Festive Fun Day at Orana

Christmas will arrive one day early for Orana Wildlife Park’s 400 animals (don’t tell them). Keepers will play Santa and prepare a range of festive themed treats to hand out to all the ‘good’ animals on 24 December. From 10.30am various Christmas themed enrichment presents will be fed out to animals.

Christmas Day is the only day the Park is closed to the public, so providing the presents on Christmas Eve means that visitors can share this unique experience with the keepers and animals and enjoy seeing them munch, crunch, smash and crack in to their treats.

Manager of Exotic Mammals, Jenny Bowles, says providing quality enrichment is critical for animal welfare “and the festive season provides an opportunity for us to offer different, colourful stimuli for the animals plus give visitors a chance to see our animals react to their gifts. We’re looking forward to our festive fun day – it should be a cracker!

Orana relies on gate-takings to operate. Therefore, on behalf of all our animals receiving their Christmas presents, thank you very much for your support!” adds Jenny.

The coming New Year also presents an opportunity for Park staff to reflect upon successes of the year, such as bringing New Zealand’s only orang-utans to Christchurch and successfully breeding South Island whio (blue duck) for the first time – all 14 whio ducklings produced this year will be released to the wild in 2018. Staff also look forward to many exciting challenges and new animal arrivals in the New Year.

The Orana team wishes everyone a safe and happy holiday season.

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