This year, Taronga Western Plains Zoo turns 40. In the lead up to the birthday celebrations on February 28, The Daily Liberal will be featuring some of the lesser known stories of the zoo.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It may seem strange that Taronga Western Plains Zoo is safeguarding coral samples from the Great Barrier Reef, but it’s an important part of Rebecca Hobbs’ job.
Dr Hobbs is the zoo’s reproductive biologist. While half her job involves monitoring the hormones of the zoo animals, she is also heavily involved in research both with animals and the reef’s coral.
There’s a gene bank at the zoo which Dr Hobbs said was like a living library.
“It’s the same as a plant seed bank. We’re looking to collect things that are biodiverse, and within that have as much genetic diversity as we can, so that if we did want to use that material to bolster or replace something that is missing we’ll have enough variability for the population to be able to cope,” she said.
That was the fundamental purpose of the bank, Dr Hobbs said, but it was also used as an opportunity to study the biology of living things from a cellular level.
“We want it to be not a static bank, but fluid, a bit more like a library,” she said.
While ideally there would be enough people and resources to freeze cells from every single species on the reef, it was impossible Dr Hobbs said, so the current focus was on strategic banking and collecting species with a vital role in the ecosystem.
“I think with science in general you have to do things repetitiously to show that something is a real effect, so that can get quite tedious. So what gets you through and what’s exciting is that you know that you are going to make a difference, and it’s to something I personally care about which is the conservation of species,” Dr Hobbs said.
“Your day-to-day may not always seem like it has a direct link but it’s the bigger picture things that give you that drive to really make a difference.”
Dr Hobbs also analyses the hormones of the animals at the zoo, to monitor stress levels and their reproductive cycles.
“Here in Dubbo there’s the cheetah breeding program, the rhino breeding program and the elephant breeding program. The sexes are housed individually or separately so the managers need to know when it’s a good time to get together, “ she said.
While there are the general day-to-day routines Dr Hobbs said she had to follow, she said opportunities like an animal getting anaesthetised provide the reproductive biologist the chance to collect a sample from the animal.
Dr Hobbs said the next step in reproductive biology was to discover a way for eggs and larvae to be frozen, as both were more complicated than storing the sperm, as well as continuing to apply for funding to allow for more research projects to be conducted.
She’s a passionate conservationist, but even Taronga Western Plains Zoo reproductive biologist Rebecca Hobbs said she didn’t realise some of the waste she was creating.
The Daily Liberal asked Dr Hobbs if attitudes were changing towards conservation. She said while most of the people she associated with were passionate about conservation across the globe there was more that could be done.
We’re going more green, but it’s slow
“There are certainly pushes to ban straws and plastic bags, because with some things we could do better,” Dr Hobbs said.
“I’ve always thought that I was pretty green but I thought nothing about going to the pub and having someone chuck a straw in my drink.”
Dr Hobbs, who tries to avoid single-use plastics, said she would like to see more thought before people used items like plastic straws.
“It’s disappointing to see there are still people who deny anything is changing.”