Regional collection plans vs. import ban.

16-07-2006

At gorge wildlife park they have i think 4 Black Leopards i don't know if they are africans?

importation of birds etc into Australia
17-07-2006

My understanding is that it is easier for you ( Australia zoos) to obtain birds , and probably most other animals from NZ , due to the extreme , though probably required , biosecurity standards imposed by NZ for wildlife at zoos .
There is alot less risk of getting diseased animals from zoos here .

My understanding ( although I can stand to be corrected ) was that the eggs were seperated from the main batch , and the birds were reared in near quarantine conditions , and then the best ones were selected for the transfer to NZ ( to undergo yet more quarantine ) All in all it was a very long tedious and expensive business .

The following is an extract from the Auckland Zoos website re the whole flamingo import business . Its a pity that the animals cant come in pairs like in Noahs day ! I cannot stress enough the fact that NZs biosecurity laws are Draconian tough ..... this is the sort of thing which has to happen just to get a few birds !

Because of New Zealand’s biosecurity laws, the process of importing these flamingos was a long and complicated one. Auckland Zoo’s Exotic Bird team leader Michael Batty spent several months at Slimbridge Zoo in England, where he saw these chicks through their incubation and hatching, and hand-reared them at this facility for the first two months of their lives. When the chicks were between the ages of 6 and 10 weeks, they were flown to Auckland and quarantined at the Zoo for some weeks before settling into their present enclosure.

17-07-2006

i assume the flamingoes are yet to breed at auckland. i know they are very long lived birds - have they reached sexual maturity yet? when i was in brazil i visited a bird park that was breeding flamingoes despite them being in very small groups. they where experimenting with the use of mirrors to trick the birds into feeling like they where in a larger flock. running the legnth of their mudbank ran a wall of tall mirrored perspex sheets making a slight inwards arc. this slight variation of angles in the mirrors meant that each individual flamingo was reflected in multiple mirrored sheets and thus the flock did not have the illusion of simply being doubled as a flat wall would acheive. instead their appeared to be 5 times as many. tape recordings of calls a large flock of wild birds added to the effect and i was supprised to see that most flamingoes where nesting despite being in a group of maybe only ten or so.

aucklands group at around 18 is quite small and no doubt such a simple an inexpensive technique would work well for them if they are having trouble..

i expect it will be a long time before we can expect any sent here though. since flamingoes practice a "the more the merrier" attitude, breeding better (and arguably looking better) the bigger the flock, most zoos choose to let their flocks grow as big as possible rather that be quick to pass excess birds on.

response
19-07-2006

you are correct Patrick --- the birds are still very young .
My understanding is that they have settled well here in there new home
There have been no big issues with them that couldnt be dealt with to date
Give them a few years ......