Photo taken on July 16, 2021 shows a staff member working during a virtual lesson at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia. (Taronga Zoo/Handout via Xinhua)
SYDNEY, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Taronga Zoo, located near the heart of Sydney, the worst-hit city during Australia's current COVID-19 outbreak, has never stopped in its conservation mission despite being in the midst of a lockdown that began in late June.
While the state of New South Wales (NSW) continues to break daily infection records, with the increased locally acquired COVID-19 cases soaring past 1,000 on Thursday, all the animals big and small in Taronga are being cared for with the same dedication as they always have been.
"Things have a tendency to become unbalanced for humans (during the pandemic), but animals, given the habitat, they're absolutely fine," Taronga people and program manager Hayden Turner told Xinhua on Thursday.
"So that's our mission. That's what conservation is all about; the management of humans in habitats with wildlife."
Following the experience in Sydney's first COVID-19 outbreak last year, the zoo quickly acted by reassigning some of its staff with transferrable skills to other government agencies such as the NSW Health department.
The zoo has also worked hard to ensure it still caters for all the animal-lovers who usually stroll through the lush surroundings which overlook the city's famous harbour.
Most years, Taronga has more than 1.5 million visitors including throngs of children on school excursions.
To compensate, the zoo is streaming virtual zoo lockdown lessons straight into living rooms to allow people young and old to learn about animals' needs, habitats and the challenges they face for survival and how they adapt to changing situations.
"The curriculum-based live streams to students have been extraordinary," Turner said. "The education team reached more than 125,000 students during this lockdown in every 30-minute session."
In fact, the lockdown lessons are not the first trial of online programs at Taronga.
"When it comes to all the animals and keeping in contact with our guests, that's where Taronga TV came in ... we talked about it for a long time, but the catalyst was the 2020 lockdown," said Turner, who is one the Taronga TV presenters.
Established last year with limited budgets and cameras, Taronga TV's online page now has live-cams inside almost every cage and it constantly updates shows and animal-related stories.
"It allows us to spark what I call the 'love nature switch' in kids, if we can flick that love nature switch on for people then we make a huge difference," he said.
Turner said although the lockdown changes the way the zoo stays connected with its millions of visitors, nothing changes among Taronga's "essential" staff workers because conservation never stops.
Presentations, such as Free Flight Birds and the Seals For The Wild show are two daily routines that teach people about the importance of the bird and marine environment.
"What we do to keep our animals lives enriched happens in lockdown or not in lockdown, it's exactly the same," Turner said, adding that "we have to stay relevant in conservation" through different formats and reach out to people, because "conservation is all about collaboration." Enditem
