# Wild Life Sydney

Wild Life Sydney Zoo (formerly Sydney Wildlife World) is a wildlife park in the Darling Harbour precinct, on the western edge of the Sydney central business district, Australia. Opened in September 2006, the zoo is located adjacent to a leisure and retail precinct that includes the Sea Life Sydney Aquarium and Madame Tussauds Sydney.

## History

In May 2006, Sydney Aquarium announced plans to expand the existing aquarium site, in order to incorporate a wildlife park. Following this announcement, and after the acquisition of the tourist attractions at Sydney Tower and of Manly Oceanarium, Sydney Aquarium changed its name to Sydney Attractions Group. Village Roadshow purchased Sydney Attractions Group in late 2007. UK attractions group Merlin Entertainments bought Sydney Wildlife World as part of its acquisition of Village Roadshow assets in March 2011.
The park changed its name to Wild Life Sydney and re-opened on 13 September 2011.
The attraction was named the best family-focused tourism at The Australian's 2007 Travel and Tourism Awards.

## Design

Construction began in November 2004 on the site, and was completed in August 2006. Wild Life Sydney is unusual for a zoo or wildlife park in that the public areas are almost entirely enclosed and air-conditioned. The A$52 million development features a 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) walkway which snakes through 7,000 square metres (75,000 sq ft) of enclosures.
The upper level exhibits are open-air, enclosed only by a large stainless steel mesh roof structure supported by curved beams, which were designed to look like the ribs of the rainbow serpent of Aboriginal myth when viewed from above. This open-air feature has enabled the exhibits to be landscaped naturally with live plants, including full-sized trees. The largest exhibit is the 800-square-metre (8,600 sq ft) semi-arid habitat of kangaroo walkabout, featuring 250 tonnes (280 short tons) of red sand trucked in from central Australia and full-sized bottle trees. This habitat houses Kangaroo Island kangaroos, echidnas, a quokka and koalas.

## Exhibits

Wild Life Sydney Zoo is divided into ten zones, containing the following exhibits:
Tricky Tongues and Treehouse
* Goodfellow's tree-kangaroo
* Short-beaked echidna
Devil's Den
* Tasmanian devil
Outback Shack
* Eastern brown snake
* Northern death adder
* Red-bellied black snake
* Tiger snake
Wallaby Cliffs
* Bare-nosed wombat
* Chestnut-eared finch
* Red-browed finch
* Spencer's goanna
* Yellow-footed rock wallaby
Daintree Rainforest
* Australian green tree frog
* Australian king parrot
* Boyd's forest dragon
* Brown cuckoo-dove
* Emerald dove
* Frill-neck lizard
* Green and golden bell frog
* Magnificent tree frog
* Plumed whistling duck
* Red-browed finch
* Red-legged pademelon
* Satin bowerbird
* Southern cassowary
* Topknot pigeon
* Wonga pigeon
Kangaroo Walkabout
* Australian king parrot
* Budgerigar
* Chestnut-breasted mannikin
* Chestnut-eared finch
* Cockatiel
* Kangaroo Island kangaroo
* Emerald dove
* Galah
* Gouldian finch
* Princess parrot
* Red-browed finch
* Spinifex pigeon
* White-browed woodswallow
* White-headed pigeon
* Wonga pigeon
Crocodile Billabong
* Banded rainbowfish
* Central bearded dragon
* Central netted dragon
* Crimson-spotted rainbowfish
* Dwarf bearded dragon
* Freshwater crocodile
* Frill-neck lizard
* Olive python
* Pig-nosed turtle
* Red-collared lorikeet
* Seven-spot archerfish
* Shingleback lizard
Platypus Pool
* Platypus
Night Fall
* Bilby
* Black-headed python
* Centralian knob-tailed gecko
* Eastern quoll
* Night skink
* Palyoora
* Rufous bettong
* Scorpion
* Spotted python
* Sugar glider
* Tawny Frogmouth
* Woma python
* Yellow-bellied glider
Koala Rooftop (including Koala Rooftop Cafe
* Cyclone Larry stick insect
* Giant burrowing cockroach
* Goliath stick-insect
* Mitchell's rainforest snail
* Queensland whistling tarantula
* Superworm
* Koala
* Wolf spider

## Experiences

Wild Life Sydney offers a Koala Photo experience where guests can get close to the Koalas and take a quality photo with them.