Koalas to call the Netherlands home for the first time ever with Ouwehands Zoo arrival
The public will be able to visit koalas at a zoo in the Netherlands for the first time ever, starting next month. The Ouwehands Zoo in Rhenen, Utrecht, announced this week that their new “Koalia” enclosure will be open to the public starting on April 25.
Two male koalas and one female koala will arrive in the coming weeks and will first be placed into quarantine. They will then gradually get accustomed to their new environment, where the marsupials will be housed with a mob of wallabies.
The zoo previously explained how they planned to make the koalas feel at home, considering their solitary nature. To more closely replicate their natural habitat, each of them will have three of their own separate areas: an indoor, nighttime, and outdoor enclosure. The zoo will use an innovative heating system within the climbing trees to see if the animals will want to use them on cooler days.
When the construction of the koala enclosure was first announced in 2022, the zoo said it would cover an area of 1,800 square meters, including a 170 square meter courtyard. "At the moment we are still working hard on building and finishing the area," the zoo said. The heat pump for the Koalia indoor spaces, painting, and walking paths still need to be installed, and more plants need to be placed.
Ouwehands Zoo focuses their attention mainly on animals considered to be endangered that are part of the EEP programs from the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria. Koalas are on the IUCN Red List as “vulnerable,” with the mature population believed to be in decline. Austria considers the animal “threatened” after a significant decline in the species due to bushfires and floods.
The animal is native to the forests and savanna in the Australian states of Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. The IUCN Red List also noted that the animal's natural habitat is declining.
Not only will Ouwehands Zoo be the first Dutch zoo to house the koalas, they will be the only zoo in the Netherlands with the animals for the the near future. The zoo had hoped to start construction in January 2023, with an opening planned for last summer. The project was handled in coordination with the relocation and renovation of several other animal enclosures.
