I am looking for some information one 3 animals and what species do or can work well in a mixed species exhibit. I am primarily looking for pygmy hippo, black rhino, and white rhino. What has historically worked, what could theoretically work, and what defiantly won't work. Thanks in advance.
http://www.antelopetag.com/assets/docs/Mixed_Survey/Mixed_Species_Institution_full.doc http://www.zoochat.com/2/mixed-species-exhibits-12223/index19.html
Pygmy hippos have been mixed before with mandrills at South Lakes Wild Animal Park and there is no reason why aboreal monkeys wouldn't mix well with them if given sufficient space above the hippos. White rhinos have been mixed successfully with antelope at Jacksonville and multiple safari parks. They also been mixed with giraffes and baboons at South Lakes and with cheetahs at Cleveland's Metropark Zoo. Granted there must be enough space for the rhinos and accompanying roommates. Black rhinos are almost impossible to mixed. Other than cranes and waterfowl I don't know which species will be able to handle their own against a one ton behemoth with anger issues.
There are umpteen white rhino mixings in the UK; Colchester, Marwell, Cotswold, Whipsnade, South Lakes and the safari parks are examples of this here. One of the widest (and most geographically confused!) white rhino mixing in the UK is at Longleat Safari Park, where they share the Big Game Park with Ankole Cattle, Bactrian Camel, Pere David's Deer and Scimitar-Horned Oryx, and South Lakes' mix of them with giraffe and baboon is also something of note. Two male black rhinos share the African Experience at Port Lymnpe with a number of species', including giraffe, zebra, ostrich, eland, wildebeest, kudu and waterbuck. There are also plans there to mix them with a baboon troop.
in Bioparc (Valencia´s zoo) Spain, we can see a lot of mixed exhibits with white rhinos ,Grant´s zebras, elands and ostriches in "dry" savannah; impalas, giraffes,waterbuck and crowned cranes in "wet" savannah; bongos, Natal duikers and black necked crowned cranes, in another zoo section, and other exhibit with sitatungas, drills, pygmy hippos, Nile goose's, north and south talapoins, the Brazza monkeys,and Mona monkeys and another with forest buffalos, red river hog and white pelicans in Equatorial Africa section; in the "bai" section the gorillas are mixed with sitatungas , Abisinian hornbills , owl faced monkeys and white napped mangabeys.many more ducks are mixed in the installations , mainly in the ponds... finally the Madagascar section it's a walk trough mixed exhibit wih 7 lemur species.
The mixing of pygmy hippos with Mandrills hasn't worked in Halle and Melbourne(?) due to interspecific aggression. Several zoos keep their pygmys together with waterfowl and sometimes with smaller duiker species. SDZ adds guenons to that mix. Salzburg Zoo has Southern White Rhinos together with Kobe, Gemsbok, Ring Tailed Lemurs and occasionally African Spurred Tortoises and Grevy' Zebras. Augsburg now features them with Sable Antelopes, Ankole Cattle and Cameroon Sheep.
OH, I should have pointed out that http://www.zoochat.com/2/has-black-rhino-ever-been-mixed-54926/ is a link to a thread...
Melbourne did not attempt to mix mandrills and pygmy hippos, as far as I know. About 20 years ago they built a borderline-brilliant exhibit where the two species appeared to share the same space, but were separated by a water moat. Unfortunately today the hippo pools have been taken over by Asian small-clawed otters (confined by an ugly plywood barrier where the view to mandrills used to be) and a big Australian fresh water fish in the second pool.
@reduakari: I had the impression, based on accounts by various people who had been there that the Melbourne zoo exhibit in question was a "mixed" one. If a zoomember who has actually been there might shed some light on that matter, I'd appretiate it.
Thanks for the link, @reduakari, but I visited that very ZooLex page quite a long time ago, among others when first looking for comparable exhibits in zoos after the combi in Halle failed. Nothing in the article states free of doubt that the two species are kept seperately; there's a vertical double line on the site map, but that could be a lot of things.
The Zoolex article quite clearly references "3 separate exhibits," and the wide water moat surrounds the only side where the mandrill and (former) hippo exhibits border each other. The low mudbank barriers surrounding the hippos would not contain mandrills for a second. Plus, I've seen the exhibit in person--trust me it was not set up to house the two species together. Now in San Diego's Monkey Trails, pygmy hippos do share an exhibit with Wolf's guenons and red-flanked duikers
marwells into africa has giraffe and sable antilope, and another exhibit for hartmans zebra and gemsbok, addax and dama and dorcas gazelle in another, one forgrevey zebra, ostrich and scimitar horned oryx, another for white rhinos and kudu (formerly back rhino and kudu) and chapman zebra and ostrich
Here at Reid Park Zoo we have 2 white rhinos mixed with 4 spekes gazelles and 2 kori bustards and 1 marabou stork. The rhinos were moved to this savannah after living alone in a smaller exhibit for 30 years and seemed to have no problem with the mix. The San Diego Wild Animal Park of course has a large herd of white rhinos with multiple antelope species and giraffes (but then again it's a 100 acre exhibit). When the park first opened in the 1970's, they actually had a pair of pygmy hippos in the lake in that exhibit as well.
"Seperate" is sometimes a rather ambigous term when it comes to mixed husbandries with primates... Wow, I got the SDZ example right-probably because I happened to be there in person...
Hello to all! Sorry to have been silent for so long... Just to add that concerning pygmy hippos, they are currently in a mixed exhibit with colobus monkeys in CERZA zoo... Works perfectly! Before, deBrazza's guenons were also cohabitating with them but they're now gone. In Bioparc de Doué la Fontaine, a project is underway to put in contact their two black rhinos with (I think) Thomson's gazelles.
Not exactly, pygmy hippos are displayed in "day hours" and servals in "night hours" (only in summer) when the zoo it´s open to 12:00 PM, in Fuengirola too, the orangutans and otters enclosure it´s available for dholes at night...
