Rukiya is his grandmother. Though she's likely to be post reproductive by the time he's tall enough to breed. He's also related to Kabili (the youngest female) through his grandfather, Zabulu (Kabili's father)
From the Auckland Zoo Map, it appears Ring Tailed Lemur are now in the former netted Sumatran Tiger enclosure: Zoo Map | Auckland Zoo
They moved there in September 2019, after being off display for a while. There’s 0.5 Ring-tailed lemur (Bekily, Toliara, Esira, Evatra and Manakara). They will be exported to Australia soon.
Female giraffes can (and have) bred well into their 20’s. While researching Auckland Zoo’s imports from Honolulu Zoo, I came across a female who gave birth at 29. They are able to put the females on contraception however (like they have done with Zahara at Wellington); so I’m predicting they will do so with Rukiya. There’s a high chance Kabili is a freemartin (sterile), so that may not be an issue. I’ve written about this in more detail here (Post #112): giraffes in New Zealand The giraffe I’m most excited to see breeding again is Kiraka. In giraffes, twins run strongly through some matrilineal lines. Kiraka previously gave birth to twins; and her own mother gave birth to two sets of twins!
I don’t know sorry, the above info was just posted on Facebook in September 2019. It just said they were leaving for Australia in early 2020. Ring-tailed lemur will be returning to Auckland Zoo in a few years time, their priority obviously being the South East Asian precinct. This will give them time to assess the success of walk through lemur exhibits, which seem to be on the rise within the region. I believe there’s also discussion (with discussion being the operative word) about phasing out Black and white ruffed lemur in favour of Red ruffed lemur; so a decision either way would likely have been made by the time they’re ready to bring back Ring-tailed lemur.
I have also heard this about phasing out the Black and white lemur and replace them with Reds this is pretty dumb what is there to gain?, IF someone wants Reds why not bring them in as well as keeping the B/W Lemurs, Its getting back to this "whim" effect of someone within the ZAA again
I’d imagine it’s due to the Black-and-white ruffed lemur being one of two species in the genus Varecia, along with the Red ruffed lemur. If they co-habited, inbreeding would occur. The shift seems to be to these walk through lemur exhibits, so they can have RT and BAWR; or RT and RR; but not all RT, BAWR and RR.
Once South East Asia is completed, the plan is to remodel the Zoos entry precinct (which is planned to include a walk-through Lemur exhibit). I guess Ring Tailed Lemurs are almost a certainty to be included, but it’s up to Auckland whether they want to import another Lemur species to go alongside them (BAWR or RR).
If they want a lemur walk-through, why go into RRL and not into one of the Eulemur species, which would work fine mixed with RTL and BWRL??? Lack of thinking...
Sad news from Facebook regarding Auckland Zoo’s Brolga: “We need to update you on an unfortunate turn of events. At the end of last week our brolga mum was found dead, and despite supportive care by our staff, the chick was unable to pull through. As you can imagine this is a difficult time for our bird team who are grappling with this sudden news. We are waiting on test results to be able to confirm the cause of death and will update you all as soon as results are received.”
Hamilton have a male and a female; Brooklands has a male; Auckland now only has a male. So three males and one female in the country, total. And in case you're wondering, no the Hamilton birds have never bred.
There was only one breeding pair - the pair at Auckland, of which the female has just died. All others in NZ zoos were bred from that pair (so they are all brothers and sisters).
Oh so the Hamilton pair are siblings. The Auckland pair must have been very old as they were clearly breeding well before 2014 to have produced the other bird at Auckland and the Brooklands male. I'm not sure but I think birds can be brought from Australia (just not imported from outside the region)?
