Roving guides
The Roving Guide programme is proving hugely successful. Spurred on by talking to such knowledgeable staff, visitors – especially children – find they explore their own paths of discovery. The learning impact of this is so great, even for other visitors, that Wellington Zoo has adopted a policy of recruiting only skilled, professional staff to serve as Guides, rather than relying solely on volunteers in this role, as many zoos do. The regular training and daily interaction with their colleagues ensures that the Guides stay up to speed with animal care developments and other Zoo activities.

Wildlife encounters in the Living Room
Once again, students visiting the Living Room this past year have had the opportunity to get close to Jake, the sulphur-crested cockatoo, and Jose and Ricky, the chinchillas – among many other animals. As with the self-paced Roving Guide service, close-up wildlife encounters offer direct learning opportunities. Students exploring lifecycles and other aspects of biology learn a lot more by touching skin, feathers, scales, and fur, and seeing for themselves how the animals behave.

Plans for all-weather encounters
Further building on this concept of direct learning, we have planned and fundraised during the past year for an amphitheatre to replace the big steps in front of the Elephant House. This large enclosed building will offer visitors an extraordinary chance to see animals up-close – and offer shelter from adverse weather.

Close encounters
One of the compelling reasons for maintaining modern zoos is that when we see animals up close we very quickly appreciate the need for their conservation and protection. Our suite of Close Encounters developed by the animal training and conditioning team is now having a significant impact on visitors. In this programme, small groups of visitors are able to watch the big cats and the giraffes being trained, to hand feed the red pandas or to get up close with our two cheetahs.

Ninety-five percent of people who filled in the encounter evaluation forms rated their over all encounter experience as very satisfying and 98.6 percent rated the friendliness and knowledge of staff at the very highest level.

Visitors who witness the encounters also say they experience a sense of connection and greater empathy and understanding, just from observing the human to animal contact.