Chester Zoo Chester's history in Rare Animals

With Gaur, there are a lot of American zoos to house them, but the biggest herd, at San Diego WAP, has only one male. This will limit the Gene pool, as if all 18 females became pregnant with his children, his children would dominate the captive population.

I have no idea on the Lemur exhibit at present, but Bongorob may have, as he was the one that told us in the first place.

 

Someone from the zoo says this project has been put on hold. But as you probably know Hornbill, something at Chester may not be happening one week, and then could be a priority the following week. I suppose most zoos are the same.

I'm going in about three weeks, and again the week after for the adopter's day, I'll see if I can get some new information.

 

I'm going on the adopter's day too. I don't know which day though. Probably the Sunday.

 

new gaur would need to be imported from asia and then be a pure sub-species and i think there would be vetenary restrictions bringing hoofstock in from asia.

 

im goinf to try and be there for the adopters day but im not sure yet. i adopted the red ruffed lemurs.

 

I'm a tapir fan, but I love the red brds of paradise, I want to adopt them too.

It was absolute hell for the staff at Chester who control the imports to bring in 8 taricitc hornbills from Panay in the Philippines, think about how awful it would be to bring in huge animals like Gaur to the country. You'd have to find a zoo that really wanted them, and at the moment I don't think that there are any.

 

there isnt really anywhere to put gaur at the moment come to think of it is there.

 

Maybe a nice enclosure at Port lympne or howletts, but that's all I can think of except for replacing whipsnade's pair.

 

edinburgh could put them in one of the large paddocks at the top of the hill

 

Howletts used to have Gaur at one time, but they fizzled out... The last female may have gone to Whipsnade- she had rickety legs and is not the female of the current pair.

 

Imports from other continents are always a challenge. It is imperative for zoos to establish a consortium of zoos willing to work with the species and to get the approval of the relevant EAZA TAG grouping. Zoos must more and more make descisions on imports with the EEP cooperation in mind.

F.i. the breeding programme for Cervus alfredi would not have happened had Poznan Zoo not offered quarantine facilities for these critically endangered deer. Since these early days the population has been allowed to grow and grow. Now is probably the time to import another genetically unrelated batch to cement the breeding programme in Europe.

I can think of a similar set up with the tarictic hornbills happening. It is important that zoos try and breed with this "difficult" species.

 

One of Chester's pair are already courting. It would be brilliant if the zoo could start a new Captive population for this species.