Thought I would start the new year off with a new thread since the old one was getting a little long. Here is an adorable update on the polar bear cub. It has a great video of the cub with her keeper. Abandoned polar bear cub doing well at Ohio zoo | WISH-TV
Two slivered leaf langurs were born on Dec. 1 and Jan. 11, which marks the first baby born at the Zoo in the new year! The first langur is a female and the second langur’s sex is yet to be determined. The eldest newborn has begun venturing on her own. https://www.facebook.com/columbuszoo/posts/10153389173797106
Another article about the Silvered leaf langurs : Bright Orange Babies Join Columbus Zoo's Langur Troop - ZooBorns
Help name the polar bear cub. Choose from one of four names... Densa, Kaya, Nora and Sakari. The name will be revealed Feb 5. Columbus Zoo invites public to name baby polar bear | The Columbus Dispatch
Notes from a frigid (15 degrees Fahrenheit!) trip to the zoo: -All three adult polar bears are back on exhibit together for another breeding season. Due to Nanuq's age, this is likely to be his last, as he has been struggling to stay awake during copulation this season! -North American river otters are now kept both in the former American black bear enclosure and their former enclosure, which up until recently housed Canadian beavers. There is a breeding pair in both exhibits, and the zoo is hoping for pups this spring. -The new breeding pair of wolverines from Europe are on exhibit together in their newly renovated habitat and are quite active! -The zoo will be phasing out its Malayan sun bears, and it is uncertain whether or not the elderly pair currently on exhibit will remain at the zoo through the end of the summer. -"Chewy", 2015's Amur tiger cub, is on exhibit in the first former lion exhibit in Asia Quest, and the two orphaned cougar cubs from Montana are exhibited in the second. The cougar enclosure in North America, currently home to an elderly brother-sister pair, will be undergoing renovation soon.
Eight beaded lizards have hatched recently (January 17th, 21st, and 22nd), with one more expected to hatch soon. This is the first hatching of this species at the zoo since 2000.
Now that's a question for the AZA. There are only 6 public institutions in the US carrying Sun bear with 2 with Bornean (San diego and Oakland) and 4 zoos carrying Malayan (Oregon, Miami, Atlanta, and St. Louis). I have a bad feeling there will be no more sun bears in the US within the next decade or two
I imagine it wouldn't be particularly difficult to do so; the main thing would be just netting it over. I know that there have been talks of bringing in giant pandas for this exhibit, but I haven't heard anything more on the subject in several years... The sun bear population in the United States just isn't viable or sustainable. The population is quite elderly overall, and they have proven to be quite difficult to breed successfully.
Don't Audubon and Lee Richardson also have sun bears? Also if they are being phased out why did Saint Louis build a fantastic state-of-the-art exhibit less than two years ago?
I don't think sun bears are being phased out among all AZA institutions, merely at Columbus. As others have commented, the sun bear population is far from self-sustaining and without importation of new stock and/or vast improvements in captive breeding, there is likely to be an effective phase-out of the species as there will be few specimens left to populate exhibits. It's sad to me that AZA institutions seem to have such difficulty maintaining viable captive populations of bears: while there is no shortage of rescue individuals of brown and American black bears, sloth bears are not doing extremely well, Asiatic black bears are almost entirely gone, polar bears continue to face a well-discussed lack of breeding success, and pandas are understandably never likely to be established, leaving only Andean bears (and even there, I'm not sure how successful AZA institutions are). I'll miss the sun bears if and when they leave Columbus, but I must admit that they didn't fit as well into the outdoor Asia Quest exhibits (which, with the exception of the silvered leaf monkeys, are entirely populated by temperate Asian species). Originally the sun bears were announced to be part of the Islands complex, where they might have fit better. As to replacements for the sun bears when they leave, I agree that Amur leopards would work (with substantial changes to the exhibit, of course), but to my knowledge, Columbus shipped off the two Amur leopards that formerly inhabited the top floor of the sun bear indoor quarters. With a leopard exhibit still present in Congo forest section (albeit home only to a lone female who must be getting up in years), I'm not sure that Columbus needs another leopard subspecies at present (though when the remaining leopard passes, I'd prefer not to see Amur leopards placed in an otherwise African section, which is what I had feared was the plan when the two Amurs were around). Snow leopards could work, but there was a plan to repurpose the old lion exhibits (now home to surplus Amur tigers and the younger mountain lion sibilings) for snow leopards. Other Asian bear species could work, although, as noted above, Asiatic black bears (the best fit) are not available and sloth bears are not overly abundant (and are a less suitable geographic fit). Giant pandas (if available - there have occasionally been whispers that Columbus would add them, even though those rumors have never been very credible or feasible) work in terms of theme, but the exhibit is wholly unsuited for the display of such a marquee species. I'd love to see something unusual and underrepresented in AZA collections take the space - raccoon dogs, though I fully recognize they are almost non-existent in AZA collections at present and unlikely to be phased in. Anyone have any other thoughts? Next time I visit I'll see if I can gather any intelligence on what might be coming....
A little update from another trip to the zoo yesterday: There is now signage for Lady Ross' turacos in the African grey parrot aviary in the Congo: African Forest Adventure region of the zoo. The signage for the buff-crested bustard was no longer there; however, given the season, no birds were outdoors at all, so I cannot comment on whether or not the bustards are still on exhibit with the other two species or if they have been moved elsewhere, etc. The Fly River turtle has been moved to the central tank in the series of large turtle tanks in the Reptile House. There are at least two Siebenrock's snake-necked turtle hatchlings on exhibit in a small tank in the keeper lab; they hatched on November 11th. The black spiny-tailed iguana has been moved into the exhibit formerly inhabited by "Dude" the Gran Cayman iguana that passed away last year; a young Grand Cayman iguana has taken up residence in the former spiny-tailed iguana enclosure. There are several enclosures throughout the building that are closed for renovation.
Thanks for the updates. I believe he change to the species composition in the African grey parrot aviary has been in effect for at least the past year and I believe the signage reflected that . To my recollection, both the bustards and turacos have shared the exhibit with the parrots in the past, though there have been periods when only one of two species was present (and the signage has not always been accurate - I always check for both species, but this past year saw only the turaco). This past season, the bustards (or bustard - I'm not sure how many bustards the zoo has, and I only ever saw one at a time in the aviary) were on exhibit in the nearby walk-through aviary.
You're quite welcome! I have a lab at the zoo every Tuesday for my university work, so they'll be many more to come! And this might very well be true; I just hadn't seen anything posted about it here as of yet, so I thought I would share!
Glad you'll be around to give us updates over the winter - much as I'd like to, I don't make it out much in the winter (due to both the temperatures and the reduced hours). Wish I'd had a class in college that involved weekly visits to a zoo (although a classmate of mine did do her senior thesis on the scarlet ibis's use of space in their exhibit at the Bronx Zoo's Aquatic Birds House, mine just had me toiling away in the library). If you happen upon anyone in the know, I do have a question I've been meaning to ask but have either visited when no one was around to answer or the keepers/docents were too swamped to ask: what is the status of the elephant breeding program? Since Beco's birth, I've heard nothing...
More cute times with the polar bear cub. Watch the growing moments of polar bear cub at Columbus Zoo - WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports
