as 2008 draws nearer I thought it might be a good chance for us to reflect on what major things happened in Australasian zoos in 2007, particularly with reference to exotic species. to get the ball rolling.... binturong born at Taronga Zoo death of female Indian Rhino at WPZ death of chimpanzee and orangutan birth of red pandas at Taronga Zoo birth of Dhole (2 litters) export of gorillas to Japan and Europe import of sun bear pair from Cambodia to Perth death of Betsy the gorilla at Melbourne Zoo birth of hyeana and lions at Monarto Zoo birth of orangutan at Perth Zoo death of elephant at Perth Zoo birth of Ruffed Lemurs and WC Gibbon at Perth Zoo transfer of ring-tailed Lemur from Christchurch New Zealand to Australia Zoo birth of ring-tailed lemurs at Orana Wildlife Park birth of two giraffes at Auckland Zoo transfer of white rhino between Auckland and Hamilton Zoo import of Snow Leopard to Melbourne Zoo (07?) transfer of African Lions from Cairns to Perth transfer of Pygmy Hippo from Adelaide and Melbourne Zoos to Taronga transfer of meerkats from Mogo Zoo to Taronga Zoo secured loan of Giant Panda between Chinese Government and Adelaide Zoo birth of Sun Bear at Wellington Zoo import of cheetah from Africa to Christchurch New Zealand export of New Zealand bred Red Panda to the USA birth of chimpanzee at Wellington Zoo
have fun guys. am expecting plenty of info to be added on, particularly from Melbourne Zoo. could also use this thread as a tool to guage the overall status of phase-out species in the region.... the death of a a Syrian Brown Bear at Cairns, for example, leads this group closer to regional extinction (yay)
Not positive but I think that there were two births of WC Gibbons at Perth. Also wasn't the transfer of two female white rhinos from Perth to Orana this year. Also the death of Ricky the giraffe at Wellington. Trtansfer of cheetahs between Hamilton and Orana
new exhibits, GSO, frog exhibit taronga, new giraffe at welligton, new interactive hospital at auckland
ground broken on melbournes new marine precinct. completion of tarongas great southern oceans exhibit arrival of 2 new leopard seals at taronga introduction of new fiordland penguin at taronga importation to taronga and melbourne and and export from melbourne of goodfellows tree kangaroos
birth of white lions at Mogo birth of two golden lion tamarins at Mogo. return of de brazzi guenons to Taronga
Leopard seals in Taronga?? That's amazing! I didn't know this specie was kept in captivity!! Do you know if any other park in Australia or NZ has this specie? Was there any breeding?
nope, taronga is the only zoo with them, i believ in the world, a female who arrived in the nities, and 2 who amazingly were washed ashore within days of each other. taronag now has 1 male, and 2 females.
Glyn sees the death of a syrian bear at Cairns during the year as cause for celebration, as it leads the species closer to regional extinction. I on the other hand see it as further evidence of the impoverishment of Australasian zoos. (We're all different, I suppose.) (You can fill all those empty enclosures with sun bears, but good luck getting them to breed.)
i do look forward to the day when the only bear species in Australian zoos are either Sun Bears, Giant Panda or Polar Bears. i dont think focusing almost exclusively on a highly endangered species is a sign of impoverishment, rather common sense. but i think we place different expectations on the objectives of zoos.
You're right mate, it does come down to the objectives of zoos. Do zoos exist only for the propagation of endangered species? Obviously that is their most important purpose, but aren't display and education also legitimate objectives? Brown bears are the "classic" bears as far as most people are concerned, and the public enjoy seeing them. While Aussie zoos are doing the right thing focussing on sun bears, I don't think the display of a couple of old browns like Bethel and Cynthia at Taronga is going to break the bank. Sun bears are a paradox; give them a big, interesting enclosure and they don't breed. Give them a boring little cage and they seem to breed. Didn't Wellington zoo breed them in a fairly basic cage? I know that back in the seventies Fort Worth zoo bred them several times in what was described as concrete floored chain link pens each 6 metres long and 3.6 metres wide.
welll obviously ara its not that keeping them in a small cage is what works. there is no doubt a whole bunch of other unseen factors here at work, such as the desighn or acess to maternity dens, sense of security, pairings that at compatable etc... they breed in the jungle and therefore a large enclosure could only be of benifit. secondly, you say keeping a few brown bears wouldn't break the bank. okay true. but how are we going to do that? keep just a few? most of the brown bears in our region are of different subspecies and many more are elderly. shall our zoos spend money on importing just a few more so we breed them with what we have, maybe just enough to maintain the species in just 2 or 3 zoos? if our zoos did that would you not then whinge about why we didn't have a "proper" breeding program for brown bears? you know what? display isn't enough for me to justify zoos. i certainly think that it is something many zoos still prioritise over conservation breeding, i think that its an attitude that is still MASSIVELY entrenched in foundations of the industry, but to me that alone is not good enough. why? because nearly everything is endangered now thats why. and compromising captive breeding for display is detrimental to efforts to breed endangered species in captivity. i think it fair to generalise and say that probably more animals would be successful at breeding in captivity if they had a bit more privacy and exhibits that were designed entirely for them with no consideration to public viewing whatsoever. i understand the power of education and think its okay to display endangered animals for that purpose, but i don't think its okay to pretend its all about conservation when clearly its not ALL about that at all. keeping 2 or 3 brown bears is not about conservation, and its not really about education either. personally i don't believe simply viewing an animal is enough to teach people anything. i mean there is another thread here devoted to just how many of us have heard someone mistake a tapir for an anteater. i firmly believe that, take out keeper presentations and interpretives (which many zoos are still in short supply of) and people don't learn a damn thing! for the most part zoos of the past have not, taught the majority of the public a damn thing about animals, and there are countless species that they have done nothing at all to preserve - al thanks to the mindset that its okay to keep animals just for display. how can we present brown bears alongside a conservation message when the zoo itself does not breed them or consider them a priority for its conservation dollars? so i think this - if we are going to keep brown bear, do it properly. if we can't, (and as we all know we can't keep EVERYTHING), then don't. its better we allocate those resources - food, keeper time, money, enclosure (and don't underestimate that in a region constantly concerned with lack of space) and the publics viewing time (and thats also important, so long as we continue to rethink how we present animals), to another species, more in need of our support......like sunbears. and sunbears ARE in much more need of our support than brown bears are. they are neither properly established in captivity and much more nedangered in the wild. in a region that also harbours a plethora (theres that word again glyn) of other equally endanged species. for the record i am very fond of brown bears and i don't think australian zoos ever did them much justice in how there were displayed/presented. by phasing them out however to make more space, its the beginning of a much more committed attitude to sunbears, one that will hopefully be much more benificial to the bears themselves.
thankyou pat. for the record i too love brown bears, in the same way that i love jaguars and indian rhinos and african elephants and clouded leopards. but if zoos are to maximise any potential conservation objectives, even with only a relative handful of species, then sadly big diverse collections are not the way to acheive this. anyway, back to the main thread... an african elephant at WPZ died an importation plan for an African elephant in New Zealand into Australia was approved any more WPZ news? particularly on the rhino front.....
I love the way you and patrick always spring to each other's defence, Glyn. Sorry to harp but I can't just let this go; so what the pair of you are saying is that there is NO justification for keeping animals in zoos unless it is for conservation breeding purposes. The way I see it is there are a number of animal species in our zoos which seem to be there primarily for display purposes. Examples? Nile hippo; African lion. (Lets face it, neither of these species stands or falls on the efforts of Australian zoos.)If what you say is correct, we shouldn't bother with them.
I remember the birth of Johari and Asali (Taronga's african lion cubs) was much more highly celebrated and publicised than the birth a few months later of the Sumatran Cubs, proving your point Ara. And Australia zoos motto "Conservation Through Exciting education" So some zoos realise that education plays a much stronger role in conservation that breeding programs. And I'm not saying they should abandon programs just stating some facts. Australia Zoo opens Primate Division
