Toronto Zoo Toronto Zoo - Canada's Largest Zoo

Here's something that I cut and pasted from the Toronto Zoo website...as it's their big 2008 exhibit opening:


New Great Barrier Reef Exhibit Opens May 16, 2008:

The Toronto Zoo will offer visitors a newly refurbished Australasia Pavilion featuring the much anticipated NEW Great Barrier Reef Exhibit. All FREE with admission to the Toronto Zoo.

The pavilion has undergone renovations to include new exhibits for the echidna and hairy-nosed wombats. These animals move into their 1,300 square foot, newly expanded exhibits, plus new outdoor viewing area! Also returning will be Doni and Loka our Komodo Dragon couple, a Tree Kangaroo and Kookaburra, Black Tree Monitor and Green Tree Python.

New marine exhibits have been built to feature the beautiful and enchanting Great Barrier Reef, one of the Wonders of the World and a World Heritage Site.

The centerpiece of this exhibit is the Great Barrier Reef Community Tank. Over 23 feet in length (7m) and at 32,000 litres it offers over 1,000 reef fish such as Bamboo Shark, Parrot and Angel Fish, and all are set within a colourful coral reef display. Also new to the Zoo will be a Moon Jelly Fish, Australian Sea Horse and live Coral Reef Exhibits.

This new underwater wonderland, teeming with a dazzling variety of marine life, will literally surround you and your family with clouds of hypnotically colourful reef fish moving through crystal clear waters, a perfect environment created by the latest technologies. Interpretive signage will support this new and exciting area offer visitors a chance to learn how important the Great Barrier Reef and it's inhabitants are to the diversity of life.

 

Here at ZooBeat many of us discuss the vast sums of money that are utilized in building multi-million dollar exhibits. The Toronto Zoo is currently seeking a sum of $250 million, including almost $50 million that will be used exclusively for conservation.
Here is the article:

More room for the elephants, a new education learning centre, and funding for research into the lives and possible longevity of polar bears are some of the things that $250 million could buy the Toronto Zoo.

And late last month, the Toronto Zoo board voted to ask its foundation to try and raise that money in an ambitious quarter-billion-dollar fundraising campaign mirrored on successful private-and-public sector campaigns waged by the Ontario Art Gallery and the Royal Ontario Museum in recent years.

The plan, approved at the Feb. 28th, 2008 meeting of the Toronto Zoo board, must still meet with the Toronto Zoo Foundation's approval. If it goes ahead, it will mean the foundation will attempt to raise $250 million in the space of five years - with a $50 million initial campaign kicking off immediately.

The money will go to several projects within and outside the zoo. The largest sum, $107.8 million, will go to redeveloping the north zoo site, the animal health centre and increasing the size of the elephant paddock. The zoo wants to spend $21.5 million on an education learning centre and $24.1 million on improving and renovating the aging structures around the zoo.

The plan would also see $46.6 million going to various conservation efforts around the world: a conservation endowment fund, that would help preserve endangered species; a reproductive physiology endowment fund, to find ways to better breed animals in captivity; and a chair of veterinary medicine, to help train veterinarians specializing in exotic animals.

 

I'm really looking forward to all of this! I've been excited about the new tundra exhibit since I first heard of it being planned years ago.

 

Although the May 16th opening date has been set for the Great Barrier Reef, the project is still under heavy construction and may not be fully complete for the opening. I was able to walk through the pavilion a few weeks ago (I work at the zoo), and thought I would post a little preview:

For those familiar with the zoo's Australasia Pavilion, the Barrier Reef has been built in the location of the old Edge of Night. The initial entry way is similar (the White's tree frog exhibit is still present), but as you round the bend to where the Leadbeater's possum/Sugar glider/Frogmouth exhibits you pass through an orientation area before turning again into the row of tanks. The big tank backs onto the frog exhibit (more-or-less where the echidna/bettong exhibit was), with the other tanks being on the opposite wall (more-or-less in place of the old wombat exhibits). The pavilion has a new exit here, which will eventually pass by the outdoor wombat/wallaby exhibits. (The new indoor exhibits for these species are where the swamp wallaby and lorikeet/cockatoo aviary was).

The tanks are currently in place, but aren't set up yet (it is estimated that the big tank will take several weeks just to fill with fish-friendly artificial sea water!), and all of the fish are at the zoo in quarantine, waiting for moving day!

 

Welcome to Zoobeat Ungulate,

Any news on the Indian rhinos at the zoo

 

Thanks for the welcome, Mark.

There are presently two Indian rhinos at the Toronto Zoo, a young male "Vishnu" from the Bronx Zoo (sired by Toronto Zoo's first male Indian rhino "Vinu") and a young female "Ashakiran" from Buffalo Zoo. Neither are sexually mature at the moment (they are both less than five years old), and I do not believe they have been introduced yet.

Our breeding female "Indira" (originally from Mysore) passed away this past July.

Here's a quick update on our Toronto-born rhinos:
"Nikki", the first Indian rhino born at the zoo, is currently at the Cincinnati Zoo. "Sanjay" (our second calf, a male) is presently at the Bronx Zoo, and our last rhino calf "Sanya" just had a calf of her own at the Wilds in Ohio.

 

@ Ungulate and/or Meaghan Edwards

Is the Toronto Zoo still planning a Madagascar exhibit in the near future? I for one am shocked that they currently do not have any lemurs!



Also... welcome to the forums Ungulate ! I hope you stay long enough to provide all of us with whatever insight we might glean from you.

 

Ah, a local Torontonian! That is great!

Much as I love my rhinos (lol), can you tell us more about the Toronto's Zoo current plans?

It would be nice to learn a little more in-depth about the zoo's involvement with local species recovery programmes, especially those for Vancouver island marmots, kit foxes and black-footed ferrets!!!

Do you know anything about the progress with AI in the African elephant herd at Toronto?

Thanx,

Jelle

 

Thanks for the updates! Always eager to hear new developments.

I heard of Indira's passing in the zoo's member's magazine. Very sad What a terrific animals she was.

 

Re: Madagascar
I have heard absolutely nothing about any sort of Madagascar exhibit ... it would be so far in the future as to not be worth talking about! (Technically, the zoo DOES have lemurs, but they are all out on loan to other institutions).

The main projects currently underway are:

Australasia renovation/Great Barrier Reef - opening May 2008
(Special exhibit for summer 2008 is "Stingray Bay")

"North Site Redevelopment"
Phase 1: The Tundra (polar bears, reindeer, maybe snowy owl/wolverine) - presently under construction, to open in 2009

Phase 2: Boreal Forests (moose, wood bison, Grizzly bears, VImarmots, among others)

Phase 3: Eurasia

The North Site project will probably take 10 years to fully complete. There is some talk of getting giant pandas, but whether this is actually feasible is under debate (I suspect that it won't happen).

We are currently (Feb 2008) starting the initial design phases for an expanded elephant complex, including a large indoor space where the herd can be together (and on display) year-round and an expanded outdoor paddock. They will hopefully start construction in 2009, and finish in 2011(?).

There are currently no plans to breed our elephants (we presently hold 0.6 Africans). A few years ago (2005ish), we did reproductive assessments on our two best candidates: "Tequila" (~36 years old) and "Thika" (now 27 - the first African elephant born in Canada). Tequila has had two calves ("Thika" and "Tumpe") and cycles regularly, but had uterine pathology which would have prevented or complicated pregnancy. Thika was reproductively sound, but has never had a calf. Just after the assessments were done, the TAG made the recommendation that nulliparous cows over 23 (at the time of conception) not be bred, due to high calf and cow mortality. The zoo has decided not to take the risk with Thika, so we are not planning to do any breeding in the near future (until we get some "new" elephants).

In regards to the Canadian Conservation programs, they are separate from the main branch of animal care, but I do know that ferret breeding season has commenced, and that we have had a "bumper crop" of Vancouver Island marmot pups this spring! (FYI, we are not involved in any kit fox programs)

 

Thanks for that great information, Ungulate, and welcome to ZooBeat! I'm really glad to hear how the VIMarmot/Black Footed Ferret program is doing.

Just a few questions here:

Do you know of any new mammalian species which will be coming to the zoo, aside from the possible wolverine?

Are there any plans to breed the dholes again?

 

New mammals: The only one I can think of off-hand is the potential to acquire a pair of babirusa. This was proposed and approved at the last SSP meeting, but I do not know where it stands now (if they did arrive, they would likely live with the gibbons). There are also plans to get a female tapir to pair up with Tanuck ...

I don't know the plans for the dhole. John (the breeding male) died, which makes producing more pups problematic. I'm not sure if anything will be done soon about bringing in a new male, or if they will wait until Eurasia is re-vamped. (The two young males born two summers ago, currently living in Peterborough, are fully related to our females, and they may be moving to The Wilds)

 

Thanks!

I think Babirusa would make an excellent addition to TZ, if they come. They are so unusual.

 

Source, with video link as well

 

Great Barrier Reef

A quick update on the Australasia pavilion renovations:

The big tank is now full of water and has cycled ... fish have been moving in all of this week. The tanks in the former fish part of the pavilion are now mostly empty, with the exception of two bamboo sharks that are still in tank 3. When the Barrier Reef opens, these old tanks will be used to expand the display of Australasian invertebrates, notably by exhibiting yabbies (Australian crawfish).

The stingrays for Stingray Bay are set to arrive at the zoo in a week's time.

The murals are complete in the mammal exhibits, and the glazing work (for the glass roof) is nearing completion.

 

Australian crawfish........that's so funny. They're just yabbies. LOL

If i ever had a zoo not in australia i would have a display with an opera house yabby net in a tank full of "australian crawfish." And like twice a day a keeper will empty it out and visitors can pick them up and learn about them.

 

Tassie Devils

When I visited Toronto Zoo in 2000, there were a pair of Tassie Devils in the Australian Pavilion. What happened to them??

 

@Newzooboy: I'm just guessing here, but the tasmanian devils must have died out by now and Toronto must have decided against importing any more of the species. Those little critters only live a few years, which is disappointing as they are such fascinating creatures.

 

Yep, the last Tasmanian Devil in North America died at the Fort Wayne Zoo in Indiana a few years back. I believe Toronto bred them at one time, right?