Spooky secrets of Adelaide Zoo revealed after dark in series of new paranormal investigations

A former keeper killed by a polar bear is one of the ghosts said to haunt the Adelaide Zoo. It’s opening its doors after dark for paranormal investigations.

Haunted Horizons tour guide Kag Allwood with Oscar, a sooty owl in the Minchin House building at the Adelaide Zoo. Picture: Russell Millard

A quirky new tour is on offer at the Adelaide Zoo but it’s not for the faint-hearted.

In what is believed to be a global first, the zoo is now regularly opening its gates when the sun goes down to allow patrons the chance to get up close and personal with the historic establishment’s ghostly past, of both animal and human variety.

The original gates of the Adelaide Zoological Gardens.

A team of paranormal investigators from Adelaide’s Haunted Horizons is leading the eerie weeknight experience.

“Through networking and talking it came to our notice there had been sightings of a ghost at Minchin House (the original residence of the zoo directors, built in 1887) … a woman who dresses in a long skirt with long sleeves with her hair pulled back,” Haunted Horizons’ Alison Oborn said.

Minchin House, the original residence of the Adelaide Zoo directors, built in 1887.

A polar bear at Adelaide Zoo in the 1930s.

There are others too, such as the spirit of a former keeper killed by a polar bear who is said to haunt the zoo.

“We went with zoo staff into the service tunnel of the nocturnal house, a big U-shaped tunnel close to where the keeper was killed, and I took my voice recorder and other (paranormal investigative) equipment down one side as I had heard footsteps,” she said.

“Suddenly there was something very black about human height right next to me … I was startled enough to leap back and knock my equipment all over the place – in 32 years of doing this, I’ve stumbled across what I can’t explain about 15 times and this was one of those.”

A bear enclosure in 1908.

As well as the more shadowy aspects of the zoo’s past, the tours celebrate the historic buildings as well as the colourful animals and humans who have previously inhabited it.

“(The tours) aren’t fully focused on ghosts, it’s also about the quirky stuff people don’t know about the zoo, the people who have worked there, how the different buildings were used as well as some of the darker stuff,” lead guide Kag said.

She said steps, including using red torches, were taken to ensure the zoo’s current animal residents weren’t disturbed.

For details, go to Adelaide Zoo After Dark tours by Haunted Horizons.

People outside Minchin House, Adelaide Zoo.