Thermal cameras are revealing how the animals at Werribee Open Range Zoo keep warm and cozy – especially in windy weather.
Zookeeper Julie Stephen said thermal cameras, which allow keepers to see various ranges of temperature in a single image, are producing some striking and incredibly informative vision of the animals.
“It’s pretty cool that we can see a different range of temperature with this tech,” Ms Stephen said.
“Blue represents the cold spots, all the way up to the really red hotspots.
“The tortoises, for example, will appear really red from basking under the heat lamps but the grass they eat will be blue because it is cold from being outside.”
Thermal cameras can also be used as a tool to support keepers when monitoring the animals’ health and welfare.
“We make sure we have different gradients of temperature available that are in the species’ natural wild range,” Ms Stephen said.
“We help provide this with basking sites, shelters to block out the wind, or indoor areas where you can see animals in nice cosy spaces and get warm with them.”
Ms Stephen challenges visitors to locate the discreet and secret heated animal habitat locations that they may not have even known existed.
“It might be a heated rock or cave for the lions and meerkats or even a heated pad beneath a soft bed of straw for the cheetah.”
In addition to heated areas for the animals, visitors can also get cosy in thezZoo’s indoor areas at the reptile section, Ranger Kids and the Meerkat Café.
