Zoo Zlín - Lešná announced a successfull rearing of 11 Eastern White Pelican chicks this year. The zoo houses 4.4 adult birds that reproduce annualy (last year they also produced 11 chicks). Eggs are artifially incubated and all chicks hand-reared. As the holding capacity at the zoo is full, all chicks are going to other collections within couple of weeks/months. http://zlinsky.denik.cz/zpravy_.....article in CZ language with a few pictures
From the 4th May will start construction of new facilities for Ethiopian fauna. This will include exhibits for Gellada baboons, hyraxes (daman) and the biggest aviary with steel construction in Czech zoos (length 45 metres, width 27 metres). Vizualizace Etiopie - ZOO Zlín I am really looking forward for it, but still dreaming about real exhibit of Ethiopian fauna with more of their endemics.
Mountain Nyala, Walia Ibex and Ethiopian Wolf would have been really great, but we can only dream about rare Ethiopian endemics
Ethiopia is quite strict when it comes to exporting their native fauna; therefore, one should be content with the interesting representatives we already keep in zoos, like Geladas, Hamadryas Baboons, Northern Warthogs or "Typical African Mammals" like Zebras, Lesser Kudus or Bat-eared foxes that are also part of Ethiopia's fauna. And don't forget privately owned rarities like Bitis parviocula or Thick-billed Raven.
A new walk-through aviaries were opened on the 6th of June. The inhabitants are Ruppell's Vulture in the first and Griffon Vulture in second and Banded Mongoose in other enclosure. I dont know how the aviaries look like but may be the zoo stop wing-clipping of Griffon Vultures as they do when they were in Asian steppe.
Another news is that zoo opened new educational project - plants of the dinosaur era. The aim is to show the "living fossils" from the world of higher plants of Mesozoic era. You can see Araucaria, Sequoia, Metasequoia, Taxodium, Sciadopitys or Ginkgo and some other. P?ipravujeme - ZOO Zlín This is really nice
Well, it is also quite a nice zoo, isn't? Except maybe for the gorillas as well as some other primates-or said griffon vultures...
Zoo Zlin, has become the first zoo in Europe to breed the Chaco tortoise Geochelone chilensis. Czech zoo first in Europe to breed Chaco tortoise | Prague Monitor
Some updates: Births One Brasilian porcupine was born to a pair currently living in the old monkey house. Rotschild giraffe bull Balagun was born this month, there is also a fresh male Arabian oryx calf in the herd. Several bird species bred this year: 3 Mexican military macaws, 2 Grey-headed parrots, 13 White pelicans, 2 Straw - necked ibises, 2 Darwin nandus, 5 Roseate spoonbills, 3 Black-faced ibises Aquisitions a pair of Black-casqued hornbills, two males of Great blue turacos, 2,1 Gambian mongooses, two pairs of Milky storks, five pairs of Painted storks, a nice colony of Spot-billed pelicans, 4 Himalayan griffons, 1,2 Rock hyraxes, Ross´s turacos Construction activity The project Etiopie I. looks to progress well, there is no set opening date yet, but probably July or August. The only bigger project announced for next year is a construction of an „african village of the tribe Konso“, but no animal species mentioned yet. The zoo tries to increase its current space of 52 ha (= 128 acres) by purchasing additional 15-20 ha of adjoining farm land, where new african and asian enclosures are planned (white rhino, antelopes, monkeys, waterfowl).
Are the milky storks the only ones in Europe?, did they come in the same shipment as the painted storks, another nice addition, i am guessing they came from zoo Negara in Malaysia
Yes they all came from Negara (including the pelicans). I believe there is also a milky stork in Timmendorfer Strand(Germany),
Both milky and painted storks came last autumn from Taman Negara / Malaysia after 2 years of preparations. They adapted to their new home very quickly, there were no losses and now they live in a heavilly planted walk-though aviary. Zlin joined SEAZA as an associate member and these birds stay under its breeding coordination. Because Zlin breeds the similar yellow-billed storks regularly, there is a good chance they will replicate it with these 2 new species. The spot-billed pelicans came from three sources: 10 birds from Zoo Mysore /India, 2 birds from Dvur Kralove and 2 birds from Twycross (?? I didn´t know this zoo have some). There was unfortunately one loss, but the rest is OK and they even started to lay first eggs. They are mixed with the storks, it means they live full-winged in an aviary.
@ Jana are you sure that Twycross sent 2 Spot-billed Pelicans,as I`ve only ever seen Pink-backed Pelicans at Twycross and they had 4 on my last visit a few months ago which was the same number they had for all of 2009.If they did have some Spot-billed would love to know where they were hiding them as I never saw them,the last Spot-billed I knew that was in the UK was one at Longleat that lived with their group of Pink-backed.
I´m sure, when Zlin received 2 new birds in February this year, I´ve read a short info about their origin on their web site. I´ll try to contact the zoo to get a confirmation. A mistake can always happen.
Recent transfers have been a pair of Rothschild's giraffe to Badoca safari park in Portugal, and received have been a pair of great Indian hornbill from Singapore zoo.
I see I still owe the answer to the pelicans. Unfortunatelly I can´t confirm my previous statement. The zoo answered me shortly "our spot-billed pelicans came from zoo Mysore" and there came no reaction on my repeated questions if it counts for all of their birds. Recent births/hatches according to their website: 1 siamang 1 red-crowned crane 1 secretary bird 2 greater flamingos 3 Guianan toucanet (Selenidera culik) And some good news on the stork front, both painted and milky storks laid eggs and are incubating them. If they are fertile there may be the first chicks in about 2 weeks.
From the spot-billed pelican front - there were really two pelicans that Zlin received from Twycross, but they were offprings from Dvur Kralove, and most probably they never hit the UK ground, only their ownership changed in this way Dvur - Twycross - Zlin within few weeks. On the stork front - there is one Milky stork chick hatched on 27.July and one Painted stork chick hatched on 3.August. I hope both will be reared.
