Cairns/Tipperary Animals » Cairns Wildlife Safari Reserve

Cairns/Tipperary Animals
30-10-2007

Finally I have some information on the animals being held at Mary River Wildlife ranch (a game hunting ranch) as well as the fate of some other animals formerly of tipperary station, destined for Mareeba Wild Animal Park.

At Mary River in the Northern Territory the owner has loarge numbers of Scimtar Horned Oryx, Addax, Letchwe, Nilgai and a few Eland. From what I have heard the Giraffe died of natural causes, he does not have the zebra that he was supposed to have been holding for mareeba, after the death of the first pair, we can probably assume the other two had the same fate. but there is nothing with regards to Tapir still.

30-10-2007

lechwe would be great bas a display animal, and nilgai would be great for out open range zoos, and depending on the inbreeding status of the animals, addax and oryx great for our programs

30-10-2007

Mr Gleeson also paid for and owns all of the animals, none of the animals on his property belong to Mareeba/Cairns Safari

30-10-2007

Hey, Jarkari, I notice you describe the place as a game hunting ranch.

Does that mean that some bloodthirsty boofhead can go out there, pay a lump of money, and then blast some poor addax or oryx to kingdom come?

30-10-2007

so in saying taht, if zoos want them, they will have to pay!

30-10-2007

Ah yes Ara, as far as I can tell. However he only advertises that he hunts more "feral" animals on the property so I can't be 100% sure if the eland addax etc are hunted but that is the general idea of the property. He is willing to sell the animals, or atleast some but won't give them away.

30-10-2007

i still think that in not purchasing all the original tipperay animals, prior to their move to mareeba - the zoos shot themselves a little in the foot.

so okay the asking price would have been high (am i guessing it was close to a million?) however, distributed amongst say zoos victoria, NSW and SA, it was probably affordable. its possible it may have delayed projects at all these zoos, many of teh animals may have been deemed "surplus" anyway and putting together a consortium of zoos may seem easier than it sounds...

BUT....

it would have given the zoos two breeidng pairs of pygmy hippo as well as the group of river hippo that would have been very easily and fairy divided amongst the zoos and no doubt some of teh other ungulates ae of great value also. even if, putting aside the fact that its virtually impossible to import hippo at this stage, which makes teh animals even more valuable a resource to the zoos, the zoos could import their own hippo imagine how much it would have collectively cost them anyway. i bet the would be over the asking price of the aniamls at mareeba..

surplus ungulates could have been on-sold or donated to many of the smaller zoos that would happily accept a herd of addax, oryx or eland for their collections.

and in all liklihood they would never have accidently killed two of the pygmy hippos, meaning that not only would all hippo be in ARAZPA memeber zoos, there would also currently be 3 potential breeding pairs in the region, not two.....

terrible waste of an opportunity. i would have thought such an aquisition be considered top priority.......

30-10-2007

Agreed Patrick. I thought this right at the very start. Also the cheetah at Mareeba, these animals were unrelated to any in the region, from what I was told, making them valuable, we already have too many dewildts cheetah in the country so these guys could have been great additions, along with Hari the Sumtran TIGER, also unrelted, the rhino, the asking price for the park in Cairns with all of the animals it bought from mary River was $2,100,000. not sure if this was the final price but that's what they were asking. now I'm sure they would have spent alot more than that on imports etc plus they could have then sold the property and amde a bit of it back. but they didn't seem to be thinking. On a slightly different note it is possible for private people in NSW to care for these animals on private properties if anyones ever wanted a heard of Oryx or Eland in the backyard. Not an easy thing to do though.

30-10-2007

yes, gill imported unrelated lions, tigers and cheetah taht would have been valuable and of course i forgot all about the rhino.

on second though maybe they (the otehr zoos) happily allowed mareeba to purchase the animals as at that stage the mareeba wild animal park was an associate member of ARAZPA and relationships had not yet turned sour. the other massive supprise was that the irwins disn't buy the animals neither from tipperary or second-hand through david gill - another purchase that would, one would expect, been even more welcomed by the zoos since they are full ARAZPA members and no doubt australia zoo would have engaged very actively within the tag's?

in any event, now a bunch of genetically valuable animals have died and the cairns park STILL hasn't got ARAZPA membership.

30-10-2007

like everyone on this forum i would love to see, at the very least, some of Cairns more valuable animals integrated into the mainstream regional populations, think tapirs, big cats and hippos.
however, im sure this will happen in time. not that many zoo populations do have much time before they crash, but surely the lady who owns Cairns realises that if she is going to invest and in turn make a living from an animal based attraction, that she needs animals.
her zoo is no special case. if she wants to have a business in ten years time she will have to enter into the spirit of regional cooperation, something which im sure will happen once accreditation is acheived.
on Mary River, dont freak. i am quite sure that several international laws do prevent people hunting protected species, think CITES.
and yes, the zoos should have adopted the Tipperary animals, but as Pat pointed out, there was already interest from Australia Zoo and Cairns had applied for ARAZPA membership. hindsight is a great thing

30-10-2007

The Tapir at Tipperary seem to have... vanished... strange

30-10-2007

BANG! BANG! BANG!

(that was teh sound of gunshots echoing from the hunting ranch)

30-10-2007

hmmm well being a game ranh I'm sure a rich yank could afford to have the animals die of "natural causes"...

30-10-2007

maybe the tapir just went else where, i mean, anderson could have given them away. nbo1 would know, as i was speaking with jarjari, tehre was 2200 animals there at tipperary, including many birds, such as macaws i have been told.

30-10-2007

" the giraffe and zebra are long dead"

"The Tapirs WENT to Mareeba Zoo"

Very reliable information yet there is no record of them having arrived on the info memorandum or that they even exist. but that source would no... did they just fall off the back of the truck and nobody noticed?