East Anglia Zoos Update » Africa Alive!

15-04-2008

I would imagine that indicates they are longdistance travellers at night in the wild- so imitate this behaviour by pacing behaviour in confined conditions.

Look at Golden Hamsters at night in their tiny cages, they are frenetically active and undoubtedly majorly stressed by confinement as again they are long distance travellers at night.

Fossas at Marwell
15-04-2008

Have to say I have never seen any pacing of Fossas in the large enclosure at Marwell. Originally the male was kept mostly in the smaller enclosure at the end (now housing the male otters) and he seemed to continuosly pace, which I assumed was because he wanted to get to the female.

16-04-2008

I have watched 'Forsell' the male fossa at Colchester quite closely (attempting to photograph him). At first glance, he appears to pace around his enclosure; but his movements are not stereotyped because each time he 'starts a new lap' the track he follows is slightly different, he pauses in different places and branches off from his typical route quite frequently. Which makes him very hard to photograph
Their female (imaginatively called 'Fossa') just curls herself into a ball and sleeps.

Alan

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11-06-2008

Banham zoo have announced the birth of a western grey gentle lemur, along with a black howler monkey, a ring tailed lemur, Goeldi's monkey, pygmy marmoset, golden headed lion tamarin and twins to the golden lion tamarin and emperor tamarin.

11-06-2008

Africa alive have announced the births of a pair of twin serval, and a straw coloured fruit bat, bringing the colony there to 11.

11-06-2008

Great news all around then.

21-07-2008

This thread should go in the general UK zoos section as it refers to Banham & Thrigby as well as Africa Alive.