Edinburgh zoo » Edinburgh Zoo

19-02-2008

It wouldn't surprise me, considering the island at Chester isn't fully utilised and the house is 20 years old. However, Budongo could well turn out like Gorilla Kingdom and be a disappointment (I doubt that though )

Is there any concept plans for Budongo? All I can find is a small image that isn't very distinguishable...

19-02-2008

I think though, that for a while, chester will still have the best group of Chimps...

19-02-2008

I don't think so either. With a decent group of active chimps, which don't just sit around waiting to get back indoors like the London gorillas it should be a winner. I haven't seen any photos of Budongo at all.

I've also noticed how the Chester chimps tend to underuse their island too- rarely climbing the poles etc unless there is a 'punchup'. Usually they just sit along the wall near the indoor area.

19-02-2008

Agreed. It will take Edinburgh a long while to increase their group to equal Chester's in size- as Chimps are slow breeders and slow growers I'd reckon it will take 10 years at least...probably more- unless they add more adults which I doubt somehow.

19-02-2008

If you go to the following link there are plans for the exhibit (they are under copyright)

Planning and Building Standards Portal

19-02-2008

Just read my e-mail from Ian Valentine at Edinburgh, this guy keeps pulling the new animals out of the bag, just arrived this weekend are North American tree porcupine, which i presume will go in the now vacant red panda enclosure. The Japanese serow are going into the vacant takin enclosure and their enclosure will be used for a new group of swamp wallabies, which will be ideal with the koala/Australian aviary right next door.
I had asked him for his reactions to the macaque shooting and the Amur tigers leaving and to both he reacted with "tomorrows chip papers", and i guess that sums it up!
He did acknowledge that there will be a gap when the Amur tigers head north as Sumatran tigers are not available at the moment, and their enclosure will possibly be used by the jaguar or Amur leopard in the short term.

chimps
19-02-2008

as Chimps are slow breeders .....

quote by Pertinax

The ones at Wellington Zoo are anything but !

it must be the continual strong winds in Wellington or something

Edinburgh Chimpanzee group.
19-02-2008

I didn't phrase it very well. Chimps are certainly very free breeders and in a large group like yours at Wellington you can easily get overpopulation.

But Edinburgh are listed with 6.5 and I think that number includes only a couple(?) of breeding females. With long gestation and rearing periods, each can only have (at the very most) around three infants in ten years (that's if all survived)- which only gives an increase of half a dozen or so so, plus maybe also one or more younger females starts to breed during that time.

A target group of 40 Chimpanzees will take Edinburgh an awful long time to achieve with the existing stock (perhaps more like tweny years?). However, if they added (say) six additional females, it would be a different matter. Pity they can't have the Dudley Zoo chimps(6/7 all female...)

20-02-2008

Does Edinburgh Zoo keep mixed/hybrid chimpanzees or 1 of 3 recognized subspecies (the latter have more conservation value breeding wise)?

20-02-2008

A group of 40 chimps would be a site all living together hopefully like chester mixed age ranges - regarding gelda babbons how many have they got and the sex ratio ?

20-02-2008

Jelle- I'm not absolutely certain but I'm pretty sure they are mixed race as some of them are 'old stagers' which have been there a long time and they originate from different sources.

I believe EEP recommendations are only to breed West African (P.t.verus) chimps nowadays?- but I don't think zoos in the Uk follow this- they nearly all have mixed race animals in their breeding groups. There are very few (if any), pure 'verus' individuals among them I'd guess.

I wondered if this recommendation was why Dudley Zoo have not obtained any new males. The 6/7 females (originally London's breeding group) have remained unbred ever since they moved to Dudley a number of years ago- there was an original Dudley male living with them to start with but he died without breeding with any of them, and he has never been replaced. It was their orginal intention to build their group up to 30+ animals so I'm puzzled by their attitude here.

20-02-2008

It would seem just that chimps of mixed race are no longer allowed to breed and on "phase out" eventually. Sure sounds clinical ..... though! However, I strongly feel that zoos must not seek out the times where lions were allowed to breed indiscriminately to the point where we today can not for sure say if most African lion (98%) is of mixed ssp.

These mixed chimps can still serve a purpose as ambassadors for their species. The closest to Homo sapiens of all the Great Ape species. And also to attract much needed cash for the African Sanctuaries project which supports great ape protection in the field.

I however do hope that given the Bushmeat Crisis in Africa, confiscated chimps of known provenance can be relocated to zoos both inside and outside Africa. Thus breeding groups of all chimp subspecies could be build up. Besides new genetic testing is making it easier on managers to distinguish between the different subspecies (the prime technique is only able to differentiate the verus out of the rest). Newer techniques of DNA sampling are more promising in this respect.

If only some UK zoos would make the effort to build up pure bred subspecies groups that would be something. Currently, most are not even allowed to breed, unless that is you talk of the MonkeyWorld Ape Rescue where they are not really interested in the latter issue at all (actually breeding is not even their prime focus in an endangered species).

20-02-2008

Hasn't Chester stopped breeding their chimps now (at least for the time being)? I assumed that it was to control the group number, but I guess now that it could be related to only breeding the western subspecies...

20-02-2008

... so how can Edinburgh stay within these guidelines but still work to increase their chimp group to 40?

20-02-2008

Maybe they intend to bring in some new females and 1 or 2 young males from the verus subspecies. They could try to integrate them into the current group and only allow reproduction for the new, purebred animals, by using vasectomie on the other males and putting the mixed females on the pill. Or maybe they plan to bring in a group of verus chimps, but keep both groups seperated indefinately? Not sure this is possible with the new enclosure, though.