Luke and Willow hang out in their behind-the-scenes habitat.

If you’ve visited the Zoo, you’ve likely met a lot of our more than 700 animal residents. Some animals are easy to spot, but others are often not as easy to see because of their habitat set up, their personalities or their sleep cycles among other things. We wanted to start a “Meet the Animals” section of our blog to introduce you to some of the residents that you may (or may not have) met yet!        

Our galahs may live out of the limelight, but they still deserve their recognition! Meet Willow, Elora and Luke, our three galahs, also known as rose-breasted cockatoos. 

The trio resides behind the scenes of our Zoo in our Ambassador Bird Aviary with their habitat-mates: three tawny frogmouths, two armadillos and one pionus parrot. Elora and Luke are Animal Ambassadors, meaning they participate in programs to teach school groups and other programs all about their species. Giving out animal residents choice and control is so important to us, so Elora and Luke have the option to voluntarily hop into their kennels to travel to our Zoo’s education spaces for programs—Elora even shows off some of her flight skills to the kids! 

As far as personalities go, Elora is the boldest of the three, with an audacious and sassy attitude (she’ll come around for sunflower seeds and head scratches, though)!  

Did you know that female galahs have red eyes, while male galahs have brown eyes? This is Elora!

Willow, one of our male galahs, loves attention—he’ll often try to sit on keepers’ shoulders as they go about their daily husbandry.  

“Willow does have his favorite people, and I am lucky enough to be one of them,” said Ambassador Area Supervisor Savannah Luhn. “He is a very ‘nesty’ boy—he loves the nesting boxes and will play peek-a-boo with keepers. He will literally duck down and then pop back up with his crest up! He is so cute.” 

Willow cozies up in his nesting box.

Last but certainly not least is Luke. Most of the team refers to Luke as a “baby” because of his chipper demeanor and the fact that Elora is actually Luke’s mother! Like Willow, Luke loves interacting with humans and will often perk up once keepers enter his habitat, making him a great fit for our Animal Ambassador programs. 

Meet Luke!

Galahs may seem friendly enough to domesticate, but Savannah stresses that this species does not make good pets. Cockatoos are very social birds, so they require lots of training and stimulation which is hard for the average person to meet on a daily basis. 

“Just like any cockatoo, galahs are very loud and very destructive,” Savannah said. “In their natural range, they rip bark off trees, then call to their flock members…This often translates to them ripping apart furniture or vocalizing loudly in homes.” 

Each day, our keepers provide a variety of enrichment to keep our galahs’ minds and bodies in tip-top shape. They love any water-based enrichment like misters, flavored water and sprinklers, along with paper (for shredding) and millet seeds.  

“Luke and Elora both love drinking from the hose, so when you are cleaning their waters, they will follow you around looking for a drink of water or to get misted,” Savannah said. 

Willow, in particular, goes nuts over bells! He adores perching on his hanging swing in his habitat while ringing his bell repeatedly—he makes sure his presence is known. 

It goes without saying our galahs can be a handful (in a good way), which is why their species is best suited for somewhere with plenty of enrichment and stimulation, like our Zoo.  

Elora shows off her skills during program practice.

Keep your eye out for select conservation learning programs for a chance to meet one of them!