U-haul Gorillas - Packing Primates for a Big Move

We've been busy packing up large animal specimens at our storage facility in Alexandria, which we are closing down...

The specimens will be moved to temporary storage first before finally making it to a brand new facility at Castle Hill in Sydney’s northwest in 2016. Our collections are so large that we can’t fit all of them into the Museum in the city centre.

Currently we're packing up the primates. The big move happens in May so the Conservation team have lots of hard work ahead.

We first clean the primates with a brush and vacuum and pack them into custom made crates. Then we make sure that the specimens are secure and comfortable with strategically placed cushions.

Packing the gorillas has been particularly difficult because they are so big and heavy. Every specimen is different and each one has individual needs in regard to preservation and packing.

One of the gorillas we packed up last week is an ex-resident of Taronga zoo. We started wondering how many of our specimens came from Taronga zoo because we have seen a few boxes labelled as ‘ex-Taronga’ including a skull from a giraffe called ‘Fiona’.

I hope you enjoy the other photos from the move (under Related Images on this page)!