Heartbreaking news, thoughts are with Sabu and Bimbo as well as the elephant department and the rest of the Australia Zoo crew. RIP Siam
The zoo now has only one elephant after they have put down bimbo. Australia Zoo - About Us - Zoo News - Farewell Bimbo - Australia Zoo says goodbye to well-loved elephant
RIP Bimbo. What are people's thoughts on what elephants Australia Zoo will house in the future? They have such an amazing facility, I would hate to see it go to waste!
I guess its not impossible that the excess males born at Taronga and Melbourne could be used to form a group up there, if they aren't displayed instead at the open range zoos. Alternatively AZ could look at importing a new group from Asia.
I think the way AZ's enclosure is set up and run, they could only really display full contact animals (generally not males), although a new female group from Asia could work well, then any males can be kept off limits, or semen could be imported.
It would be good to have a third breeding, unrelated group in the region. Australia zoo could certainly do so. What ever they decide I wish them all the best
So that's 2 zoos in Australasia who each have one lone female elephant. Attention Australia Zoo and Auckland Zoo - one could join the other for some company.
While its a nice idea, I really can't see it happening. Neither Zoo would want to lose their elephant, and it would only be a temporary solution for Burma anyway - the Australian female probably won't have much longer to live.
I agree with that. Auckland is still focused on importing more elephants to join Burma so they aren't going to be sending her anywhere. Can you imagine how upsetting it would be for her as well, if the two were brought together and then the Australian one died -- she would have been alone for ages, finally gets a companion, and then it dies. I imagine that would be immensely distressing for her.
In an interview with America's "Reptiles" magazine back in 1999, and even before Australia Zoo had any exotic mammals at all, Steve Irwin spoke of his desire to have a group of the Sumatran subspecies of the Asiatic elephant. Seeing as Terri was able to source Sumatran tigers when the rest of the world apparently could not, maybe Sumatran elephants is not as impossible as it sounds?
