@Funky Gibbon: I like your post. (Sing: "It's a long way to Tipperary...") The song is even known in Germany, Switzerland and Austria because of the movie "Das Boot/The Boat".
There's some info on the hippopotami at Tipperary Station on Post #34 of this thread: Common Hippopotami in Australasian Zoos – News, History and Discussion
@Jake, Tipperary Station also had two giraffe: Manyara (M) Born 10 December 1989 at Taronga Zoo Arrived 12 November 1992 at Tipperary Station Fate unknown Mawenzi (M) Born 26 October 1990 at Taronga Zoo Arrived 12 November 1992 at Tipperary Station Died 12 August 1996 at Tipperary Station
What happened to the exotic African animals that once roamed an outback cattle station? - Curious Darwin - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Interesting article on the fates of some of the animals
I believe the river Hippos ended up going to the Cairns Safari zoo along with the Pygmy Hippos bar the one which lived feral for 6 years until it was shot by a pig hunter. They also had Grevys Zebra the only ones in the country
This Facebook post has some fascinating images of animals from Tipperary Station: Harrison Bell The comments on the post and on the individual photos provide some fascinating insights.
The hippopotamus photo is especially interesting as it was taken in 1998, but clearly shows a juvenile hippo. Records state from the initial acquisitions of 2.2 hippos, only two survived - Fonzee (born 1986) and Solucky (born 1987). Records state they had two calves - Cuddles (2002) and Tippi (2004). What this means is that Fonzee and Solucky had an earlier calf (1997 approx) that died; or that one of them died and this calf was the sire or dam of Cuddles and Tippi. I’m inclined to believe the former as there’s little explanation of why two hippopotami would have reached reproductive maturity circa 1990, but produced no offspring for 12 years! Source: Joan Growden
It's great to see photos of the Grevy's Zebras (including the foal!) that used to be in Australia - thanks for sharing.
Interesting. I hadn't twigged that the juvenile hippo in this photo, provided the dating is accurate, is not one we have previously accounted for. In seeking to confirm the parentage of Cuddles and Tippi, and thus rule out your second hypothesis, I looked up the 2006 studbook excerpt which is online: https://aszk.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Mammals.-Common-Hippo-2009RJ.pdf Which doesn't really help matters, as this has no mention of Cuddles, puts Tippi's DOB as 2003 not 2004, and says that Daisy was still alive in 2006 and was transferred to Mareeba. Elsewhere in the document, Mareeba is noted to have 1.2 hippos, with the studbook numbers given those for Solucky, Daisy and (probably) Tippi. Whilst the document was prepared by a TAFE student, I would have no reason to believe that the studbook excerpt is inaccurate, given that it was sourced from official sources at the zoos - as in, that I believe the excerpt is an accurate reflection of the studbook as it was in February 2006 when it was recorded. My only explanation for that would be that, given the challenges - to put it politely - with record-keeping experienced at Tipperary - that the wrong hippo was recorded; however, especially when you take into account that the animals had been at Mareeba for 2 years at that point, and Daisy is thought to have died long before 2006... basically, I don't know.
If I was to hazard a guess, it'd probably be the wrong hippo was put in; and Daisy was noted instead of Cuddles. Daisy definitely died soon after her arrival (there was an article I read on it that concerned the male Werribee sent too). The photo was probably most definitely taken in 1998, given that's the year he used to work at Mareeba. I highly doubt he would confuse the year. I think it's very likely that this was a calf of Solucky's that didn't survive long. Probably not the only one too that was born pre Cuddles/Tippi.
No, you were right the second time. The information contained in the 2006 studbook was incorrect. This was uncovered by an investigation by Tineke Joustra (Auckland Zoo), which was published in the International Zoo News 2010/2011 (Volume 58). The 2.2 Common hippopotamus Cairns Wildlife Safari received were not the same 2.2 Common hippopotamus sent to Tipperary as first thought. 1.0 of the original hippos at Tipperary died between 1982 and 1988; and a further 0.1 died in 1989. It was discovered two calves were born at Tipperary - in September 2002 and February 2004. These had previously gone unrecorded in the studbook. The 2.2 transferred to Cairns in 2004 were therefore: 1.0 Fonzee (1986) Kabete x Faith 0.1 Solucky (1987) Kabete x Snorkel 0.1 Cuddles (2002) Fonzee x Solucky 1.0 Tippi (2004) Fonzee x Solucky The report is here: International Zoo News Volume 58 No.6 November/December 2011 It had previously been assumed that Cuddles was Daisy; when in reality, Daisy died within days of her arrival at Tipperary. The “discovery” of Cuddles was exciting as she was the only remaining descendant of her maternal line in the region, following the (highly regrettable) export of Solucky and Tippi. She now has 1.2 offspring. Yes, that’s correct. According to the article you found, Daisy died days after her transfer. The bull you mention (from Werribee) died in transit, so was never recorded as being at Tipperary i.e. he wasn’t one of the original 2.2 hippopotamus. Tipperary’s second founder bull (in addition to Fonzee) was actually the first bull to arrive on site and came from Dubbo in 1982. He died sometime before the import of Fonzee and Solucky from Auckland Zoo in 1988. Daisy arrived a year later in 1989.
Would recommend reading this thread: Australasian Hippopotamus Population - Discussion, History and Research It includes a summary of the research we completed on the history of the regions hippos and we managed to decipher a lot; although that isn’t to say we also experienced our fair share of discovering wrong information (usually as a result of hippos being mentioned under different names) and also the media just blatantly getting information wrong.
The media throughly led us on a wild goose chase with different names used. Discovering Hilda and Henrietta did not disappear off the face of the Earth, but were rather renamed Lindy and Mumsy was arguably the biggest breakthrough in our research as it enabled us to revise the regional founder list to include nine hippos: 1.0 Dizzie (1898) 1.0 William (1908) 0.1 Rosamund (1909) 1.0 Chaka (1920) 0.1 Fatima (1928) 0.1 Lindy (1948) 0.1 Mumsy (1950) 1.0 Billy (1950) 1.0 Kabete (1953) The quartet sent from Tipperary to Cairns descend from Dizzie, Fatima, Billy, Mumsy and Kabete.
