The park focuses on Australian native species and threatened species worldwide. Every animal in care has a detailed studbook entry and pedigree record.
Taronga’s koalas come from the healthy population in southern New South Wales. The Koala Encounter walk wraps around a small grove of eucalypts; you can watch the animals at rest and feeding without disturbing them. Koalas have short daily activity windows — most of the day is sleep — so dawn and dusk are best.
The herd is part of an international coordinated breeding programme. The structure is matriarchal: the cows Pak Boon, Tang Mo, and Thong Dee live on the ridge with their offspring in two open hillside enclosures. The keepers run a training and socialisation session each morning, visible from a dedicated platform.
The Tasmanian devil is the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial and currently listed as endangered because of devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). Taronga, with the Tasmanian Department of Natural Resources and Environment, manages an insurance population of healthy individuals; selected animals are reintroduced to the wild each year.
The coastal bird aviary, low on the hill, includes the Australian pelican, the white-bellied sea eagle, black swans, and several local migrants. The aviary is right above the harbour, so you can see the resident birds and the wild gulls arriving from the open water together.
The corroboree frog, endemic to the Australian Alps, is barely two centimetres long and patterned in bright yellow and black. The wild population is critically low; Taronga keeps a healthy ex situ colony in a dedicated laboratory and releases captive-bred animals into the New South Wales high country each year.