Established in 1996 the majority of programs at AMMRC are integrations of captive and field-based programs. AMMRC is conducting programs and collaborating with colleagues working in Australian, Antarctic and international waters.
Recreating the edge of our world on the edge of Sydney Harbour. Traversing 1.2 hectares of Taronga Zoo's spectacular harbour side location, the visitor's journey through Great Southern Oceans will begin in a familiar Australian beach environment and end "underwater" in a re-creation of a submerged marine research vessel.
Some of the marine animals have ended up at Taronga Zoo because of unfortunate events, but with dedicated care from zoo staff animals like Miya the Australian Sea-lion, Mr Munro a Fiordland Crested Penguin, Brooke the leopard seal and Crusoe the Little Penguin have thrived and become healthy again.
Past events
Thursday 20 September, 2007Upcoming events
Miya enjoying the company of a young visitor
Seal Discovery Theatre
Meet Taronga's Seals and their keepers in the 950-seat Seal Discovery Theatre, the perfect place to learn more about seals and our marine environment
For more than 20 years, visitors have delighted in watching our graceful seals show off natural behaviours and skills. The new larger capacity theatre will mean that more than 2,000 people will be able to enjoy this wonderful experience each day. The much-loved stars of the Seal Show, including Californian Sea-lions Michi and Andy. Australian Sea-lions Malie, Miya and Lexie and Fur Seals Tathra and Mav, will all be part of the new show
Swim with the Seals
Taking animal encounters underwater, visitors will be able to swim with seals in Great Southern Oceans.
A whole new level of interaction with animals swimming beside one of Taronga's seals in a special separate pool while learning more about these fascinating and graceful marine mammals from some of our expert keepers.
Seal Habitat Pool
A naturalistic environment with pools, rocks for sunning and coastline plants.
Most of Taronga's marine mammals are here as a result of strandings or injuries. While rehabilitation and release is the first priority, the animals that remain here play an important role in the observation and research activities of the Australian Marine Mammal Research Centre and in the educational activities of the zoo.
Steets Encounter Beach
Begin the Great Southern Oceans experience with a splash!
Streets Encounter Beach features a traditional beach environment, with beach huts and a shoreline pool where children can wade into the water and splash around. Special health plantings around the area recreate the natural environment of much of the Sydney coastline.
Seal Cove
The Leopard Seal is the Antarctic's top predator and one of the most fascinating animals found here.
Leopard Seals are solitary animals, living and breeding on the ice floes of the pack ice. The summer breeding season is short, making it necessary for the females to find a male and mate in a very limited period. How do they do it? They sing! Males sing underwater for up to three months and the females sing just when they are ready to mate. The male and female sing a duet, which allows the female to select her mate from a bevy of males. Leopard Seals are being studied in the Antarctic by Taronga Zoo as a method of monitoring the Southern Oceans environment. As top-order predators within the Antarctic ecosystem, fluctuations in the environment at all levels will be reflected in Leopard Seal populations.
Feeding Penguins
Crusoe and Mr Munro will take up residence in Penguin Rocks, which will house the largest and most successful breeding colony of Little Penguins anywhere in the world. Fifty Little Penguins, many bred at Taronga, will eventually live in this area and the breeding program will support ongoing recovery projects in the wild.
Antarctic research vessel
The replica Antarctic Research Station will take visitors on an amazing journey to Antarctica, the natural habitat of Leopard Seals like Brooke. Leopard Seals "sing" to communicate with each other and find a mate, and the station's sound chamber includes these and other fascinating sounds from the depths of the icy ocean. The Research Station also includes panoramic underwater viewing of the Leopard Seal and Little Penguin pools.
Ice Cave
The Australian Marine Mammal Research Centre (AMMRC) was established in 1996 as a collaboration between the Zoological Parks Board of NSW and the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney and is based at Taronga Zoo. The majority of programs at AMMRC are integrations of captive and field-based programs. AMMRC works with captive populations of marine mammals to develop and validate new technologies. Once validated these tools are applied to ecological issues in the field. AMMRC is conducting programs and collaborating with colleagues working in Australian, Antarctic and international waters. These programs are conservation-based and examine impacts of noise exposure, breeding dysfunction, stress and climatic warming.
Research outcomes are published in peer-reviewed academic journals and books (62 papers) and delivered at national and international conferences (83). AMMRC staff members have academic adjunct appointments at the University of Sydney and are involved in training young scientists. The twenty-one students who have been trained through AMMRC include ten PhD students, one MSc student and ten Honours students.
AMMRC - POPULATION MONITORING
UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC SURVEYS
Can acoustic surveys improve population monitoring?
Acoustic surveys (in tandem with remote sensing) provide quick, cost effective ways of monitoring population abundance, trends and recovery. These techniques, which cover larger areas of ocean compared with traditional visual surveys, are required in order to survey the vast oceans around Australia and Antarctica.
Single datasets can be used to assess multiple species (humpback, right, blue, fin and sei whales and pack ice seals) at the same time. In collaboration with acoustics Prof Doug Cato (DSTO) and Dr John Hildebrand (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) AMMRC has been using remote acoustic sonobuoys and moored recording systems to conduct large-scale monitoring programs for marine mammals in Antarctic and Australian waters.
The ground work for this program came from acoustics studies conducted on captive Leopard Seals at Taronga Zoo. The status of the Ross Seal, currently classified as rare, is being re-evaluated due to this work.
MONITORING POPULATION STRESS
WORKING WITH CAPTIVE ANIMALS TO DEVELOP NEW RESEARCH TOOLS
Can we tell if a wild or captive population of animals is really stressed?
AMMRC is validating the use of non-invasive samples (faecal, urine, saliva, and blow) to assess population stress. Stress hormones are usually measured in the blood of an animal. In order to get the blood in the first place you need to catch and therefore stress the animal. Is the animal naturally stressed or did your running around and catching it, stress it?
By working with captive animals (Taronga Zoo, Sea World and US Navy Marine Mammal Program) AMMRC researchers can give animals a substance which causes their body to release stress hormones at a known time. Researchers can then measure the normal fluctuations in stress hormones in the animal's faeces, urine, saliva or blow samples.
This type of tool helps wildlife and captive-animal managers to measure population stress due to human activities like shipping, seismic, tourism or captive management practices such as enclosure size and management routines.
IMPACT OF ECOLOGICAL DISASTERS
STUDYING SEAL WHISKERS
Can we identify what influence a past ecological disaster has had on the Southern Ocean?
Whaling last century is likely to have disrupted the trophic dynamics within the Southern Ocean. Opportunistic feeders, like the Leopard Seal, were not wedded to one prey and so could shift their diet to exploit the changes that were occurring around them.
Through AMMRC's current research with captive and wild seals we have been showing that stable isotopic signatures along the whiskers of a seal records its diet for up to four years.
In collaboration with Dr Tamsin O'Connell of the University of Cambridge, AMMRC will take this concept even further and compare the whiskers collected from seals prior to whaling (museum samples) with those collected today to identify what impacts whaling had on the foraging patterns of the Antarctic seals.
MONITORING CLIMATE CHANGE
AN INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR PROGRAM
Can we see the impacts of climate change today in the southern ocean?
Today the concern is how climatic warming is impacting on the Southern Ocean. This is particularly pertinent for the pack ice seals, like the Leopard Seal, as they use the ice to rest, give birth and raise their pups.
In collaboration with Dr Doris Abele (Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research) and Dr Alejandro Carlini (Instituto Antarctico Argentino), through the use of remote sensing AMMRC will use multiple datasets from different disciplines and ecosystems to identify current responses to climate change.
The focus for AMMRC in this International Polar Year program is on marine mammals, especially the Leopard Seal. The Leopard Seal is one of the few Antarctic apex predators which can be studied directly. As a long-lived, large-bodied animal with a low reproductive rate, it is less affected by local environmental variation but, like all apex predators, is likely to be the first to respond to large-scale environmental change.
MONITORING CLIMATE CHANGE
AN INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR PROGRAM
The Leopard Seal is a key component to understanding ecosystem change in the Southern Ocean. Unlike other apex species their population has never been harvested. Leopard Seals occupy virtually all pack-ice habitats throughout the circumpolar Antarctic and their large population means they are ecologically important.
Can we predict future impacts that climate change will have on Antarctic marine mammals?
Recently a model was used to predict impacts of climate change on the Arctic apex predator, the Polar Bear, and this showed dire ecological consequences. The prediction is that Polar Bears may be extinct in the wild within 150 years.
Similarly, AMMRC proposes to examine impacts upon the Antarctic apex predators using the Leopard Seal as a model. AMMRC will be working with the same Arctic research group (Prof Ian Stirling, Canadian Wildlife Service) and glaciologists to examine how predicted changes in the Antarctic pack ice due to climatic warming will influence seal populations.
MARINE MAMMAL HEARING
THE IMPACT OF HUMAN NOISE
What impact is human noise having on the hearing of marine mammals?
In collaboration with Prof Darlene Ketten (Harvard Medical School/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) AMMRC will be determining the hearing capacity of southern hemisphere marine mammals by anatomical examination via CT and MRI scans.
By working with trained captive animals researchers will measure hearing by auditory brainstem response (ABR), a technique used to measure hearing in human babies. This will provide hearing reference baselines to allow for the assessment and management of acoustic disturbance in habitats important to the survival of key species
In collaboration with Prof Doug Cato (Defence Science Technology Organisation) AMMRC will also model underwater shipping noise patterns in Australian waters, and researchers have already developed a database of southern hemisphere marine sounds which associates behaviour and function with species distribution.
Taronga Zoo's vision is to inspire Australians and our visitors to delight in, discover and protect our natural environment.
A key precinct within Taronga Zoo's Master Plan development, Taronga Zoo's Great Southern Ocean precinct will explore the edge of our world, where the land meets the sea.
Great Southern Oceans is by far the most significant investment in the 12-year redevelopment program and the most significant development in Taronga's 90-year history. The precinct pays homage to our marine mammal and bird life and the significance of "The Great Southern Oceans" often described as the "lungs of the world".
From the beach to our coastline, to the depths of the southern ocean, the journey through this exciting precinct will focus on educating visitors about marine conservation and climate change issues, through interactive experiences highlighting the natural habitats and behaviours of marine mammals and birdlife.
The opening of the Great Southern Ocean precinct will further Taronga Zoo's reputation as a leading conservation and education organisation, and one of the best Zoos in the world.
The waters of the Great Southern Oceans - the Pacific, Indian and Southern Oceans along with the waves of seven seas - wash the shores of the island nation of Australia, supporting one of the most productive marine ecosystems on Earth.
As an urban Zoo, Taronga is in a unique position to connect the community and children with wildlife and the natural environment.
Each year more than 1.3 million Australians and tourists visit Taronga Zoo. Marine conservation messages will be an integral aspect of the Great Southern Oceans precinct raising awareness of issues facing our animals and our oceans.
The centrepiece of visitor education in Great Southern Oceans will be a new 950 seat Seal Discovery Theatre. Daily Seal Shows will enable keepers to share messages about marine conservation, pollution, and issues impacting on seal populations with more than 2,000 visitors each day.
Interpretative signage, keeper talks and interactive experiences throughout the Great Southern Oceans precinct will aim to educate and inspire visitors to help wildlife and protect our environment.
Miya
Mr Munro
Brooke
Crusoe
Orphaned
Miya is an Australian Sea-lion found as an orphaned pup on Kangaroo Island in May 2002. Her mother was taken by a shark and she was too young to fend for herself. A ranger spotted her in distress and she was eventually brought to Taronga Zoo. Although our expert vets and keepers restored her to health, she was still too young to be released and so she joined "seal pre-school" with our other Australian Sea-lion pups. Miya quickly showed that she would make the perfect animal for our visitors to enjoy and learn from in the seal show. Five years later, she is one of the main stars of the show, and she even enjoys jumping in the back of the car and visiting other areas and meeting people within the zoo.
Lost at Sea
Mr Munro, a Fiordland Crested Penguin, was found washed up on Hargraves Beach at Norah Head in November 2006. He was quite underweight, had breathing and respiratory problems and was a very long way from home. Fiordland Crested Penguins breed along New Zealand's Fiordland Coast and Stewart Island, but Mr Munro became lost at sea while fishing and ended up here in Australia. Fiordland Crested Penguins are among the world's rarest, and Mr Munro and our two females are the only ones being cared for in a zoo. Taronga is about to embark on an important breeding program with these three. This will not only help us to learn more about breeding in a Zoo, but also provide valuable information on creating an assurance population for the future.
Safe at last
The only Leopard Seal cared for in a zoo anywhere in the world, Brooke was found on Garie Beach, in the Royal National Park, suffering from shark wounds and drastically underweight. Had she not been rescued and nursed back to health by the vets and keepers at Taronga Zoo she would not have survived. Brooke has thrived at Taronga, increasing her weight and becoming one of the most powerful seals that we have here. She is a great ambassador for her species and is part of the Australian Marine Mammals Research Centre's world-leading research into Leopard Seals.
A rough start
Crusoe the Little Penguin had a rough start to life - she was brought to Taronga's Wildlife Clinic as a very young bird after being attacked by a dog on a beach. After months of rehabilitation, it was decided that she was unfit for release back into the wild because of the extent of her injuries. She joined the Zoo's breeding colony of Little Penguins and this year has started her very own family, successfully raising her first chick with her partner, Evo. Their chick was released back into Sydney Harbour as part of our Little Penguin recovery project, undertaken in partnership with the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation. This important program works to support and recover the Sydney Harbour colony.
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