23-11-2008
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Originally Posted by daveb
The issue of genetic diversity is the thing that dictates where you source breeding stock from. With giraffes in particular there is the additional issue of preventing hybridisation. The sub-region has a detailed breeding programme and stock is moved around in order to maximise this diversity whilst also maximising the purety of the species of giraffe each institution holds.
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As glyn says, most giraffes in Australasia are hybrids, the only pure herds being Rothschild’s at Orana and a couple of Australian zoos. Excess animals from these herds go into the hybrid groups at the other zoos (or into the bachelor herd at Keystone). Same situation with zebras, where all the zoos are going towards just maintaining hybrid herds, even Orana which was always making a big song and dance about its endangered Chapman’s zebras has introduced a Grant’s into their breeding stock.
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Originally Posted by jay
These two giraffes were born at Auckland from hybrid mothers and a genetically pure Rothschild father. The father came from Orana which keep a pure rothschild herd. The rothschilds at Perth also came from Orana, the four females are two sisters and the daughters of one. The father of one of the younger females at Perth is Anthony, who is now at Werribee. He is also the father of the breeding male at Melbourne zoo. So really all the rothschilds in the region have sprung from the Orana herd. Which I think only had four founders.
The breeding males at Monarto, Dubbo, Auckland and hopefully soon Wellington are all pure blood rothschilds descned from the Orana herd. Now that they are being integrated with the hybrid herd soon the zoos will once again face the problem of finding unrelated males as breeders.
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Orana has imported five Rothschild’s giraffes into NZ but only three of them were bred from. Jaffa and Celeste were the original pair brought in from Canada in 1982. A female called Mandy was imported from Melbourne in 1987 but I don’t know what happened to her subsequently and she didn’t breed while at Orana. All the young produced up to 1991 were between Jaffa and Celeste except for one female (Marama, December 1991) who was between Jaffa and his first-born daughter Sarita. Jaffa died in August 1991 and Finbarr (re-named Ed?) was brought in from Perth to replace him a couple of months later. Ed died in July 1992 without breeding. Zuri (re-named Harold) was imported from Chicago in March 1994 and has produced several young with Nathalie (Jaffa and Celeste’s second daughter) and with his own daughters.
Last edited by Chlidonias; 23-11-2008 at 11:48 AM.
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