed on wood chips in her enclosure, occasionally moving to get a better look at the people only a few feet away. Meanwhile, employees shared helpful tips on keeping the animals, and visitors, safe.
Denver Zoo got rid of its roaming peacocks in 2020 after years of incidents and injuries prompted by visitors chasing or plucking their feathers. Keeping toddlers — and the type of geniuses who try to pet the bison in Yellowstone National Park — away from the animals is a constant concern. Before visitors can enter Wallaby Way, they’re put in their own holding area where a zoo employee gives tips and instructions and asks them to leave food outside. Inside, more employees answer questions while carefully watching the animals.
“We tell (visitors): no food, keep your drinks covered, stay on the path, and no running or yelling,” said Michelle Mendez, a conservation educator on Wallaby Way. “This is their home, so if they approach you, don’t touch them. You wouldn’t want that if they came into your home unannounced.”
While some animals have been moved to Down Under from different parts of the zoo, Marshmallow and a few others come from broken homes. The gang is cobbled together from various reputable zoos, but also a troubled one in Puerto Rico that needed resettle about 500 animals after it shut down in 2023.
Marshmallow has a few issues. She’s on birth control, given that her genetics are murky and zoo keepers don’t want her to pass on traits that make future babies vulnerable. She’s not a western girl by nature, likely hailing from a wallaby farm in Ohio or Arkansas, Lenyo said. She requires sunscreen on her ears and tail.
Jessica Poort, right, with her kids Rhys, 1, in stroller, and Miriam, 4, check out the new Down Under exhibit at the Denver Zoo, Colorado on May 21, 2024. The zoo has described the habitat as “immersive,” but not “interactive.” (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
The other wallabies, and red kangaroos and tree kangaroos, vary enough in appearance that they’re not hard to pick out, even after a short visit. A pair of red kangaroo ladies, Eris and Medea, are near the end of their lifespan at 18 years old. Medea has “Eugene Levy eyebrows,” Lenyo said as he passed by her Tuesday. Jerry, Marshmallow’s fellow SeaQuest refugee, eschews his peers by lazing against the back fence of their 27,000-square-foot digs — not far from the indoor holding area where they can sleep at night (but are not required to).
Near that building, which was pre-fabricated and assembled on site, sits a butter-yellow wheelbarrow overflowing with browse, or the leafy branches wallabies much on. Inside the holding area, they’ve got baskets full of daily, rotating activities such as puzzles and toys, hay bags, and “scent enrichment,” where keepers introduce various natural scents the animals would likely encounter in the wild. (Marshmallow’s sunscreen gets its own basket.)
Also in the outdoor habitat, but in a different enclosure: male and female southern cassowaries, the flightless birds whose heads, legs and feet look like a turkey-dinosaur mashup. Neville, who likes to eat grapes, and Salem, who lights up when she sees her care specialists, are separated for their own safety. Unlike their smaller Australian and New Zealand mates, they’re behind high fencing and not suitable for a dog park-style experience.
Two southern cassowaries with their colorful head and prominent horns can be seen at the new Down Under exhibit at the Denver Zoo, Colorado on May 21, 2024. The crest on the top of a cassowary’s head is called a casque, which is a hollow, horn-like structure made of keratin. The Cassowaries belong to one of the more ancient lineages of living birds and look prehistoric. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
It’s good practice. The zoo must balance its wild-animal education with its marketing, which treats some animals as social media celebrities and can’t help but anthropomorphize them. That’s tricky when zoo leaders are trying to underline conservation efforts in wild habitats, but also drum up donors and memberships. They’re cute, sure, but in some cases their native environments are threatened by poachers and deforestation for coffee farming. For Tristan and Pearl, the endangered Huon tree kangaroos, cuteness and concern are intertwined.
“It was time for the next thing in the zoo’s evolution,” said spokesman Jake Kubié, as he rinsed his shoes in a foot bath on the way into the holding area to prevent cross-contamination. “We could house 20 to 25 wallabies in here, but only have 15 (residents) right now. We didn’t want to overwhelm them just as they’re acclimating.”
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It remains to be seen if that goes for visitors, too, in this unique and experimental enclosure. New residents such as Eneida, a kangaroo rescue from the Puerto Rico zoo, is “a spicy lady,” as Lenyo called her. Like Marshmallow she’s curious about people, but she also has apparent neurological issues. Fortunately, her involuntary head-shaking quieted down significantly after she arrived in Denver.
“This isn’t as pretty as the outdoor enclosures,” Kubié said of the holding area. “But the design and thoughtfulness of it is just as important when you’re trying to give a different perspective on wild animals, which is what Down Under is all about.”