Orana Wildlife Park

About the activity provider

See New Zealand’s only gorillas at Christchurch’s Orana Wildlife Park. Experience the ultimate animal adventure at Orana Wildlife Park. Set in 80 hectares, within 15 minutes’ drive of Christchurch airport, Orana is New Zealand’s only open range zoo. Over 400 animals, representing more than 70 species, are displayed at the Park. Regular animal feed presentations occur daily and are accompanied by a presentation from a wildlife guide. The Park specialises in providing amazing wildlife experiences - hand feed giraffe, meet rhino up close, observe kiwi and meet stunning native birds including kakariki, whio, tui and mischievous kea in walk-through aviaries. Visitors can also enjoy the antics of gorillas, cheetah, Tasmanian devils, monkeys, meerkats and more! The Park has an extensive native fauna section featuring a range of native birds and reptiles plus a Farmyard where people can meet friendly domestic animals. Visitors can ride on our complimentary Safari Shuttle (within the zoo), join a guided walkabout tour and/or meander around the Park at their leisure. The Park contains a children’s adventure playground, and two large picnic areas, a café and wildlife themed gift shop. It’s a full day of fun for the entire family! Orana Wildlife Park is operated as a registered charity and not-for-profit organisation. The zoo relies upon gate takings to operate and raises 100% of funds for all capital projects and developments. Orana is internationally renowned for its involvement in zoo-based breeding programmes for endangered exotic and native species. The Park contributes to breed for release recovery programmes for threatened native wildlife – to date, over 90 pateke (brown teal), 75 whio (blue duck) and 26 kiwi from Orana have been released to the wild. In 2017, Orana joined the Department of Conservation breed for release programme for orange-fronted kakariki (not on display to the public) – a Nationally Critical species restricted to Canterbury numbering less than 300 in the wild and to date 7 chicks bred at Orana have been released to the wild. When you visit Orana, you are directly supporting our conservation work.