Rockhampton Zoo celebrates 100 years with focus on conservation

Australia Broadcast Center

04-07-2025

From cheeky chimpanzees, curious meerkats and a mighty crocodile named the Colonel, the Rockhampton Zoo was once just a quirky central Queensland attraction.
Now, a century since it opened, the zoo plays a key role in animal conservation and has a strong focus on education programs.
"What brings me joy coming to work is seeing the animals in such good condition and being looked after," zoo director Liz Bellward said.
"Then to see guests come through and how happy they are when they see the animals, and then you overhear people leaving … they want to go home and make a difference.
The zoo is currently home to 100 animals and 30 different species.
But by far the popular residents are the chimpanzees.
Today, there are five primates in the sprawling enclosure filled with trampolines, hammocks and climbing equipment.
But the story of how the chimpanzees came to be at the zoo seems straight out of a movie.
This is how Rockhampton Regional Council councillor Cherie Rutherford tells it.
"I always say in today's world, it was a workplace health and safety nightmare," she says.
"It would never have happened."
Ms Rutherford worked with Tom Wyatt, who was the director of Rockhampton's Sport and Recreation department in 1986. Mr Wyatt saw a news report about a mother chimp and her two babies who were going to be euthanased because of suspected tuberculosis.
The mum was euthanased, only for authorities to discover the chimps didn't have the disease, but the siblings were still set to be put down.
He called then-mayor Jim Webber and former councillor Jim Broad and they got in the car at 9pm, drove to Tweed Heads on the New South Wales border and rescued the rest of the family.
They didn't have signed permits to move the brother chimps, Cassius and Octavius, across the border, so they were sedated and driven 10 hours up to Rockhampton.
Ockie died in 2013 aged 38 due to suspected heart failure, and Cassius, 53, was euthanased in April after suffering from suspected arthritis and dementia.
The average life span of a wild chimpanzee is 30 to 40 years.
"Cassie and Ockie were characters in their own right, everybody would come and see them," Cr Rutherford said.
The pair paved the way for the start of the chimpanzee program, and decades later three baby chimpanzees would be born in Rockhampton.
Capri was born in 2018, the first chimpanzee to be born in Queensland since the 1970s.
Then in 2019, Gandali was born and Mzuri in 2021.
"Things like that don't happen if you don't have a great staff that are able to put those programs together and to care for the animals in a way that they are comfortable to breed."
The chimpanzees are part of an Australasian breeding program, with babies bred within zoos and swapped depending on genetics.
Ms Bellward says the zoo has also taken part in other breeding programs across the country involving animals including wombats and koalas.
"Zoos really are there to keep those species alive so we don't have more extinctions," she said.
The Rockhampton Zoo made international headlines in March 2006 when a 1.2-metre freshwater crocodile was stolen from the zoo.
Thieves managed to lift it over fences up to two metres high and get it into the boot of a car.
Paul Elliot, who is now a detective senior sergeant, was put on the case and remembers it well.
Four people were charged with the theft of the crocodile.
"One thing that did stick in my mind is one of the crooks actually had a significant amount of scratches on his back that had turned quite septic due to the fact that he wasn't game enough to go to the hospital, because the game would be up for him then," Detective Senior Sergeant Elliot said.
The stolen crocodile, however, was never recovered, despite the best efforts of night-time spotlighting and searching in the nearby waterways.
The eagle Valkyrie has called the zoo home for a number of years after she was hit by a car.
Her injuries meant she couldn't fly or be released into the wild again.
Shaun the koala, another long-time resident, was found as a six-month-old baby with only one working eye, and was having a hard time surviving in the wild.
After being nursed for months by a wildlife carer, he was transferred to Rockhampton Zoo where he has been ever since.
Sadly in 2021, a salmonella bacteria outbreak meant 40 birds in the zoo's aviary enclosure had to be euthanased.
During the past 50 years, zoos have evolved from being places of entertainment to be more focused on animal conservation and awareness.
As part of the 100-year celebrations, a new classroom space was opened.
"One of the things in our new building is we have built a large meeting room where we can bring school groups in and get those education messages across even more," Ms Bellward said.
"We can hold more community programs that are focused around conservation, sustainability and where the public can actually make a difference in the world.
"We're taking into account animal welfare at a whole new level. We're inspiring the public to take action, talking about conservation, getting involved in breeding programs, we're talking about sustainability."
Cr Rutherford said the enclosures also reflected this.
"It's been wonderful to see that the enclosures here now replicate the environment that the animals would live in in the wild," she said.