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Sydney Zoo $36 million zoo with roaming African animals planned for Blacktown

Discussion in 'Australia' started by Astrobird, 7 Sep 2015.

  1. DavidBrown

    DavidBrown Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I've looked through this thread and not seen the answer, but where did they get the bull shark? Did they go out and capture one from the wild? Will this be the only Australian facility exhibiting bull sharks?
     
  2. WhistlingKite24

    WhistlingKite24 Well-Known Member 10+ year member Premium Member

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  3. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    I don't know the answer to this, but the most likely situation is that they caught one from the wild. Most sharks are wild-caught (generally speaking), and Bull Sharks are found naturally in the rivers of tropical Australia so obtaining one would be "relatively" easy for an Australian aquarium.
     
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  4. MRJ

    MRJ Well-Known Member 15+ year member Premium Member

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    Bull sharks can be found in the Parramatta River, just up the road from Sydney Zoo. Aquariums do not seem to have the same take from the wild problems zoos do.
     
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  5. WhistlingKite24

    WhistlingKite24 Well-Known Member 10+ year member Premium Member

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    Sydney Zoo has now received Eyelean the giraffe from Monarto.
     
    Last edited: 5 Dec 2019
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  6. Shirokuma

    Shirokuma Well-Known Member

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  7. Brum

    Brum Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    I see your point, aren't all zoos built from scratch to start with? :confused:
     
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  8. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    You have to be a bit careful with news reports. The "it's never been done before" from Burgess may not even be in relation to the reporter's "opening a zoo from scratch" comment. It does sound like something he would say about the opening of the zoo, but it may not be being used accurately by the editor of the clips.
     
    Last edited: 6 Dec 2019
  9. Andrew Swales

    Andrew Swales Well-Known Member

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    We certainly did it at Hamerton in 1990. Admittedly the Zoo only had lemurs, marmosets, meerkats, wallabies and birds on day one, but all the services, shops, loos, car-park etc (and a Zoo Licence) were all in place. The site had been a wheat-field until just a year before - every blade of grass and plant was new too. The animals were re-housed from our private collection which remained off-show, but every stick in the zoo was new and 'from scratch'.
     
  10. WhistlingKite24

    WhistlingKite24 Well-Known Member 10+ year member Premium Member

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  11. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I am just wondering if the Sydney zoo might look at obtaining Hippo in the future after the Hippo IRA is completed, I believe it was one of the species that was wanted at the start?, I believe one of the current exhibits was made for this reason and has currently another species living in it.
     
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  12. Zoofan15

    Zoofan15 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Yes, the original plan was to exhibit Common hippopotamus.

    Then in 2018, they were replaced on the map by Bison and Capybara (see first map); which eventually resulted in a Dromedary camel exhibit being built on this spot (see second map).

    They don’t have the space to build an exhibit for them now without phasing out another species and remodelling their exhibit.

    It would be an extremely expensive acquisition (renovation, import and upkeep), so I have no doubt they’ll see sense and leave the exhibiting of this species to the open range zoos.

    2018 Plan:
    upload_2022-10-20_10-45-15.jpeg
    2022 Map:

    upload_2022-10-20_10-47-1.jpeg
     
  13. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I understand what you have said. They were one of the species of interest from the beginning, Hippos would be a much bigger drawcard than camels I believe.
     
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  14. Zoofan15

    Zoofan15 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Common hippopotamus would indeed be a huge drawcard - especially compared to camels.

    While none of the other main city zoos in the region would consider it given they’ve all phased out Common hippopotamus for space reasons, it’s worth considering Sydney Zoo imported elephants (which went against the regional trend of phasing these out of city zoos) - so I agree it can’t be completely discounted.

    It would also give them another edge over Taronga Zoo - which lacks the Cheetah, Spotted hyena, African wild dog, Sumatran orangutan and Hamadryas baboon that Sydney Zoo hold.
     
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  15. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    The other option would be Pygmy hippos :D
     
  16. Zoofan15

    Zoofan15 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    That'd be the perfect compromise. I imagine Sydney Zoo would be very low down on the list for receiving one given the priority will be on finding mates for the existing unpaired Pygmy hippopotamus, but the long awaited Hippopotamus IRA would allow them to import - or receive an Australasian bred hippo after the bredding programme kicks off again.
     
  17. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Since they have imported so many of the animals now, including 2 young bull elephants I don't believe a pair of Pygmy hippos is going to throw them to much. ;)
     
  18. Zoofan15

    Zoofan15 Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Yes, they’ve imported several of their species from international zoos - which long term will be an asset to our regional breeding programmes.

    The Pygmy hippopotamus (if imported) would likely come from Europe. Most of our imports come from Europe and Asia - in part due to North America being time consuming to arrange an import from; and also due to some of our regional populations being managed via the European breeding programme.