animals you might like from NZ not that I can export you any animals , but it will be good if you can get any of the following ; Birds ; Kiwi , tui , morepork , weka , kea , rifleman Other ; tuatara , giant weta , kauri snail , click beetle and please feel free to take back as many opposums back to Australia with you !
no thats okay - we don't really like brushtail possums much either. they are forever making a belching noise in the euclyptus tree outside my house each night - whilst they argue with chattering flying foxes. basically it makes for a very noisy night. by day its scretching lorikeets fighting with the resident wattlebirds. i suppose gum trees are prime real estate in the city. i wonder why possums have become such a huge problem in NZ and not australia. i can't actually think of any major 'predators' as such of possums. its not like we have many quolls (marsupial 'cats') left in the wild. i would love a NZ exhibit in australia. i have often wondered why we don't have more of eachother fauna on display - i'm supprised their aren't any koalas at auckland zoo....
koalas at Auckland Zoo Even though there are Eucalypts growing within Auckland Zoo , I am unsure if they are the variety that koalas prefer to eat the leaves .... But I would love to see freshwater crocs , thorny devil and thorned lizards and we now have no more camels or dromederies of any description ... If you can find a camel with attitude , it can replace Cairo ....... but it has to think it is a human . I also have never seen a wombat in NZ zoos , but that might change soon .....
so there are no camels in NZ at all any more? thats supprising since not only are they comnsidered livestock here, we have the only truly wild dromedary herds left in the world - and they are virtually disease free. we round them up and export them to the middleast.
animals not in NZ zoos Patrick -- correct . Sahara was the last camel in NZ . She was in Hamilton Zoo and died of natural causes ( old age ) not long after Cairo in Wellington had to be put down ...... whether one could assume Cairo was 100% camel -- he thought he was human -- could be debated , but there are definately no camels left anywhere in NZ Auckland lost its camel a few years ago due to complications in surgery . I dont believe Orana Park has ever had camels at any time ( but I could be wrong ) but there are definately zero camels in NZ at this point of time While I am here , think of opossums as being wolverines , or feral cats or similar to that . There are a few places where there are oppossums in captivity , but generally they are a noxious feral pest . They also eat so much vegetation of the trees ( including bark , twigs , shoots etc ) to such a degree that the tree never recovers , and dies . Thus becomes an unsuitable home for other birds . Kiss goodbye to 30 tonnes of vegetation a night ( mainly from native trees ) and you start to get the picture of oppossum damage . Rabbits might also appear to be innocuous , but I think they have become a pest sometime in Australias history ? Same story in NZ , but oppossums are a far bigger niusance here . Zoo Youth Ben ; There may have been wombats at Auckland Zoo on a temporary basis , or quite some time ago . There are certainly none there now
Kunekune pigs Do you have them in Australia ? Hamilton Zoo displays them . I dont know what their scientific name is , but if you dont know what I am talking about , check out this site ; Kunekune - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia They are really friendly as far as pigs go
hi nigel. since kunekune pigs are domestic pigs their latin name would be sus scrofa, like all other domestic pig beeds. i'm not entirely sure of their origin, though if they came with the ancetors of the maori's then they are probably similar to all the other pacific pig breeds. their was some interesting research done into the DNA of pigs in the pacific recently, using them as an analogy for the disperal of the first humans in teh pacific region. from memory all pacific pigs came from a domestic breedin in vietnam. but i have no idea if kunekunes were included in this study. as far as i know this breed is not available in australia.
I have seen Kune kune pigs regularly in petting zoos and open farms over here. Chester used to have them in the Children's zoo.
i do think it is sad that australians do not have the right like us europeans and americans to go to a zoo and see a wide variety of animals, there should be an exemption for zoos to import endangered animals. I would like to see the following animals inported to australia to boost existing populations bongo, indian rhino, greater kudu, congo buffalo, sable antelope, pygmy hippo, persian onager, francois langur, javan gibbon. New species to compliment existing exhibits and climate of the zoos, such as somali wild ass, phillipine deer, lowland nyala, lesser malayan chevrotain, gaur, lowland anoa, warthog, impala, thompsons gazelle, grevys zebra, visayan warty pig, bearded pig, vicuna, duiker species, eld's deer, barasingha, gerenuk. All of the above species are found in reasonable numbers in either european or american zoos. There are probably hundreds more but i like hoofstock, and i feel the open range zoos would do the herd species justice and the smaller animals for the city zoos. Is there nothing that can be done to influence the government policy.
Whilst of course, I would like to see our very strict import rules relaxed somewhat for professional zoos and species management in this region, it's worth considering how often we hear that "zoos are responsible and professional organisations", "zoos have very strict quarantine processes in place", "zoos would not allow transmission of diseases to wild populations", and all the other seemingly justifiable reasons we hear for zoos being allowed to import all kinds of species from all kinds of countries. Do you think the horse racing industry is also as "responsible" as the zoo industry when it comes to quarantine of imported animals? No doubt, they don't share our concerns for native populations or our agricultural industry, but you would think that at the very least, they care hugely about the amount of money that is involved in their industry, and the profits that can be made by running that industry effectively. So how did they manage to allow the infection of hundreds of incredibly valuable horses across a very large chunk on the country with equine flu recently? While the case is still under investigation, it looks very much like sloppy quarantine procedures were to blame. And presumably, this sloppy attitude was by people within the horse industry - the very industry that stands to gain so much by tight quarantine procedures, and clearly, stands to loose so much as the result of sloppy procedures. Now if I was responsible for the undertaking the import risk assessments for exotic species, I wonder if this latest slip up would encourage me to relax the import rules or not? Of course, I'm very much stating a case that goes against my own wishes, but as for "australians do not have the right like us europeans and americans to go to a zoo and see a wide variety of animals" - I think Australians have a right to protect their own native wildlife and their already incredible shaky agricultural industry (thanks to the drought), far more than they have a right to see a wide variety of animals. And I'm coming from a long zoo background, so I'm not advocating further tightening of the quarantine rules, just throwing out food for thought. Let's see what discussion this generates.....
well they don't call him zoopro for nuthin! all very true. and you have to remember, its not IMPOSSIBLE to bring in animals. we import non-artiodactyl species all the time (well not ALL the time, but when we desperately need them ). in all honesty, i don't care that much if we don't have MASSIVE collections, and i certainly don't care iff all the australian zoos have identical collections. i'll still visit interstate zoos, not to see different species, but to see what the have done with the same species. half the reason i love zoos is because i'm very interested in exhibit design. i also like the challenge of building good zoos with what we've got.
Did I see on some thread (that I now can't find) that Adelaide is phasing out it's hippos? NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
adelaides pair is very old i belive, about 30 to early 40's (ben?) and adelaide are phasing them out- down the road- they will be moved to retirement at monarto in the short term. there really is only werribee, mareeba, and dubbo still having hippos, and without movements soon, the aging poulation will go the way of the pygmyies. but sea world is soon to join the program.
i dunno if "phasing out" is the right word. its not really intentional. adelaides hippo's are both around 40 years old and are considered past reproductive age. they have, depending on the individual maybe another 10 years in them if they are lucky. i think the plan was to move them to monarto, but given their age, i wonder how smart an investment that would be if they are considering constructing anything decent. currently only dubbo and werribee are in a position to be breeding hippos and both zoos are prioritising themselves and its likely both will be keeping the firstborn calves from their pairings. it all rests on who gets those mareeba animals!!! and at the moment the rumour is seaworld!
zoopro a beautifully put case, i wrote this reply, because i feel zoogoers worldwide when they go into a zoo expect to see a variety of animals and the way Australian zoos are going at the moment, to me anyway is there is a great deal of similarity, collection wise amongst the main players. The large open range zoos in oz are at a particular handicap with all that space and nothing to put in the vast enclosures, there are few places in the world that come close to an african savannah experience as these places with their similar climate, topography and expansive areas, i realise at the end of the day my list is probably pie in the sky. But if only!
