Male Baringo giraffe born to MAX and GUSTI. About 1.842.000 men, women and children came to the zoo in 2013.
Amur leopard XEMBALO and VATNE have been shipped to their new enclosure, opening will occur in March. Vietnamese small flying foxes moved to Gondwanaland. A male Venezuelan blue-throated piping-guan arrived from Magdeburg.
Whereabouts are the flying-foxes kept in Gondwanaland (and where were they kept previously)? What is their enclosure like? I hope they are not in the tunnel?
They used to be free-flying in the bird house so they may well be just loose in the building - I believe the intention was always for there to be free-flying bats in there.
You are right, Maguari. The zoo received 5 male Large flying foxes in 2012 from Stuttgart. Unfortunately they came from a very small aviary in the Wilhelma nocturnal house to the great Gondwanaland. 4 of them died within months, killed by the Komodo dragon and the False gharials. The last one was shipped back to Stuttgart. The Vietnamese small flying foxes are free-flying at the bird house since 1986.
Thanks Maguari and BjoernN. Sounds like a rather unfortunate experience with the Large flying-foxes, hopefully the Vietnamese do better!
Lesser flamingos laid 7 eggs! See link to their HP. One is broken, but the remaining 6 eggs are being incubated. Leipzig has 72 lesser flamingos and since 2004 the group produced only 1 hand-reared chick. In preparation for this winter, their house has been re-designed to allow them to build their nests inside. They got absolute privacy and the heating simulates "african" temperatures. Hopefully we will see at least a few chicks. Big and small European zoos and bird parks keep over 800 lesser flamingos, unfortunatelly chicks hatch only few and far between, without any consistency. If there woudn´t be a few successfull private breeders that sell their birds (and massive imports in past years), the zoo population would see steep decline, despite huge free capacity and demand for this species. The goal must be therefore first to at least reach sustainability.
A Kirk's dik-dik was born at the last weekend. Five lesser flamingo eggs are beeing incubated by the parents, only one by a machine.
Male Amur tiger IVO (born at Leipzig in 2012 to TOMAK and BELLA) was shipped to Neuwied Zoo, his brother TAMUR is going to find a new home at Helsinki.
Grevy's zebra male MACHO (born at Poznan in 1993) and Western chimpanzee female QUAMISHA (born at Basel Zoo in 1993) died. A new 5 year old Owl-faced monkey male arrived from Mulhouse Zoo in France.
Some interesting dates: - February 27th: Construction works concerning the new 6000 m² enclosure for Eastern black rhinoceros, baboons and hyrax (walkable enclosure) started. Opening March 2015. - March 27th: Opening of the "leopard valley", new enclosure for Amur leopards and East European Ural Owls. - July 18th: opening of the new exit area, including a walkable aviary for Chilean flamingos, different species of ibis and waterfowl.
Two Red-crested turaco and two Asian Fairy-bluebird hatched. One Reeve's muntjac, one Vietnamese small flying fox were born. Three Negros warty pigs, a Southern three-banded armadillo, one Scarlet macaw, one Von der Decken's hornbill, one Red-crested turaco and two Asian giant tortoise has been shipped to Chester Zoo, a male Kirk's dik-dik to Madrid, one Von der Decken's hornbill to Arnhem, two Scarlet macaw to Athens, one Eastern pygmy marmoset to Heidelberg. Five Pied Imperial-Pigeons arrived from Arnhem, a Collared Kingfisher from Amsterdam, Chinese gliding tree frog from Berlin Zoo and Cricket frogs, all for Gondwanaland. By the way, Fabian Schmidt, curator at Leipzig Zoo, adopted the responsibility for the Owl-faced-monkey breeding program and studbook from Graham Catlow at Edinburgh Zoo.
I wonder if renewed effort can save this species from Zoo oblivion. Leipzig do seem to have the largest number now. How many currently?
Believe they have 3,3 as of the end of December 2013. As all the animals left in Europe are very closely related, I suspect that unless the new studbook manages to bring fresh blood in from Africa the species is doomed in captivity.
Western lowland gorilla born yesterday to ABEEKU (born at Rotterdam Zoo, May 5th 1999) and KUMILI (born at Chessington Zoo, January 23rd 2004).
Rasem Baban, architect and curator at Leipzig Zoo, is going to become the new zoo director of Tierpark Hellabrunn in Munich.