Baby hippo at werribee » Werribee Open Range Zoo

14-04-2008

You've got that right. On the contrary it's been a while now and i still haven't been able to find out the gender of the hippo calf.

14-04-2008

Brindabella is the same age as Primrose the mother of Tulip and the new calf. I have read the Brindabella did kill another hippo but it didn't say the individual. It is most likely what jay said is that Brindabella and Harry just don't get on. or Harry has been mating with Brindabella and she just hasn't got pregnant which is unlikely.

14-04-2008

i'm very confused - since i'm sure i heard it was primrose who killed brindabella's calf. in fact i distinctly remember seeing that rove mcmanus joke on his show about how they only sponsored killer animals such as primrose.

in any event if brindabella is unrelated to other breeding hippo in australia, then she should continue to be bred, whether their is a history of calf mortality or not.

if the above is correct and the issue is that she doesn't get along with harry, then werribee should be making arrangements for her to be mated to another male asap.

remember - werribee zoo have two empty off-display hippo paddocks/dams...

14-04-2008

That you for that info so the cold-blooded killer is Primrose and sorry Brindabella. No wonder they don't put the two together. If Harry did breed with Brindabella once there is a very high chance that Harry with mate with her again. And probably Brindabella will raise the calf alone. How recent was Brindabella's calf death?

14-04-2008

May 2002 hippos at Werribee. Both primrose and Brindabella had a calf. Primroses was just 2 weeks old and Brindabellas15 months. Primrose crushed her calf to death (rolled on it) and then two weeks later she and the male killed the Brindabellas calf.

14-04-2008

That's harsh. Poor Brindabella. Her mate and her housemate turned against her.

I wonder though, in the wild male hippos kill calves that aren't their offspring but wasn't the calf Harry's?

P.S Thanks you info

14-04-2008

thanks jay! thats right, what i heard! she "killed" two calfs.

if thats the case then it means.

a)harry and brindabella are a compatible pair
b)brindabella is fertile and breedable
c)brindabella has at some stage gotten a recommendation to breed (unless it was an accidental pairing), and
d) that brindabella is not a bad mother that we know of.

so the question is... why has she never had another calf?

14-04-2008

Possiblity that Harry mated with her but she hasn't got pregnant. Or There is a possiblity that after Primrose and Harry killed the calf, Harry has just lost interest. But true Brindabella isn't the bad mother that we have talked about, can realate to her being bullied and beaten.

14-04-2008

I know that hippos in the wild live in herds (pods? mobs? groups?) and so people prefer to see them in the same way in zoos, but in view of their scarcity in this region every individual is vital. Females should therefore be housed individually and the male introduced to them under supervision to maximise the chances for any resultant young.

Hippos in the wild kill each others babies. It is negligent to allow them to do so in captivity.

14-04-2008

This birth is five years after the last. I wonder why it has been so long?
Maybe Werribee was waiting for the new exhibit to be built.

15-04-2008

So are you saying that males kill their own offspring?
by the way a group of hippos is a pod or a herd

15-04-2008

No, I'm not saying that males deliberately kill their own offspring, but hippos are quite rough with each other and in the confined space of a zoo enclosure accidents can happen. It's not a situation that should be risked in this region - every individual is too important. I have seen chilling footage of a male hippo catching and killing a young one in the wild. It was brutal. Also, there was an incident in a British zoo where a half grown male killed his own mother.

I know that it's unnatural to keep them singly (hell, its "unnatural" to keep them in zoos, if you want to be a purist) and when we build up the numbers in this region is the time to keep them in pods or herds. (Thanks for that pods/herds stuff, too.)

15-04-2008

hippos are said to not form permanent bonds in the wild, though clearly they are social animals, choosing to more often than not at form loose aggregations.

certainly too they are aggressive animals, and fights can easily turn fatal especially in the confined spaces of zoos where the submissive animal cannot get away from the dominant one.

thus, i think the answer is to respond to their "loose" lifestyle with an equally "loose" policy in zoos. do whatever works.

"kubu river" at werribee works well for this reason. it has 3 separate exhibits that appear to be in the one stretch of river. the zoo's hippo are in constant visual and audible range from eachother but are separated due to their history of incompatibility and for controlled breeding reasons. i doubt very much they feel "lonely". the mother/calf bond between primrose/tulip is strong and thus these two are kept together. so long as they don't ever fight or tulip fight with the new calf this may as well remain.

flexibility. seems the answer to everything when it comes to animals.

my hope for the future is that werribee eventually get another male from cairns, who they breed with brindabella and tulip. meanwhile harry and primrose can move back to the drive-through dams.

its got a really great setup.

15-04-2008

This stress you talk about is fascinating. Hippos yes willget stress under condistions of a zoo but will they get so stress that they will kill another hippo. Or do they simply become so aggresive that they don't control their actions such as when and elephant bull goes into Musth.

15-04-2008

Can you tell me more about this hippo coming down from Cairns?