[Steve] The Crocoseum raises the worldwide benchmark
for animal demonstrations
in a perfect view from every seat in the stands.
They said it could never be done,
and now I can bring crocodiles into the hearts of people
so we can save these modern-day dinosaurs.
Welcome to the world famous Crocoseum!
This is the centerpiece of Australia Zoo
and it is a lot of time and effort in the making.
Dad had a vision to bring wildlife
to thousands of people every day
in the ultimate showcase of education.
And this is it right here.
The Crocoseum first opened in 2003,
and since then millions of people have been right here
and witnessed some truly incredible wildlife experiences.
For us, croc conservation is what we're all about.
So if we can educate 5000 people at a time, we're going to be doing a lot
for these creatures.
But creating a 5000 seat auditorium,
having crocodiles come out here, full bore, trying to attack the keepers
and teaching everyone about them is a lot easier said than done.
So I thought I'd tell you a little bit
about the very storied past of the Crocoseum
and how it became the greatest wildlife showcase on the planet.
It all started way back in the day in the early 2000's,
when the original plans for the Crocoseum
were starting to come to fruition.
So when construction started,
this, everything you see here was just a field.
It was going to be a very difficult task from the beginning.
Over the course of years, the construction people, artists,
engineers, everyone got together and started to build.
Now, there were definitely a few setbacks,
and often that came in the form of unforeseen weather events.
Here there's a monsoonal system,
huge rains that come down
and that put a big halt in construction.
And a lot of people said it couldn't be done
that there would be no way a crocodile would come through
an intricate series of canal systems out into a big auditorium
where there's thousands of people cheering on and come out and react
exactly how it would in the wild.
Eventually, a lot of perseverance, a lot of hard work,
this was open for our busy Christmas school holidays in 2003.
[Steve] Thanks very much for coming in to Australia Zoo.
We've been working really hard
to get the Crocoseum up and running,
and here we are.
I'm about to do the first demonstration
that we've ever done in here.
[Robert] And the opening of the Crocoseum happened to coincide
with another very special milestone.
My birth.
Of course, we wanted to showcase all of our beautiful birds
with macaws, we have jabiru,
we've got our gorgeous water birds coming out,
but since the beginning,
we always knew crocodiles were going to be the most difficult,
but also the most incredible animals to showcase here.
Our crocodiles love coming out here and exhibiting this natural behavior.
This is specially designed so that we can show you
every different predatory instinct.
It's nice and deep in here.
This replicates exactly how you'd find a croc in the wild.
They'll come through this canal.
They'll stalk.
They'll come up to the shallows.
And we'll give that big stomp on the side of the water.
And when you see us do that, that's sending out vibrations.
Crocodiles work off vibration.
They'll strike out of the water, we'll run as fast as we can
and get them right out onto this beautiful big hit pad
and they'll put on a massive hit.
Grab the food, and then we head over across the creek
and we do the next feed.
Take my shoes off of this one.
And we do the next feed over here.
We'll jump across the creek.
And in this section, we can show that incredible
side swing, the pure speed of a crocodile.
So this little section here is definitely the most dicey.
But dad wanted this to really show you
just how much you have to keep your wits about you in crocodile territory.
And some of the strikes that we've had over here,
they’re near misses.
Then over here, we've got one of my favorite parts of the show.
This is the tail walk ramp.
We'll have this nice big, deep bit of water here.
We can have our food hanging over the edge here,
and crocodiles will come up and actually bolt upright straight
out of the water vertical, sometimes getting past this top rung here.
It's incredible to watch.
So I think that the Crocoseum is really special for all of us,
and it's where we feel closest to dad.
This was the place he loved more than anywhere else,
and as a family we get to continue that vital crocodile conservation.
It is so much fun being in here feeding crocodiles every day,
but it's also incredibly important to really showcase
how much we need to love and respect these animals.
Such an honor for me, getting to follow in Dad's footsteps
and continue doing these shows for our thousands of guests every day.
[Steve] Well, that's the first croc demo I've ever done in here
and I'd just like a round of applause for Murray.
Whooo!
[Terri] Have an awesome day and remember,
crocs rule!
Thanks guys!