Alpaca Herd Goes for a Walk | Secrets of the Zoo: Down Under

Down at the backyard to bush precinct, a small herd of Taronga's more domesticated animals are about to embark on a little adventure. Got some nice treats for you. So this is our beautiful alpaca herd. We've got three boys. They are all five years old. We have Cartouche, who's the white one here, and he's the biggest of them. The little black one in the middle, that's Aragon. And then the brown one there is Scaramouche. There you go, Cartouche. You are being so well behaved. Alpacas come from South America originally. They're actually really unusual species. They're quite exotic. But believe it or not, they're members of a family called the Camelidae family, which means that they're related to camels. People are often really surprised to hear this, but when you have a look at the shape of their neck and their beautiful big eyes and their muzzle, you can really actually see a resemblance between them and camels. The other big thing they share with camels are their feet. And today, they're putting them to good use. I'm gonna take the alpacas for a walk down the hill. I've got Cartouche with a halter and lead on. The other two alpacas, Scaramouche and Aragon, are gonna be following along. I'm just gonna let them free-range and we'll see what happens. It's a really great enrichment for them. So this is just part of their routine, part of what we do with them on a day-to-day basis, making sure they're getting lots of really great opportunities to express their natural behaviour. Good boys. There we go. Good boys. Here come your boys. That's it. Come on, we're going down the hill today. This way. Once Scaramouche and Aragon realise that we're coming down to the concert lawns, they tend to take off ahead of us and race down to the grass so they can start grazing. OK, you ready to go for a run? That's the way. Off you go. Good boy. Whee! Good job. I love it when they do that. Bringing the alpacas down here is a real highlight for us. We love just getting to observe them, watch their behaviours, see how they're interacting with each other and just see them really enjoying themselves down here. It's really relaxing for us too, to just get to sit back and enjoy the alpacas. It's the best part of the day. Yeah. Definitely. A lot of people with farms or small holdings often use alpacas just to keep a lookout for things like foxes and feral dogs as well. They're really alert, so they really keep an eye out what's going on and they become really bonded with the animals that they're with as well.