taronga and western plains received institutional recognition for their reproducive work with Black Rhino and display of Coroboree Frogs when ARAZPA handed out its awards this week. small snippet appeared in daily telegraph about this, or check out the fantastic new web-site
weribbe cleaned up too for its hippo exhibit and education program-steve irwin got an award and so did perth for its fantastic web-site. because im lazy and cant be bothered searching ISIS can anyone tell me where the de-brazza guenons from taronga went? the primate display at taronga is really dwindling and needs new species added to it. as Amazonia has become a write off for seeing monkeys, for arguments sake visitors to taronga can only see gorilla, orang, chimp, spider monkey, langurs and gibbons. thats not a very good selection really...
the debrazza's are a great addition to the gorilla exhibit. they and similar species have also been successfully mixed with mandrills at other zoos and colobus mix well too.
check out Taronga and Western Plains Zoos. the zoo has uploaded a video of the malayan tapir in the lower exhibit swimming, plus tang mo's strops still available on-line. also, because again im lazy, can anyone tell me how many of the 10 black rhino calves at WPZ are surviving?
yep yep, theyre ruddy shell ducks. the precinct also has manadrin ducks, whistling ducks and is supposedly getting green pygmy geese. the fish are koi. theyre also in the upper tapir pool and wetlands aviary. in the fishing cat exhibit there are 3 species of minnow-like fish...very 'pretty' display that is.
I have some small video clips of the tapir moving around, from my last trip to taronga, that I would love to share with you but don't know if mpegs can be posted.
Are they Giant Danios? i wish more zoos would include fish in a species exhibit, instead of koi they could have had some large clown loaches, a large school of tiger barbs, foot long black sharks (i have one at work!) maybe some giant gouramis and large spiny eels! African underwater veiwing could have frontosa and other large cichlids but what to put them with, maybe in a african aviary, i dunno. a south american aviary would be awesome, Angels, other cichlids, silver dollars, plenty of different tetras, i would persomnnaly have cardinals, columbians and emperors. And a new-quinea area with Peacock Gudgeons and various Rainbow fish! i thihnk fish should be included more into the Zoo landscape, if ponds could have heating anything could go in, i have a friend with Boesemani Rainbows and Neon Tertas in a converted 1/2 wine barell pond
cloud mountain white eyes are in the fishing cat exhibit, i cant remember the other one. the white eyes ar apparently extinct in their native china. the exhibit is quite attractive. visitors can sit on a wooden deck area and look through the glass into the fish-filled stream, and then up onto the bank where the fishing cats stalk. its very effective, and as ben said, more of this stuff should be included in the future...
do you ever see the cats? I spent 20/30 minutes there ( enjoying it) at several different times, both days that I was there - no sign of mammal life.
its a very small area, when i was last there, me and dad went straight to wild asia, luckly cause crowds moved in the fishing cat area is very small
I think the other two types of fish in the fishing cat exhibit are rosy barbs and cherry barbs. Ben you are spot on about having fish in exhibits. I would like to see some big oscars in with the river cooters in Tarongas reptile house. they have some archer fish in with the mertens water monitors. Big gouramis in with the malayan tapir would look good too. At Singapore zoo they have a small pond near the entrance with south american cichlids and some huge pleco's in it.
size of fishing cat exhibit im sure the fishing cat exhibit could be bigger, if there was more room to build a bigger one, but its already hard enough to spot the fishing cat in its 'small' exhibit anyway. i dont think its that small really, and if you know where to look you can always find the fishing cat. it likes to hang out on top of the rock bank wall to the right of the visitors, and theres normally always one inside that cave thingy. last thursday the keeper put a piece of chicken on the rock just in front of the glass, and the fishing cat just slunk on down there and grabbed it. what a beautiful animal...
the other fishing cats over near the backyard to bush can always be seen. If there isn't to much glare on the glass.
heated pools... nearly all the fish you have mentioned are tropical fish, whilst you suggested heating the water its one thing to heat a small outdoor pond - another to heat an entire pool! i think that in cooler climates like melbournes, adelaides, sydney and perth its a little unfair that we don't heat the water just a few extra degrees in winter for our hippos and tapirs for example. however, it would take a rediculous amount of energy to heat a large outdoor pool to close to the 20 degrees needed to keep many of the fish that have been suggested. but i agree there are certainly other cold-water alternatives to koi that could be explored..
I know that they are tropical fish Patrick. The water in the bigger ponds would be hard to keep warm in winter but the indoor reptile enclosures should be about right as it is. I don't think it would be to hard to heat the outdoor ponds. Most barkyard swimming pools are heated these days. Why not put fish in that match the region.
most backyard swimming pools arn't heated to 25 degrees - the optimum temperature for tropical fish. solar power for example would be usless to get an outdoor pool to something even close to that kind of temperature. as for the reptile house - sure, my comments were more directed at the suggestion that they could be kept in the larger pools.
