Taronga
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Taronga is a young adult's fantasy novel written by Australian author Victor Kelleher. It was first published in 1986.
The novel follows the story of a young man named Ben, living in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, two years after an apocalyptic catastrophe that is referred to as "Last Days". Ben has empathic powers that give him controls over animals, a power which helps him out of trouble throughout the story. He finds his way back into Sydney and discovers a group of survivors living in Sydney's Taronga Zoo, which has been left untouched by the chaos. However, this group of survivors is far from friendly, and they are using the animals in the zoo towards their own dark ends.