Aonika the 43-year-old Aldabra Giant Tortoise getting a bubble bath.
A colony of adorable Little Penguins enjoying their fishy lunch.
Vets inspecting the health of a spiky South Australian scorpion.
What do these fun and fascinating scenes have in common?
They all feature on an amazing 24-hour kids TV channel played to children in the SA Pathology division of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
The stories, which were all recently filmed at Adelaide Zoo and our sister zoo, Monarto Safari Park, will join a huge amount of other educational animal content on the dedicated San Diego Zoo Kids channel.
Developed by San Diego Zoo, the channel features interesting nature-based videos from zoos and aquariums around the world, teaching kids all about animals like sting rays, orangutans, tigers, parrots and stick insects.
We’re so proud to have partnered with San Diego Zoo and SA Pathology to bring our amazing animals to children and their parents and carers during what might be scary procedures like blood tests or biopsies.
The kids meet Geronimo the Squirrel Glider
Celebrated at a launch at Adelaide Zoo last month, some of the South Australian stories have already been seen by the gorgeous kids at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
At the launch, these special kids then had the opportunity to get up close to some super cute Variety Children’s Zoo animals like quokkas, squirrel gliders and bettongs.
Zoos SA Chief Executive Elaine Bensted says it’s incredibly exciting to be able to make a difference to the day-to-day life of some very special children.
“We exist to connect people with nature so it’s an honour to share the wonder of our animals with these lovely patients,” said Elaine.
“It’s our hope that this content will help make them feel a little better and put a smile on their faces.”
The creation and development of the San Diego Zoo Kids TV channel was funded by businessman and philanthropist T. Denny Sanford.
Debuting in 2013, the channel is now in 293 children’s hospitals in 11 countries around the world, including the United States, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Pakistan and India.
You can check out what it’s all about in the video below.
